An Avian Metropolis

Once-in-a-Lifetime Trip to Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Provides Lessons for Nicholas School Students About the Good and Bad Impacts of Human Activities

by Tim Lucas

TEN DAYS spent exploring the natural wonders of one of the world’s most remote marine wildernesses may sound like a trip to paradise.

But for a class of Nicholas School students who traveled this January to Midway Atoll in the rarely visited Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument of northwestern Hawaii, the experience also provided an indelible lesson about the far-reaching impacts— both good and bad—that human activities can have.

Even in places where relatively few humans recently have stepped foot.

“Going to Midway makes you rethink the concept of wilderness. No place is truly an island. It’s all connected and affected by what we, in other places, do,” says class participant Joanna Bounds.

Bounds was one of nine Master of Environmental Management students who got the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study environmental management on Midway and witness firsthand the atoll’s astounding wildlife.

The course was the first educational trip ever permitted within the monument. It focused on the challenges associated with managing and conserving biodiversity in remote wildernesses, using the protected habitats around Midway Atoll as a case study.

To help others share their amazing experiences on the atoll, the group took turns posting daily blogs and shooting photos and videos for the Nicholas School Web site.

Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument is the largest marine conservation area in the world. Established in 2006 by presidential proclamation, it stretches nearly 1,200 nautical miles northwest from the main Hawaiian Islands to its terminus at Kure Atoll, an uninhabited islet about 48 miles east of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. The monument encompasses an area larger than all other U.S. national parks combined.

The reefs, islands and waters within the monument provide critical habitat for a staggering array of marine life, including 14 million seabirds and more than 90 percent of Hawaii’s monk seal and nesting green turtle populations.

Access to the monument’s diverse, environmentally fragile ecosystems is tightly restricted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages the monument in cooperation with the State of Hawaii and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Only a few hundred people are granted access each year. Most are researchers or conservationists.

“Unlike most national parks, the philosophy at Papahanaumokuakea is not to bring the public to the monument, but to bring the monument to the public,” says Andy Read, Rachel Carson Associate Professor of Marine Conservation Biology at the Nicholas School. “Being the first university group granted access to the monument for educational purposes was a great honor. We now feel a responsibility to share what we saw and help others realize what an amazing place this is.”

Read, who is based at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, N.C., co-taught the course with Nicholas School alumnus Dave Johnston, an adjunct assistant professor at the school who is team leader for cetacean research at NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center in Hawaii. The itinerary for the course was developed in cooperation with managers and biologists at the Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA and the State of Hawaii.

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