Case on Five Day Tript to NW Hawaiian Islands
NEWS RELEASE August 15, 2005
Case on five-day trip to Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
He reviews current Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before returning with educational/research expedition aboard NOAA vessel
Honolulu, Hawai'i - Congressman Ed Case (Hawai'i, 2nd District) leaves Honolulu tomorrow on a five-day trip to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, that portion of his Second Congressional District stretching 1,200 miles from Kaua'i/Ni'ihau northwest to Kure Atoll.
Case will fly to Tern Island in French Frigate Shoals to review the existing Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There he will join an educational expedition currently underway in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands that includes teachers from O'ahu, Kaua'i, Maui and Hawai'i Island aboard the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's research vessel Hi'ialakai.
That expedition, the first Educator-At-Sea expedition organized by NOAA's Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, began last Friday (August 12) and will return to Honolulu Harbor on Sunday, August 21 (ETA early afternoon) after traveling to and from Tern Island, Nihoa and Mokumanamana.
Case is taking the trip three months after introducing legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would create the largest marine protected area in the world in the waters of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
"This expedition will provide me with a firsthand look at the most remote part of my district which deserves the highest possible level of federal and international protection," said Case. "Protecting this area would create an 'Ocean Yellowstone' and preserve a place that is home to 70 percent of our nation's coral reefs and 7,000 species, about half of which are endemic to the area and found nowhere else on earth."
The teachers on the expedition were specially selected to participate based on their previous expertise in development of curricula and lessons and in training other educators in the use of these materials. In addition, scientists and cultural resource specialists are aboard the Hi'ialakai to provide lectures in the evenings.
Case said he's looking forward not only to learning of the work of FWS and NOAA in the NWHI but to participating with all in an up-close discussion about how truly to preserve our world's oceans. The public is invited to follow the voyage online by visiting www.hawaiianatolls.org.
http://wwwc.house.gov/case/press_releases/2005/2005-53.html