Another tasty Slice of PI season is polished off
June 7, 2024
For a third season, the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center (PI-CASC) sponsored its highly successful hybrid lunchtime seminar series, called “A Slice of PI-CASC,” delivering interesting and informative presentations to the community throughout the academic year (September to May).
The series is designed as a venue for sharing state-of-the-art climate adaptation research and science-to-management applications for Hawaiʻi, the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands, and beyond. With a mix of researcher and manager presenters, Slice of PI (as we affectionately refer to it) has explored a wide variety of projects supported by PI-CASC funding, but also offered glimpses into other regionally important efforts.
“From soup to nuts”
Spanning locations from Hawaiʻi to American Samoa, the seminars this season touched on a plethora of topics from ridge to reef.
Dr. Judith Drexler and Helen Raine began the season sharing a project that is working with local communities to meld Traditional Ecological Knowledge with Western science to address the challenge of restoring the ecologically and culturally important, yet highly degraded, coastal wetlands of Molokaʻi.
“There really are a lot of impacts to these wetlands, and restoration would really improve the habitat” for the birds, explained Drexler. Raine added that restoration would be good for the people, too. “Our community partners spent a lot of time talking to community members, and what they heard was that they want to revitalize traditional loʻi pūnāwai–that’s spring-fed taro pond fields and loko iʻa (fishponds) for sustainable, self-sufficient food sources.”
Working with the community is an important theme connecting many of the projects presented this season. Dr. Rosie Alegado described her efforts investigating the needs of loko iʻa practitioners in the face of climate change, with the recognition that the history of fishponds shows they are “symbols of resilience.” In helping to re-energize sustainable sea transport for the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), Shania Tamagyongfal and Jerolynn Myazoe centered their efforts on community-based research, interviewing experienced navigation practitioners to elicit their understanding of how traditional practices may be applied today. Melissa Iwamoto and Dr. Jordan Watson described the Pacific Island Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) Backyard Buoy Program which promotes Pacific communities taking ownership of monitoring the ocean conditions in their own backyards.
“Our mission is to support the collection, the stewardship, and the use of wave data that complements existing knowledge systems and enhances safety at sea in a changing climate,” Iwamoto summarized.
Slice of PI also highlighted some more technical endeavors, including an engaging presentation by Dr. Ryan Longman, beginning with the etymology of “soup to nuts.” He described a remarkable resource that he guided the development of, the Hawaiʻi Climate Data Portal, which, among other things, “is an awesome mapping tool.” In addition, we had a detailed look with Dr. Dean Gesch at developing high-resolution topographic maps of RMI atolls to provide critical data for evaluating their future inundation risk and informing adaptation planning.
With other presentations this season on improving forest restoration through species selection on Hawaiʻi Island, genetic mapping of giant clam populations in American Samoa, and applying climate data to improve decision-making from forests to corals, Slice of PI covered the whole ahupuaʻa.
Another good reason to attend: food
Billed as a lunchtime seminar, Slice of PI supplies a free lunch for those who attend in person at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa campus. More temptingly, a fresh, homemade pie is always provided, in keeping with the theme of the series. Communications specialist Rachel Lentz began baking pies for fun in the first season (2021-2022), despite it being online during the pandemic, and found she couldn’t stop without disappointing the fans.
This season she decided to decorate each pie in the theme of the presentation for the month, generating a bit of anticipation to see what elaborate decoration she would do next. Some of the crowd favorites included a rock-candy fishpond wall (kuapā), complete with sluice gates (mākāhā) of pretzel sticks; a restoration broccoli forest; and Monopoly housing inundated by blue jello.
Keep us in mind!
While we would most appreciate you attending the seminars in person, or online on the day, we do recognize that sometimes lives are full. So we make recordings of the seminars available on our PI-CASC YouTube channel, usually within a day or two of the presentation. Check them out if you have missed any of these high-quality presentations, from this season or our past ones.
Mark your calendar at noon, each first Tuesday of the month, starting in September, to come join us for a fresh Slice of PI!
