# 2023 海洋國際青年志工培訓研習營
---
2023.03.25

## Building Bridges to the World: Learning and Serving as a U.S. Diplomat

Speaker: Julius N. Tsai, Branch Public Affairs Officer at AIT Kaohsiung
(has a passion in learning languages)

- How the US Engages the World
- 3Ds: Diplomacy, Defense, Development
- over 300+ Embassies and Consulates in the world
- Foreign Service Officers
- https://careers.state.gov/career-paths/worldwide-foreign-service/officer/fso-career-tracks/
- he is a public diplomacy officer
- the power of everyday actions - the things we do, choices we make, all make a difference
- the power of transparency - how tweets made by the us embassy clear Beijing's air https://www.wired.com/2015/03/opinion-us-embassy-beijing-tweeted-clear-air/
- the power of human connection - Maryl Streep and Yoyo Ma
> a quote made by AIT director Sandra Oudkirk that I forgot, uh oh.

## Opportunities and Challenges for Youth Participation in International Ocean Affairs

Speaker: Dr. Li-Ying (Laura) Lin, Deputy Director of International Development Department, Ocean Affairs Council

- Ocean Affairs Council
- Coast Guard Administration
- Ocean Conservation Administration
- National Academy of Marine Research
- International Ocean Affairs
- attend all kinds of international meetings, such as: OUR OCEAN conference, TICOG, Ocean and Fisheries Working Group (OFWG) USA & APEC workshops...
- publish 國際海洋資訊 International Ocean Information every 2 months
- What other countries' youth are doing
- introduced a lot of excellent youths selected from Taiwan, attending international conferences
- Heirs to Our Ocean (H2OO) youth summit
- Melati and Isabel Wijsen, aiming to reduce plastic waste in Bali and formed the Bye Bye Plastic Bags crew.
- What can Taiwan youths do?
- reduce the use of single-use plastic products
- encourage young generation to join us
> Not that satisfied with her speech, didn't really talked about stuff that was helpful?

## Youth in Action: Tackling the Plastic Pollution Crisis in Our Oceans

Speaker: Ms. Ning Yen 顏寧, 澄洋環境顧問執行長
https://www.indigowaters.org/

- 公司以各種垃圾調查維生
- Bye bye plastic bags
- political lobbying - plastic-free Bali
- organized beach cleanups with NGOs
- created "Mountain Mamas" (2017) - women -> children + village -> economy
- Unplastify Youth!!!
- 湛團隊 Azure Alliance https://azurealliance.org/
- 設計湛鬥機，為一台全電式海漂垃圾清潔船
>“To all the kids of this beautiful but challenging world, go for it, make that difference.” - Isabel Wisjen

> "Kids may only be 25 percent of the world's population, but we are 100 percent of the future."" - Melati and Isabel Wisjen

## Building a house 2.0 – a sustainable home for marine creatures

Speaker: Ms. Ying-Ling Chen 陳映伶, 台灣山海天使環境保育協會 秘書長
https://www.eco-angel.org/
- 珊瑚礁生態系為海中的熱帶雨林
- Coral bleaching - 垃圾覆蓋、泥沙堆積、藥品油污污染、暖化、人為破壞
- 種珊瑚 - 初期利用九孔池種植，後來受地方政府委託在各個地方復育珊瑚
ex: 和美漁港、花蓮和平港
- 怎麼種珊瑚 - 堅硬底質、光線充足、水質乾淨清澈、溫度22-28度之間（熱帶或是亞熱帶海域）、鹽度32-24ppt
- 中央廣播電台 - 人與海的距離
> 觸發->行動->影響

## Effective Activism In Challenging Times

Speaker: Mr. Armon Alex, US OOC Representative
Ocean-climate scientist, Co-Executive Director, GOMYCS
https://linktr.ee/ArmonAlex

- Background
- increase in CO2 atmospheric concentration
- Corpus Christi Bay - the speaker's hometown
- Gulf reach https://gulfreach.org/
- Stories of success
- decrease in the cost of renewable enregy
- climate action plans being implemented by many states
- Effective Activism
- Plan ahead - knoew where you're going and what you're doing and where you're heading towards
- Build community in equity - show respect, welcoming and interesting to others? networking!
- Mind your time and energy - take care of your mental health, don't burnout, being **mindful**
- Be prepared - time management, you hold a puzzle piece in the organization no matter which role you play!
- Gather resouces - money, resources, time...
- Learn your strengths - on a individual level, think and ask others, be confident, firm and polite
- Develop your communication skills - when explaining an idea, use a story frame and convince people why join your team/movements? good commmunication is also **actively listening**

> Leaving things better than when I found it.

> “Hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it, and to fight for it. Hope is the belief that destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by the men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.” - Barack Obama

## The first step - Youth led marine conservation

Speaker: Mr. Orlando Anaya, Mexico OOC Representative

- beach cleanup experience
- a failure at first, people don't know **why** they are doing it
- educated them about the reason behind beach cleanups
- changed people's behavior and they enjoyed the event
- Giving talks in elementary school - inspiring the next generation
- got into Oxford University, collaborated with UN, went to Our Ocean conference
- **implement creativity, passion, and perseverance**

> "Do not wait until someone takes the next step, they might not do it." - Orlando Anaya

> *the best presentation I've heard today, intriguing story sharing!

## The Power of Youth in Ocean Conservation
Speaker: Ms. Huva Maisy Lus, Papua New Guinea OOC Representative

- The Coastline Care Project
- empowering youth through mangrove restoration and awareness of ocean conservation issues
- have a team to support you that helps with your ideas and project progress
- speaking to the land owners at first was challenging, overcame challenges
- sacrifice time and resources
- UN ocean conference, OUR OCEAN conference...
- Commitment and dedication of youths
- Fair-weather commitment
- Situational commitment
- Marital commitment
- lifelong
- truly believe in the importance of protecting the ocean
- willing to make significant sacrifices
> Think about this: Are you really interested in ocean protection or simply just following the crowd?

## To be a youth volunteer who can think beyond
Speaker: Mr. Huai-Pu Chen, Taiwan OOC Representative

- the "mind" and "spirit" I learned
- monitor the water quality in the bay of 深澳火力發電廠
- fish tracking (a TISF & ISEF project)
- Interesting reflections
- Age doesn't really matter
- Only care what you have done!
- Be clear to say in a short time
- They would like to hear different perspectives of young people
- Seize every opportunity
- New ideas
- Open Loop University - Stanford University
- you're not majoring in a particular subject, but instead, you noticed a social problem and you want to solve it.
- http://www.stanford2025.com/open-loop-university
- Axis Flip
- Purpose Learning

> "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs

> As a youth of the next generation, our capital is time, vitality. I need to start thinking about what actions only **I** can do? If I don't do it, no one else will.

> Let's go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.

> The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

> You must believe in your own ideas, and believe that what you do will definitely contribute to the ocean.

---

2023.03.26

## A Paradigm Shift in Marine Plastic Pollution
Speaker: Dr. Wonjoon Shim, Principal Research Scientist at Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST)
*just came back from international sea turtle symposium in Columbia*
https://www.ists41cartagena.org/

- Plastic invented in 1950s, 58% of produced platic were discarded
- 150 mil years for lignin to degrade
- 1 trillion nano-/microparticles/buoy*yr, and there are 55 mil buoys on Korean waters!!!
- Microplastics are detected **everywhere**
- marine environments
- freshwater environments
- atmospheric environments
- water and food
- Size varies, similar to virus -> hippo
- Increasing - numbers, bioavailability, target organisms, human exposure, toxicity, detection difficulty, cleanup difficulty -> **irreversible polution**
- **Transboundary pollution** - pollution that originates in one country but can cause damage in another country's environment, by crossing borders through pathways like water or air.
- Top 4 chemicals detected in the environment
- antioxidants
- plasticizers
- UV stabilizers
- flame retardants
- Future prediction of microplastic pollution - 2016 to 2066, 4 times higher
- Human exposure to microplastics - stool, blood, lung tissue
- Microplastic consumption
- We currently eat **a credit card (5g) per week**
- For future generations, they might eat **50 credit cards per week**

| Earth's life | Industrial Revolution |When Korea I.R.|
| -------- | -------- | ---------|
| 1 year | 1.03-1.78 sec | 0.34 sec |

- what happens over carrying capacity?
- Microplastics are ubiquitous in world ocean, and Asian marginal seas are 'hot spots'
- Precautionary approach is highly required to reduce environmental pollution
- Pollution will only get more serious in the future, so take actions!!!

> You eat what you throw away! - Won Joon Shim

## Collective Efforts to Protect Our Ocean from Marine Plastic Pollution
Speaker: Dr. Sunwook (Sunny) Hong, research scientist and President of Our Sea of East Asia Network (OSEAN)

- OSEAN http://www.osean.net/en/main/
- a network hub protecting the marine environment by implementing science and public participation
- research on marine debris and has NGO activities
- based on **citizen science**
- resaerch mostly in debris distribution and policy
- From cradle to grave with plastic
- Turn off the faucet first!! - plastic production
- UN's Global Partnership on Marine Litter
- Control of resin pellet production first
- Asia Pacific Civil Forum on Marine Litter (open to everyone!)
- Citizen Science projects - crowd water https://crowdwater.ch/en/start/
- OSEAN initiatives
- 1/10 Campaign
- "Ocean Knights" Digital transformation - drone, smartphone, object recognition by machine learning, data platform, let the government understand how polluted the place is.
> Plastic is a harm brought by human civilization.

> Everyone is a cause, and everyone is a victim.

> Let's work together right now before it's too late.