by Arlo Hemphill, Communications Specialist 

Suva, Fiji.  The islands of the Pacific are separated by thousands of miles of deep, blue ocean. From space, they amount to little more than random specks of sand and rock adrift in a vast watery world.  Yet ancient mariners were able to navigate these then unchartered waters and populate the lonesome specks, becoming the Pacific Islander peoples of today.  Unfortunately, their tradition of open ocean navigation has been all but lost in modern times.  That is until recently.

In an effort to revive the cultural heritage of the Pacific Islands, while raising awareness on environmental issues and recapturing traditional voyaging skills, seven double-hulled vaka canoes have been built and are undergoing a re-enactment of one of the world’s greatest human migrations.  The voyage is organized under the Pacific Voyaging Canoes Project, funded largely by the Germany-based Okeanos Foundation.  The crews hail from the Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu, and have already completed one long voyage amongst these island groups.

Their next step is to voyage to Hawai’i via French Polynesia in 2011, a monumental 4,000 km (2,500 mile) journey. This milestone journey also aims to provide a cultural centerpiece for the Pacific Ocean 2020 Challenge, a pan-Pacific effort to bring Pacific Ocean nations together to jointly address their major threats: overfishing and exploitation, pollution, habitat destruction and climate change.

The delegates of the recent Pacific Ocean 2020 Visioning Meeting, held in Suva, Fiji this past month, had the unique privilege of setting sail aboard the Fijian vaka – Uto Ni Yalo -for an afternoon sail.  The participants, including three staff members from the Center for Ocean Solutions, joined the vaka crew in raising these time-tested sails upon Pacific waters. 

The Center for Ocean Solutions plays an advisory role to the Pacific 2020 Challenge, providing the scientific underpinnings on which policy will be built.  The Center produced the Pacific Ocean Synthesis and a companion Scientific Consensus Statement in 2009 in collaboration with the IUCN, and looks forward to utilizing their partnership of oceanographic researchers to continue to guide best practices in this monumental effort.

From the ancient past and into the future, the Pacific Ocean 2020 Challenge hopes to unite all people dependent upon the Pacific on a new voyage of collaboration.