For Nicole Yamase, protecting the ocean isn\u2019t just her job \u2014 it\u2019s her birthright.<\/p>\n
Yamase, who is Indigenous to the Pacific island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, or FSM, is a member of the Dipwinwai clan. Her clan\u2019s eni, their family guardian, is the nohno en sansed: the stingray, also translated as the mother of the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very honored to inherit Dipwinwai from my mom, my grandmother, and my great-great-grandmothers before them,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of my identity and responsibility comes from my cultural heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a high schooler in Chuuk State, she watched abandoned boats leach oil into the ocean and saw the coral reef whiten. \u201cI thought, how do I help?\u201d<\/p>\n
For Yamase, the answer was studying to become the first citizen from the FSM to receive a PhD in marine biology. She also became the first Pacific Islander to visit the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point of the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the home of my ancestors,\u201d Yamase said. \u201cIf I want to save the world, I have to save the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, she works in Honolulu at OneReef<\/a>, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Pacific island communities in protecting their reefs. Yamase seeks to support Indigenous Pacific peoples with technology and education to complement their traditional knowledge, such as by training local officials in Yap State on the latest reef imaging techniques. She also pushes her fellow researchers to avoid extractive practices and the pitfalls of \u201cparachute science<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not always easy \u2014 in Hawai\u02bbi, Micronesian people like Yamase face persistent racism and entrenched educational disparities, another problem Yamase is dedicated to changing. \u201cWe\u2019re amazing in that we come from this culture that can lead the world in these global issues,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can and should be a leader in the oceans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Nicole Yamase, protecting the ocean isn\u2019t just her job \u2014 it\u2019s her birthright. Yamase, who is Indigenous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-161689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}