Aloha friends,

Thank you for your patience concerning this newsletter. Our small crew was very busy this summer.

If you have not been following Save Our Seas, we had a very successful summer. In June the first International Clean Ocean Conference was held at the Princeville Hotel in Kauai by Hanalei Bay.

July followed with a 3-day coral reef monitoring workshop by Dr. Brian Tissot from UH Hilo Marine Science Department.

In August a number of videos were released to the local audience. SOS has been working with local community access TV stations to provide programming that will educate the community about coral reefs and ocean ecology.

September followed with the start of the school year, and the ÒOcean PulseÓ coral reef monitoring project. This program works with eighth graders and educates them about coral reefs and ties it into their other fields of study such as science, math, language arts, communication skills, and art.

Now that October is here we have no excuse for not putting out a newsletter. Hope you enjoy it. Save Our Seas is looking forward to a bigger and better newsletter from now on. The newsletter is our best way of communicating with everyone about what the organization is doing. We need someone to help us with our newsletter, so if you know of anyone, please let us know.

UH Marine Options Program (MOP) comes to Kauai! This program was held in July 1996 and continued November 1-3, 1996.

Professor Brian Tissot from the University of Hawaii-Hilo was on Kauai July 19-22, 1996 to lead a three-day workshop about coral reef monitoring. Dr. Tissot began the presentation at Kauai Community College with a slide show about coral reef marine organisms. The following morning, a lecture/demonstration was presented at Anini Beach Pavilion, after which the group went snorkeling. In the afternoon coral reef monitoring procedures were performed from start to finish. The goal was to establish a baseline of information for future studies and to teach interested participants about reef ecology. On Sunday morning the workshop continued with a lecture in the morning and dive in the afternoon at Makua Beach in Haena.

The November workshop followed a similar schedule. The vision for this workshop is to promote community awareness about the health and protection of Kauai's reefs through education. We hope to eventually be a part of a global network of informed and empowered "reef keepers" who will insure the well-being of coral reefs for future generations. This workshop enables people to learn more about the neighboring coral reefs and to be part of the solution. 1997 is the International Year of the Reef.

If you want to get involved in a positive, proactive way, please attend Dr. TissotÕs November Coral Reef Monitoring workshop. The workshop is sponsored by the UH Marine Options Program, Save Our Seas, Kauai Community College, and the Kauai Branch of the Sierra Club.

If you are interested in QUEST (Quantitative Underwater Ecological Survey Techniques) and SOS's adopt a reef project please contact us. It is free. For more info contact SOS.

This June, Save Our Seas sponsored its first major conference, Clean Oceans 96 at the Princeville Hotel. It was attended by hundreds of people, the event was very successful. The theme of this conference was "Awareness" and it featured educator and author Dr. Eugenie Clark as well as workshops, films and reef exploration and monitoring. The largest gathering was at the Saturday night banquet with more than 300 people in attendance.

The Clean Oceans '96 Conference was held in conjunction with the United Nations Oceans Day. The conference was dedicated to the spirit and vision of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the greatest oceans educator of our time.

The conference opened on Oceans Day, June 9. The first day was entitled "Ocean in Peril" and featured movies that were open to the public.

Saturday's theme was "Ocean Solutions" and began with a water-quality lecture by the Surfrider Foundation about Monitoring Water Quality. This was followed by a representative of Atlantis Submarines discussing the Creation of Artificial Reefs and Marine Habitats. A talk was presented by The National Coral Reef Initiative about protecting coral reefs.

At noon the entire group went to beautiful Anini Beach for lunch and a lecture by Dr. Brian Tissot about coral reef monitoring. Later in the afternoon Howard Shapiro discussed Environmental Education, followed by a spectacular slide show by James Watt.

All this education was followed by a highly entertaining dinner banquet featuring Dr. Eugenie Clark (the shark lady) as the keynote speaker. Dr. Clark gave an inspiring talk and multi-media show that was talked about for weeks. Following the talk everyone danced into the night with a continuous stream of quality entertainment.

One of the highlights of the conference was the fax that President Clinton sent to wish SOS luck in its environmental pursuits. Everyone is looking forward to Clean Oceans '97!

Proposed Board Members for 1997 to 1999:

Enclosed is the current slate of Board Members for Save Our Seas for the two years from January 1997 to January 1999. We would like all members to review these nominees, and make written comments and nominations.

Board Members for 1997 to 1999:

Advisory board:

James Maragos, Ph.D., Coral reef expert

Rob Sanford, First Hawaiian Bank

Titus Kinimaka, Famous surfer and clothier

Dr. Arthur Brownstein MD., Doctor, writer and surfer

Takashi Ito, Japanese Businessman

Steve Crowell, JD., Executive Dir. of CORAL

Terry O'Hallaron, Exec., Atlantis Submarines

Capt. Pam Meyer, Submarine pilot and marine expert

Napua Emery, Hawaiian historian

Sabra Kauka, Cultural historian

Karen Chandler, M.S., Marine expert

Donn Marin, Ph.D., Zoologist

Bill Fontana, Stock broker

Rob Culbertson, President, Kauai Sierra Club

Dave Raney, Ph.D., Coral Reef Initiative

Pua Baptista, Cultural historian

Don Heacock, Aquatics Division, DLNR, State of Hawaii

Chipper Wickman, Environmental expert

Roselle Bailey, Kumu Hula

Save Our Seas is currently working with eighth graders at Kula High and Intermediate School on a coral reef monitoring project called "Ocean Pulse" Sponsored by Save Our Seas, the Ocean Pulse coral reef project educates students and the public about coral reef ecology and promotes community involvement in and awareness of the protection and health of nearby reefs.

The purpose of project Ocean Pulse is to create a simple and accurate model coral reef study to be used in communities throughout the world. We intend to establish a standardized and easy-to-follow reef study model that is capable of being utilized in diverse locations worldwide.

The coral reef monitoring procedures used by the Kula students and the data provided by this on-going interactive study are also made available on the Internet so that it can be accessed by students around the world.

The project will also develop a uniform manual that will provide a standard for coral reef study and the gathering of baseline information. This manual will be used in schools to implement a coral reef monitoring program in their local communities. The study will stimulate community awareness, create interest for Middle School students, produce valid scientific data, while promoting public understanding of the ocean.

The ultimate goal of the Ocean Pulse project is to establish a global network of informed and empowered "reef keepers" to insure the well-being of coral reefs worldwide for future generations.

The SOS organization is currently working on three videos. One is to raise "awareness" about coral reefs, and the International Year of the Reef, and the second is to instruct educational institutions and community organizations about how to institute a coral reef monitoring program locally. A third video would document the oral history of local inhabitants about the situation with the reefs. We have begun the developmental stages of these videos and hope to have the first released to community access TV stations in January of 1997.

Anyone interested in helping with any of these video projects please contact Carl Stepath. We are looking for sponsorship for these videos.

1997 International Year of the Reef

Coral reefs are among natureÕs most spectacular creations. They are home to a dazzling array of marine life - nearly a million species. Up to 3000 species may co-exist on a single reef and the density of fishes is 100 times greater than the ocean average. Many reefs dwarf our most architecturally ambitious structures, tens of meters high and up to 2000 km long. These Òrainforests of the seaÓ rank as one of the most complex and diverse esosymstems in the world, but unfortunately the future of the coral reefs is in jeopardy.

10% of the worldÕs reefs have already been seriously degraded and a much greater percentage is threatened, particularly in areas adjacent to human populations. These jewels of the sea are being damaged at an accelerating rate. If this decline continues, there will be a significant loss of the worldÕs reefs and their resources during the next century.