Those are the people who work for the No-Take MPA program at the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources. From left to right (Tafito Aitaoto, Lucy Jacob and Sione Lam Yuen Jr). That is their new uniform that they wore at the Government Leaders and Village Mayor Workshop that was held at the Equator in Tafuna. 47 mayors participated the workshop and they enjoyed it. There were presentations, activity and discussion sessions after the presentations.

Mayors were divided into 6 groups to design their own No-Take Marine Protected Area (MPA). Mayor Vaiesea Falaula Silivelio from the village of Tula and his group was designing their No-Take in his village. They had their MPA behind the NOAA weather station at the tip of the village of Tula. They had 4 reasons why they chose this area of the village to establish their MPA; 1) hardly anybody visit the area, 2) a lot of marine resources, 3) it has all 3 habitats for fishes: nursing grounds, feeding grounds, and spawning grounds and 4) healthy coral reefs. This MPA covers 3 miles from the coastline to the deep waters, and the group dicided that you can tell there is a No-Take MPA there because they are going to set buoy's 50ft from each other to mark the boundaries of the MPA.

The village of Aua's Mayor Fotuonuutaua Toma Anetere'a presenting on how a No-Take Marine Protected Area (MPA) would help to protect marine resources that they have in the village of Aua if established. Their group also presented how this MPA can keep outsiders from fishing in their village. Anetere'a think that this workshop really helped his group to think of ways that they can use to protect marine resources for the future of their villages. They have fun during the workshop on Friday, Malo Lava Le Galulue!

Summary Results from Evaluation:

97% said the presentations were clear and they were able to understand them (all except 1), 69% favorite topic was MPA talk; 34% liked Coral Reef talk; 17% preferred Climate Change talk and 28% like the activity, 97% thought the presenters were knowledgeable, 93% enjoyed the opportunity and would like to have more similar ones (2 people said no), 86% said fishing is a popular activity in their village (3 people said no), and 59% said they think their village would consider establishing an MPA; 24% (7 mayors) did not know and 7% (2 mayors) said no (Fogagogo and Tafuna).

Kiso So'oto a representative from the enforcement division in the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources lecturing about boat safety during the Le Tausagi camp in Ta'u, Manu'a. Since there are three islands of Manu'a, people are using motor boats called Alias to travel in between those three islands, they are Ofu, Olosega, and Ta'u which consist of three villages. Kids at the camp can educate and share their knowledge with their families when they are on a boat traveling.

Kids from Ta'u, Manu'a are writing their wishes on the wish banner that we had during the camp. That is Derek Toloumu from the Department of Commerce under the Coral Reef Advisory Group, with the green Le Tausagi shirt assisting the kids. One girl wrote that she want to her village stores use paper bags for grocery rather than plastic. Derek asked her why she wrote that wish and she said that Sea Turtles it's her favorite animal in the ocean and she also learned from the camp that jelly fish is a diet for sea turtles. She learned that a lot of sea turtles die from eating plastic bag by accident, sea turtles are mistaken that those plastic bags floating in the water are jelly fishes.

Kids took a field trip to the Department of Marine & Wildlife Resource office in fagatogo. The enforcement division presented on boat safety before they took the kids on a boat ride and also Sione from the No-Take Marine Protected Area (MPA) program presented his presentation and activity so the kids can rotate from the boat ride to the conference room. After that field trip everybody went back to Utulei beach for their award ceremony.

During the water activity at the Le Tausagi camp that we had in Utulei beach on the 13-15 of July 2010. Kids were divided into two groups; the snorkeling and kayaking. Teachers that participated the Le Tausagi teacher workshop and junior counselor that participated the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources summer course help to assist kids in the water. Everybody had fun during the water activities because they were talking about it during our dinner time.

Teachers are divided into their groups so they can start writing their lesson plans based on the three themes of the workshop. It's up to them if they want to write their lesson plans based on coral reefs and fisheries management that was presented by Alice Lawrence, climate change that was presented by Carolyn Doherty or water quality presented by Phil Wiles. They can use those topics and activities for each topics in their classrooms, when they have lessons based on those topics. Teachers also received resources like posters, Cd's, DVDs, brochures, and a list of contacts of people that work with different agencies that are working together in the Le Tausagi group so that if they need help on marine science, forestry, water quality, and climate change or also field trips, they can contact these people for help.

The groups were separated into three themes and they were Water Quality, Climate Change and Coral Reefs and Fisheries Management. They were also rotated in every hour and thirty minutes to different themes. This is the climate change group and they are playing the no-take mpa activity. Sione Lam Yuen finished presenting on no-take mpa's and their benefits to the community. They also learned that there is a connection between the three themes climate change, water quality and coral reefs and fisheries management. I want to thank Alice Lawrence, Derek Toloumu and Travor Kaitu'u for helping me with my activity.