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Japan’s first lady teamed up with U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye’s widow Monday to launch an environmental symposium that they hope will become an annual gathering of students, scientists and activists from both sides of the Pacific Ocean.
The Japan-U.S. International Symposium for Ocean Conservation, held at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, saw more than a dozen prominent figures discuss efforts against overfishing, pollution, environmental degradation and other threats to the Pacific’s marine resources.
It aimed to build networks among some of those nations’ strongest advocates for better ocean protection, said Irene Hirano Inouye, president of the nonprofit U.S.-Japan Council.
“I think this is the perfect place to talk about how our two countries can work together,” Inouye said Monday. “We’re both island areas, and we face the erosion of our environment.”
Akie Abe, wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, “loves to come to Hawaii, as well,” Inouye added.
“It was an idea that came about as we talked. How can we bring together women, how can we bring together leaders? We decided that this would be a great way to bring people from Japan to Hawaii and involve people here in Hawaii in the conversation,” she said.
Monday’s U.S.-Japanese collaboration came a day after Abe made headlines for a significant visit to Pearl Harbor, during which she laid flowers and prayed at the USS Arizona Memorial. No serving Japanese prime minister has visited Pearl Harbor, and Abe’s visit has raised speculation over whether her husband will be the first.
Akie Abe was not available for questions from the media at Monday’s symposium. The daylong summit took place about a week and a half before the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s 2016 World Conservation Congress convenes in Honolulu. That event, which will also take place at the convention center, is expected to bring some 8,000 delegates from 160 nations.
The convention center also hosted in June what was billed as the largest coral reef symposium. One of the chief organizers of that event, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology Director Ruth Gates, also participated in Monday’s U.S.-Japanese summit.
“It’s not too late, and you should never give up on any natural system,” Gates told the ocean conservation audience Monday.
Coral reefs in Kaneohe Bay showed surprising resiliency by regenerating after 1978 when raw sewage stopped flowing directly into the bay, Gates said. The organisms have some “incredible skills that we don’t know about,” and conservation advocates should pursue creative solutions that give nature a “leg up” to heal itself, she added.
The symposium showcased mostly women, as the organizers said they aimed to inspire younger women to pursue causes they found important. They included Monterey Bay Aquarium Executive Director Julie Packard, who encouraged audience members to “buy local if you can and encourage your local fisheries, to keep them healthy and thriving.”
The event also featured Minako Iue, president of the conservation group Sailors for the Sea Japan, who discussed overfishing in Japanese waters.
The symposium did not address international concerns over Japan’s ongoing, government-backed whaling operations, in which fleets continue to venture as far away as Antarctic waters to kill several hundred whales annually despite a 2014 International Court of Justice order to stop those expeditions.
“I think this particular symposium focused on the issues that the organizations that are sponsoring were involved in, so that was not an issue that came up,” Inouye said Monday. “For those that have that concern, we know that that’s a topic of conversation.”
Abe delivered the symposium’s keynote address, and she hosted a panel of Japanese and American college and college-bound students. Speaking through a translator, she expressed concerns over building sea walls to protect Japan’s coastal communities following the nation’s calamitous 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Japan’s first lady would rather seek alternative ways to protect those communities that don’t separate their residents from the sea and cause environmental harm, Inouye said after the symposium.
During the student panel, Abe also expressed concern over nuclear issues and problems with the U.S. military on Okinawa — although she did not elaborate.
Japan’s first lady wondered how the nations could best “strike a balance” between development and the environment. She encouraged the audience to look for happiness “in the things we cannot see — things that aren’t just before our eyes.”
Jennifer Higa, an 18-year-old student on the panel, told Abe that happiness is “to build relationships with people from across the world.”
“I think we need to look past material things, problems that surround religion, power, politics,” and focus on shared environmental challenges, said Higa, who said she’s heading to the University of Pennsylvania to study public policy and business ethics.
Students from the universities of Hawaii, Tokyo and Kyoto also participated.
Abe said she would like to hold the symposium next year in Okinawa. “I do not want to end this relationship and connection,” she said Monday. “We would like to expand this worldwide so more countries will join our mission.”
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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