05 Nicole Yamase: The ocean is a mirror

[00:00:00] I'm Catherine Polcz and this is Plant Kingdom.

[00:00:16] I'm recording in beautiful Sydney on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation

[00:00:20] and pay respect to their elders past, present and future.

[00:00:25] Plant Kingdom is a conversation series about plants, nature and environment.

[00:00:30] Featuring scientists, artists, researchers, writers and healers.

[00:00:34] We release two conversations each month and hear from people who have an intimacy with

[00:00:38] plants and nature.

[00:00:40] We discuss their work, stories and reflections from the field.

[00:00:45] Today's conversation is with Dr. Nicole Yamase.

[00:00:48] I had the pleasure of meeting Nicole earlier this year when she was in Sydney and really

[00:00:53] loved having the chance to talk seaweed and learn about her many, many travels.

[00:00:57] In our conversation she shares her knowledge and perspective as a Micronesian woman and

[00:01:02] scientist, her love for seaweed, her journey to the bottom of the ocean in a submersible

[00:01:07] and how all of her experiences weave together in her life's work and commitment to advocating

[00:01:13] for our oceans.

[00:01:15] I'll now introduce Nicole.

[00:01:18] Dr. Nicole Yamase is from the islands of Pompeii and Chuck in the Federated States of Micronesia.

[00:01:24] You will also hear us refer to the Federated States of Micronesia by its acronym FSM.

[00:01:31] She obtained her PhD in marine biology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa where she

[00:01:37] researched the eco-physiology of native Hawaiian macroalgae.

[00:01:43] A passionate ocean conservationist today, she also works as the director of Impact at One

[00:01:48] Reef which supports community-led stewardship of coral reefs.

[00:01:54] Here's our conversation.

[00:02:06] And thank you so much for talking with me today and I'm really excited to talk about

[00:02:10] seaweed, fully knowing that I am very ignorant of all things seaweed.

[00:02:16] I haven't spent a lot of time ever researching seaweed.

[00:02:20] I've been trying to learn the Australian macroalgae as I see them on beaches but it's

[00:02:25] definitely not something I know much about.

[00:02:27] Nicole, I did just want to start with a pretty basic question about what are we

[00:02:34] even talking about when we talk about seaweed or algae or macroalgae?

[00:02:39] Is it a few different kinds of organisms or what's the difference even between micro and macro?

[00:02:46] Yeah, so seaweed is a general term that describes a very diverse group of marine plant.

[00:02:54] They can range in size from the tiny microalgae, the phytoplankton, all the way up to the

[00:03:02] huge bull kelp that are found along the California coast.

[00:03:06] They come in all kinds of colors.

[00:03:09] The main ones are the greens, the reds and the browns and they come in all kinds of beautiful shapes too.

[00:03:16] Yeah amazing and with your research it was more on the macroalgae or those what we kind of think of when we think of seaweed?

[00:03:27] Yeah so microalgae are usually the microscopic ones that we can't really see or identify without using a microscope.

[00:03:35] So it's really more of the size and then macroalgae have bigger cells.

[00:03:39] So they're also bigger and we're able to kind of identify what genus they are.

[00:03:45] Some require, some look very much alike to the naked eye so even with macroalgae if you want to go down to the species level

[00:03:55] you'll have to use a microscope to really look at the cell structure.

[00:03:59] But for macroalgae yes, that's more of what I've studied here in Hawaii, the macroalgae.

[00:04:05] For some reason my brain just can't work on tiny things so I'm so glad I work with macroalgae.

[00:04:13] We live in a big thing bias world right in biology and with seaweeds are they kind of across the whole ocean

[00:04:23] or do they like to hang out in kind of warmer shallow waters or what's kind of the distribution?

[00:04:30] Oh yeah, they're found everywhere.

[00:04:32] We have our temperate that are found in the cold areas to the tropical species and then we even have algae that are found in fresh water

[00:04:42] all over in our oceans from the shallows to in our tide pools all the way down to even our deep waters as well.

[00:04:51] Yeah, great.

[00:04:52] I wanted to talk a bit about globally like what role seaweed play.

[00:04:59] I went on this big tangent and I'm really interested right now in kind of looking at again you know nature and evolution

[00:05:05] these deep time timescales and seaweed and algae are really early forms of life right?

[00:05:12] And I was just going on a tangent about the oxygen revolution and when cyanobacteria evolved

[00:05:18] but even today seaweeds produce a lot of the world's oxygen.

[00:05:22] What do seaweeds do for us that we're not really thinking about?

[00:05:26] Oh they do so much for us and a lot of people don't realize it.

[00:05:31] It's just like our plants on land.

[00:05:35] So they're basically our forests in the ocean.

[00:05:38] They provide food for many of our really important marine species like our turtles, our sea urchins, our herbivorous fish.

[00:05:47] They provide habitat and nurseries.

[00:05:50] They even provide like natural protection for coastal communities.

[00:05:54] They absorb CO2 through photosynthesis which is really important especially in today of like what's going on with carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

[00:06:06] People use algae for medicinal purposes, for creating different products.

[00:06:13] It's really important for economies.

[00:06:17] They provide oxygen as you said up to like at least 50% of the oxygen in our atmosphere.

[00:06:24] And yeah in Hawaii algae or limo as they call it is really important in a cultural sense

[00:06:31] and I'm sure also across the different Pacific islands as well.

[00:06:35] They're also found in our legends and in the songs that have been passed down from generation to generation here in Hawaii.

[00:06:44] They just love their limo.

[00:06:47] That's something I really admire about the Hawaiian community.

[00:06:51] Amazing and excited to ask you a bit more about that.

[00:06:55] But looking at seaweeds in Hawaii where you did your PhD research,

[00:06:59] I guess what's the kind of distribution and diversity of seaweed in Hawaii?

[00:07:04] Are they major part of the coastal environment and ecosystem?

[00:07:08] Yes they are.

[00:07:10] Like I said there you can find them in our tide pools.

[00:07:13] Even a small little tide pool can hold so much different types of limo.

[00:07:17] You can find at least five different kinds of species.

[00:07:21] You can find them all the way in deep waters like up in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in Papahanaumoko Kaya.

[00:07:28] One of the algae I studied is microdiction satchelianum.

[00:07:31] It's a green algae that produces beautiful lush meadows on the reefs out there in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

[00:07:39] and they can go down to even like 64 meter depth.

[00:07:42] So limo algae play a huge role in the marine ecosystem here in Hawaii.

[00:07:48] And I'm going to try to say it microdiction satchelianum.

[00:07:53] Say it for me again.

[00:07:55] Microdiction satchelianum.

[00:07:58] Satchelianum.

[00:08:00] Yeah it looks like a lettuce.

[00:08:02] It has its morphology is mesh like and it has like layers.

[00:08:08] It's like a rosette.

[00:08:09] It produces rosettes so in between these layers you have little organisms that live in between them.

[00:08:15] When I collect my samples in the field you find worms, you find little brittle starfish,

[00:08:22] you find little seashells but you also find other little turf algae that grow in between the blade.

[00:08:28] So you find snails and sea slugs so even within each individual rosette there's already a whole community living within it.

[00:08:38] So it's so cool because when I bring them out to when I collect them from the field and bring them into my tank

[00:08:45] and then all of a sudden I see all these little crabs and critters in my tank and I'm like where did these come from?

[00:08:51] Not knowing that they were in the rosettes that I collected and of course I put those back.

[00:08:56] I bring them back into the organisms.

[00:08:58] Amazing.

[00:08:59] I'm looking at a picture of it and it really is, it's like a net.

[00:09:03] It's so cool.

[00:09:05] Like I said all the different morphologies of different algae is so some look like cheese, some have the mesh layers,

[00:09:13] some are transparent.

[00:09:15] They look like glass like alva.

[00:09:18] I think that's one of my favorite species just because it has this shiny glassy look to it.

[00:09:24] You have alva, ULVA, yeah alva.

[00:09:28] It's also known as sea lettuce.

[00:09:31] You have algae that look like grape and like swirls.

[00:09:35] It's beautiful.

[00:09:37] They're just so beautiful.

[00:09:39] And they have big ranges too right?

[00:09:42] The micro-addiction is also across the Pacific.

[00:09:46] It's also in federated states of Micronesia, is that right?

[00:09:50] Is that one from home?

[00:09:52] Yes, that's correct.

[00:09:53] That's one of the reasons why I chose to study micro-addiction is because it's also found back home in the FSM.

[00:09:59] So that's how I got to time my work here in Hawaii to Micronesia.

[00:10:04] And you also studied sargassum aquifolium, is that right?

[00:10:10] Yes, yes I did.

[00:10:12] Sargassum also known as limu kala.

[00:10:15] Limu means algae or seaweed in Hawaiian and kala means to forgive.

[00:10:22] Limu kala is probably the most significant limu in Hawaii.

[00:10:28] It almost, I think one of the limu organizations here were trying to make it the state limu.

[00:10:35] So yeah, limu kala used to forgive because it was used to...

[00:10:39] I mean it's also still used today for a traditional practice called ho'oponopono here in Hawaii.

[00:10:47] It's a forgiveness ceremony and there are many different ways the ceremony has...

[00:10:53] Like I've learned like some people take limu kala and if there's conflict between both parties

[00:10:59] they'll take limu kala and each party will eat a piece of it as a sign of peace has been restored.

[00:11:07] Or because limu kala grows in long strands, I've heard that some people exchange it as a lei

[00:11:14] as a sign that peace has been restored as well.

[00:11:17] Limu kala has been also found in songs and legends.

[00:11:21] Limu kala has pneumaticis, these glass gas bladders that help with buoyancy in the water.

[00:11:27] So that's how it also floats on the surface.

[00:11:29] And one legend has it that one of the ocean gods used limu kala as a way to save some fisherman out at sea through the floatation devices on it.

[00:11:41] It's also used as a cleansing limu.

[00:11:44] So they make like before fishermen would go out to sea because you never knew if they were going to come back alive.

[00:11:52] And so they made sure that all problems on land were good between families.

[00:11:59] Any conflicts would be good before they leave because they would put limu kala on their head like as a wreath

[00:12:07] and they would slowly walk into the water until the wreath slowly floated off of their head

[00:12:12] symbolizing that all problems on land is floating away.

[00:12:16] So when they go to sea, they know that if anything happens, everything will be okay at home.

[00:12:23] It used to be abundant in Waikiki in the 1970s.

[00:12:28] We had our little version of our kelp forests but with climate change, with changes happening in Waikiki

[00:12:37] with buildings and construction.

[00:12:40] It disappeared. It's no longer there.

[00:12:42] And so that was one of the reasons why I studied limu kala.

[00:12:46] Trying to grow them, cultivate them in the tanks on limestone tiles was to try.

[00:12:52] The long-term goal was to outplant those tiles back onto the wreath to bring back the native populations.

[00:12:59] So you were doing fieldwork or field collecting and then also a laboratory component to your research.

[00:13:05] Is that right?

[00:13:07] Yeah, I did my fieldwork.

[00:13:10] It was out at the Anui Nui Fisheries Research Center so I had an outdoor seawater system.

[00:13:16] So not so much in lab but outdoor and it, San Island is known to be so hot.

[00:13:21] There's no shade out there.

[00:13:23] So just blasted with sunlight and heat every day but the limu like it.

[00:13:30] So were you propagating populations and mastering the reproduction cycle of the seaweeds?

[00:13:38] Yeah, so I'd go collect reproductive plants, bring them back to the seawater system.

[00:13:45] I let them float on the water surface and what they do is release the gametes into the water column.

[00:13:54] So the gametes and the females get together and form a zygote, fertilize and then they settle down on the tiles.

[00:14:02] And then they form these little germlings, these little baby targasm plants and they're so cute and it's so crazy because within three days

[00:14:12] the tiles you go and check them and they are all the surface of the tiles are so bumpy.

[00:14:18] There's like hundreds of babies on them.

[00:14:23] So many germlings.

[00:14:24] Yeah, I wanted to ask the germlings it just even sounds cute.

[00:14:27] So and the germlings are different than the zygotes or are they just a bit further?

[00:14:33] They're further in development.

[00:14:35] Yeah, okay.

[00:14:37] That's when they like start to grow their little leg, not legs sorry, their branches, their branches.

[00:14:42] They start growing their branches and then their little blades and they become a little sarcastle plant.

[00:14:49] Okay, so totally different forms in these in these life stages and climate change was part of your research.

[00:14:57] What were the research questions that you were addressing?

[00:15:01] So one of my chapters focused on climate change.

[00:15:06] It was a bigger project that was conducted out at Coconut Island at the Hoi Institute of Marine Biology

[00:15:14] and my section for the chapter for my chapter was to look at the algal portion of it.

[00:15:20] So what they did was they had 40 tanks with four treatments.

[00:15:24] It was the control and then the acidic and then the high temperature and then a combination of the acidic and high temperature conditions for the year 2100.

[00:15:34] And so towards the end of that experiment I went and collected all the different algae that grew within the tanks.

[00:15:42] So I collected all of them, identified them and then looked at diversity, number of species.

[00:15:50] And really surprisingly the number of species found in them didn't significantly differ.

[00:15:58] So that kind of tells us that our native species may still be able to persist under these different climate change conditions.

[00:16:07] Wow.

[00:16:09] So was that good-ish news for the series?

[00:16:14] Yeah.

[00:16:15] Yes, because when people think of climate change it's always like doomsday or everything's going to die.

[00:16:24] But some of our species they already have these built-in mechanisms to I guess withstand or still persist under these conditions.

[00:16:33] I mean we did have like there's always going to be the winners and the losers.

[00:16:37] We said the diversity and species composition shifted.

[00:16:43] So we did lose some, there were the losers and the winners but the diversity was still okay.

[00:16:50] The number of species found was still okay which was really it very hopeful, very hopeful.

[00:16:58] Yeah, it's interesting.

[00:16:59] We think about winners and losers a lot in terms of climate change and of course we look at climate change from our perspective.

[00:17:07] But for some species they'll do better.

[00:17:10] I remember hearing something that you know the situations where jellyfish will do really well in the oceans and that they'll be, what was it?

[00:17:18] There's some term about like slime world.

[00:17:23] What?

[00:17:24] Really I have to read that as well.

[00:17:28] I don't know. Something about like algae and seaweeds and jellyfish doing really well but it's a bit, I mean yeah.

[00:17:36] I don't have much more to say about it. It was just fascinating but we want healthy oceans right?

[00:17:43] And you were studying the eco-physiological response to seaweeds so I guess what does that mean?

[00:17:50] It's how the plant does its plant business. What were you looking at?

[00:17:56] Once they settled on the tiles I measured their growth, their height and then photosynthetic rates as well.

[00:18:05] But for that experiment for the Limukala the germlings were very photosynthetic even as photosynthetic compared to their adult plants.

[00:18:17] My photosynthesis is, I've been reading this book, it's just an old book kind of generally about plants, green inheritance by Anthony Huxley.

[00:18:26] And photosynthesis you know we have so much to thank for it and we don't think about it very much in our everyday lives.

[00:18:34] But he wrote this quote which I thought was just really a simple potent reminder.

[00:18:38] He wrote that plants are continuously active by day conjuring the food they need out of sunlight, water and gases around them.

[00:18:45] The miracle of living alchemy is called photosynthesis and without it virtually all life on this planet would cease.

[00:18:51] And it just goes back to all that invisible work to us that plants are just doing for us every day.

[00:19:01] Yeah, because like I said when I say I study seaweed or algae people are just thinking of slime from the sun.

[00:19:11] So it's definitely underappreciated our seaweed.

[00:19:16] Yeah, yeah I'm sure you have to feel a lot of interesting questions about what people imagine your research to be versus what it is.

[00:19:26] Yeah, I wanted to ask you also about someone that I believe has been referred to as your academic grandmother and the first lady of Limukala.

[00:19:39] Dr. Isabella Abbott, who is she?

[00:19:42] So Dr. Isabella Abbott like you said she's my academic grandmother so she was my advisor's advisor.

[00:19:50] She has done so much work for the Pacific for Limukala in general.

[00:19:58] She has like authored so many books and over 150 publications.

[00:20:04] She was the world's leading expert on Hawaiian seaweeds.

[00:20:09] She's discovered over 200 species of limo which hence the name which is why she is known as the first lady of limo.

[00:20:19] I never got to meet her but I've heard many stories from my advisor and other graduate students who have worked with her.

[00:20:27] She was also the first native Hawaiian to receive a PhD in science, in any science.

[00:20:36] And so she was also someone I admired because during her time you know woman in STEM was not a thing

[00:20:43] and so she also had to endure a lot of challenges of just being a woman in science.

[00:20:49] She was a role model, someone I looked up to as someone who also is trying to you know break boundaries in my area

[00:21:00] being the first person from the FSM to have a PhD in marine biology but also trying to be a woman in STEM as well.

[00:21:10] It's incredible and that kind of lineage of passing down knowledge in science and academia too is really interesting.

[00:21:20] You're kind of learning from her through I mean through the works that she left and through people she taught and mentored and

[00:21:28] and I guess going to a different part of the ocean but another part of the ocean near and dear to you.

[00:21:36] You've spoken about this quite a bit but you've had the incredible experience I think was it 2020-2021

[00:21:44] where you traveled to the deepest part of the ocean, a place that I think more people have been to the moon

[00:21:51] than to this part of the ocean. Challenger deep in the Mariana Trench and this is of course in the federated states of Micronesia FSM waters.

[00:22:03] What was it like being on the bottom of the ocean there?

[00:22:08] There are no words that would ever explain how I felt when I was at the bottom.

[00:22:14] It was just like a moment, I mean that was the moment I was preparing for weeks prior and then when Victor Viscovo was like we're here.

[00:22:24] I couldn't believe it. There's so much running through my mind just like flashes of like my family, my community, my ancestors who have sailed the surface of the ocean

[00:22:37] and now here I was going down vertically at the bottom and then just thinking about all the legends and stories that were shared with me before the dive

[00:22:48] and how the deep was, to us it was a place of life. This is where life started, this is where magic is held

[00:22:59] and when I think of other people their perspective of the deep is scary and dark and mysterious

[00:23:07] but to us Pacific Islanders to me as a Micronesian, a lot of people ask me were you scared

[00:23:14] because I was not scared at all. I felt like I was being embraced and going down to get the biggest hug from the ocean

[00:23:24] so it really opened my eyes to the perspective of what it means to be a Micronesian

[00:23:31] like if someone else went down who didn't grow up or wasn't born into this culture of ocean

[00:23:38] of where our identity came from the ocean what would the experience would have been completely different

[00:23:46] perspectives, our perspectives would have been different but the dive being at the bottom really opened my eyes to really embrace

[00:23:55] what it meant to be a Micronesian, to be a Pacific Islander, to be of a culture of the ocean. Without the ocean I am nothing

[00:24:06] I guess still following that space analogy a little bit like astronauts talk about when they see the earth from afar

[00:24:17] this feeling of the overview effect and this intense stewardship they feel for earth.

[00:24:24] Is that something that was part of your experience? You are from the ocean, you have this relationship

[00:24:33] that pre-existed that dive obviously very deeply. Did it change kind of this, I don't know your mission with your work or yeah?

[00:24:44] It didn't change it but it enforced it. One because the bottom was just so untouched and just to keep it that way

[00:24:54] how do we just leave it as is? How do we not put our fingerprints in a place that has just been evolving and has been living and breathing

[00:25:06] since the very beginning. When I went down we saw tethers like fishing, it looked like a line, fishing line

[00:25:16] some kind of tether that was laying at the bottom and then the following year when we went back to bring Dr. Dawn Wright

[00:25:23] as the first African American woman to challenge her deep she saw a beer bottle

[00:25:29] and so you know I see that the moment being down there was special but it was also very disappointing when I saw that the tethers

[00:25:38] so it just made me think what are we doing? A place that only 20 ish people at that time has been to yet our trash is making it all the way down there

[00:25:51] like what have we come to? What can we do? What do we have to do to stop it?

[00:26:01] Yeah we have a lot of work to do.

[00:26:04] And I think working on sharing the connection in your experience and sharing what the ocean is and what a relationship looks like I think is definitely part of that.

[00:26:15] I thought it was so interesting you just talked about it being living and evolving down the ocean

[00:26:22] and it's probably this idea that it's dead and sterile or just geological at the bottom but it's kind of that big thing bias again isn't it?

[00:26:31] Yes, oh man they found some pretty unique creatures. The landers that went down with us they are equipped with bait and cameras

[00:26:42] and so there's so many footage of all these different kinds of bony fish that live down there they found all these amphibs, is it amphibs?

[00:26:52] I always get this mixed up. Amphipods? These shrimp like creatures, eel like creatures, bony fish, oh the deep is full of life.

[00:27:03] Right? Yeah and it's all connected too right? Like the nutrients filtered down to it. It's not just in isolation either.

[00:27:14] Yeah a lot of people were asking like how did you, someone who studies shallow water seaweed, like what did you study down there?

[00:27:24] How does my research connect to the deepest part of the ocean? On my way down to the deep looking out from the little window we had could see marine snow.

[00:27:34] And so what is marine snow? You know it's like these tiny particles all the way up from the surface. It could be debris, could be animal poop, could be dead animals

[00:27:46] but it can also be dead plants that are slowly making its way to the bottom of the ocean feeding and providing energy still to the life down there.

[00:27:56] And so although we think plants just stay at the surface, no even though they're dead they're still working.

[00:28:05] Right? Yeah they're the source of nutrition for everything. Yeah.

[00:28:12] And so I'm like see plants. You find them all doing the surface and you find them all the way at the bottom of the ocean still feeding, providing life, providing energy. Everything is connected.

[00:28:29] Yeah and congratulations you're now Dr. Nicole Yamase and you finished your PhD and since then you've been doing a lot of different projects and a lot of interesting opportunities that have come up and you've just, this is a few months now,

[00:28:46] I know you've just returned a year ago but you've returned from a trip to the FSM where you were doing some teaching and some more algae work. Can you tell me a bit about what you were doing?

[00:28:59] So last summer I was able to teach a summer course through a program called PACMED through UH Manoa. This is a two year master's course for Pacific Island educators to help them teach them how to integrate the environment into their curriculum to build place based curriculum.

[00:29:20] So last summer I was able to teach a marine science course of course focused on macroalgae. The lecture section we had and then the field course was a one week course in Koshrai and one week in Ponpei and they, some of them don't know what algae is.

[00:29:40] It was so funny because when I met them in person for the field course they were like, Professor honestly during your lectures you know because our camera was off and our mics were off. We were like why is this girl studying seaweed? Why would she spend eight years of her life studying these yucky things?

[00:29:59] But once we started the field course they were like oh my goodness now we understand and they were, once they got in the water, once they started to collect them, once they started to identify them and learn about each species.

[00:30:14] It was just such a beautiful thing to witness and throughout the field course we went out, we snorkeled. Some of them haven't even swam in a long time so it was a great, it was the perfect time for them.

[00:30:27] This course just opened their eyes to a lot of things in their very own waters.

[00:30:34] Amazing, yeah I think so much of learning plants and botany education like step one is just learning how to see isn't it? How to...

[00:30:43] Yes!

[00:30:44] And then so much more opens up after you develop that vocabulary or that yeah you see and then you see differences and then you ask questions.

[00:30:57] They, when they would collect their black, oh I would always see this but I didn't know what it was. Now I know and now they started naming the, when we were in the water they would be oh this is Halamina, oh this is Colourful.

[00:31:10] And they were so proud of themselves when they would actually remember the scientific names, the genus names and so they're like wow now I want to bring my nieces, my kids in the water so that I can show them what we've been learning.

[00:31:28] So by the end of the week each educator had a herbarium. They went through the process of going through algae books to identify them to learn about their ecology and morphology.

[00:31:45] And so by the end each of them had a binder full of their pressed algae and they were so proud of themselves. And so they using it as a tool in their classrooms to show their students.

[00:31:57] It sounds like fun field sampling to do too and you have a long history with diving around FSM too right? I think you told me before that you would dive a lot with your dad and that he taught you a lot of the names of creatures and life around there is that yeah.

[00:32:17] Yeah that's true growing up because we moved around a lot. I was born in Pompeii but my family moved to Choux Palau and Saipan as well. And my dad loves the water that's how I also came to love the ocean because we were always swimming growing up, we were always snorkeling and he would point out different kinds of fish and corals and algae and it just made me want to be like him.

[00:32:44] Like how does he know so much?

[00:32:48] I want to talk a little bit about the naming of things and I think naming having the language or the stories helps you see too it's all connected right and did you tell me before that a lot of the seaweed didn't necessarily have names in Pompeii?

[00:33:03] No nothing I think only like maybe one or two that they would call like ears which is basically salam it's the padayna species. Their common name is elephant ears so they just call them ears in Punepean and then they also have the sea grape but that's pretty much it.

[00:33:25] It's not like here in Hawaii where they have their native names for their limo. Like that's what I want for our species in Pompeii or even across the FSM. That was another activity I tried to challenge my students to do is to ask their students what would they name this?

[00:33:45] You know whatever fits best keep it as that and start using the names so that it becomes more common.

[00:33:53] Put it in a way that is meaningful for people which you know Latin's not doing that for everyone is it? Yeah.

[00:34:05] And so what is the work you're doing right now? You're working with a different ocean conservation organization tell me about One Reef and what you're up to?

[00:34:15] Yes so now I am working with One Reef and really it will help provide the resources that local communities need to continue what they're doing because we believe if we want to save the oceans we need to be working with these local communities.

[00:34:32] They are the tip of the spear. They've been doing this for over centuries and so if we want to continue to help save our oceans, help manage it, the people who are going to do it best are the local communities.

[00:34:46] And then also my position at One Reef is director of impact so working with them to define impact what does impact mean to the local community?

[00:34:58] It's so much. It must be so nice after doing the research on kind of plants and isolation to be looking at this holistic approach and the relationship between people and the ecosystems they take care of and are stewards of.

[00:35:14] Yeah, looking at that system more than just the isolation of it.

[00:35:19] Yes, yep. We're working with local communities in Palau, Yap and Ponfe at the moment so we have like 15 local partnerships and each of them, impact is going to be different for each community because each community has their own unique challenges.

[00:35:37] The environments are different. The way they do things traditionally, culture is different and so it's going to be a really great time to learn more about my home region.

[00:35:51] I just have two more questions for you. One more about diving.

[00:35:57] I think hearing you talk about the creatures and the different seaweeds and the forms has been so interesting.

[00:36:03] And I listened to another interview with you where you spoke about diving and it looking like a doctor's Seuss world and I guess is there a favorite diving spot you have?

[00:36:16] Yeah. Ooh. I think one of my favorite would be at Ant at all in Ponfe.

[00:36:27] Like I said, it's doctor Seuss you just see all these different colors and shapes and sizes of everything.

[00:36:36] I think that's what when I did my first dive, that's what came to mind. I'm like whoa.

[00:36:41] I'm in a doctor Seuss movie because you have all the fan corals. You have all the different colored fish going in and out swimming in and out of the crevices and then you have your sea cucumbers and urchins and seaweed.

[00:36:56] It's just like you're in a cartoon and that's what I want.

[00:37:01] It's something everybody got to do once in their life at least to try it out because I think it just really gives a whole new perspective of what the ocean is and what it's full of.

[00:37:14] It's so interesting to do those experiences or those practices that really flip your perspective or change it.

[00:37:21] I had a conversation with an ecologist who studied the tree canopy but was just talking about the experience of being in the canopy and the light is different and the sounds are different.

[00:37:31] It's totally different way of knowing the forest and diving is another version of that, right?

[00:37:37] Like it's...

[00:37:38] Yeah.

[00:37:39] Oh yeah.

[00:37:40] Oh yeah.

[00:37:41] Also how the sunlight just also comes into the ocean just hits corals or hits the angles in certain ways is just like whoa.

[00:37:51] Also the rays going in, hitting the ocean, the water at a certain way also looks like how the sun breaks through the clouds and you have different kinds of rays as well.

[00:38:04] So you know what's funny?

[00:38:06] It was also when I dove into the deep, I also felt like I was going up into space.

[00:38:12] It was so weird because you know I always say that I felt a sense of familiarity but I didn't know what that meant.

[00:38:21] I just knew that it wasn't foreign to me and so I just had like a light bulb moment a couple months ago when I was like oh my gosh I know what I mean now when I say I felt a sense of familiarity

[00:38:34] because it was like when I was going down, it was like I was also going up and so you know when we think of our ancestors, we always think of them in the sky as well.

[00:38:43] And so I think in a spiritual sense, I felt like while I was the deeper I went, the higher I was going up and so I was closer to my ancestors in that way.

[00:38:55] It's like just like a mirror.

[00:38:57] The ocean is a mirror of the sky.

[00:38:59] Such a weird feeling but it completely makes sense.

[00:39:03] I think so.

[00:39:05] It's so important right because it is, I think when we met before we probably talked about you know space sustainability and it's the same.

[00:39:15] It's just it's you know Western science has broken down earth into so many distinctive disciplines where the knowledge goes very deep but it kind of loses that holistic connection.

[00:39:28] Yes.

[00:39:29] Between systems and everything which is very different than indigenous perspectives and indigenous science and knowledge right and of course it's the same yeah.

[00:39:39] Yeah it's amazing.

[00:39:41] So ever since I've had that epiphany I guess I'm like damn that's it's yeah that's one of the most magical moments of my life now that I understood what that meant.

[00:39:57] And there's so much interesting work in thinking about all of these different areas of science and there's so many incredible indigenous scientists doing really groundbreaking work and sharing that in growing, growing brains everywhere.

[00:40:16] And I guess this is this is something that the last thing I wanted to ask you about and I think you've spoken about this probably throughout this conversation too but the perspective of you've spoken a bit about studying the ocean as opposed to being from the ocean.

[00:40:35] What does that mean?

[00:40:38] I think it definitely hits different as someone it's a deeper connection we have.

[00:40:46] Not everybody gets to say I'm of the ocean I'm from the ocean.

[00:40:52] In Pompeii we are a matrilineal society so I inherit my clan from my mother.

[00:40:58] And so you know it was something that I also had to think about later I guess during college and under in my grad school like what does it really mean to be a Micronesian.

[00:41:09] And so there's just that deeper spiritual connection that we've had and it's something that has just been passed down for generations and generations and yeah.

[00:41:20] And so I think it's really important to think about the ocean as a whole.

[00:41:26] And so too there's just that deeper spiritual connection that we've had and it's something that has just been passed down for generations and generations and yeah I think it really gives more power to us when we study.

[00:41:44] We're not only studying it just to get a degree we're studying it because it's our livelihoods it's our life we have a lot more on the line for it like we like I said.

[00:41:56] Who are we without the ocean.

[00:42:10] That was my conversation with Dr. Nicole Yamase.

[00:42:14] Thank you for listening and huge thank you to Nicole for sharing her work.

[00:42:19] Plant Kingdom is hosted and produced by me Catherine Polts and our music is by Carl Dider.

[00:42:26] Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts and check out our website at plantkingdom.earth.