Mālama Honua Summit | Inspirational Speakers Series: Part 2
Advocating for Our Oceans
Eric Co
Senior Program Officer, Marine Conservation for the Harold K.L.Castle Foundation
Eric Co is the Senior Program Officer for Marine Conservation for the Harold K.L.Castle Foundation, the largest private foundation in Hawaiʻi devoted to our ocean. He has spent 20 years in marine management and has served as crew aboard Hōkūleʻa since 2002. He sees living on a canoe as a metaphor for our home—how we care for our place is a direct reflection of how we care for each other. Consequently, inspired by Mālama Honua alongside PVS, Eric has led the Promise to PaeʻĀina collective impact effort, a broad collaboration on ocean management targets to accomplish during the WWV.
Don Walsh
Ocean Elder
Honorary President, Explorers Club; Member, U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE), President, International Maritime Inc.
Don Walsh, Ph.D. is an oceanographer, explorer and retired Navy captain whose career was in submarines. In 1960, Lieutenant Walsh and Jacques Piccard dove to the deepest place in the ocean in the Navy’s Bathyscaph Trieste. After naval service he was a dean and faculty member at the University of Southern California. Since the late 1970’s his company, International Maritime, Inc. has done ocean-related consulting work throughout the world. He is the Honorary President of the Explorers Club. In 2001 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in recognition of his work in undersea engineering.
Jean-Michel Cousteau
Ocean Elder
President, Ocean Futures Society
Explorer. Environmentalist. Educator. Filmmaker. For more than five decades, Jean-Michel Cousteau has dedicated himself and his vast experience to communicate to people of all nations and generations his love and concern for our water planet. Since first being “thrown overboard” by his father, Jacques Cousteau, at the age of seven with newly invented SCUBA gear on his back, Jean-Michel has been exploring the ocean realm. Honoring his heritage, Jean-Michel founded Ocean Futures Society in 1999 to carry on this pioneering work. With Jean-Michel’s lifetime of achievements and exemplary public service in ocean conservation through education, awareness, and diplomacy, he was honored with the highest French civilian order of distinction, the Chevalier de la Légion D’Honneur, Knight of the Legion of Honor from the President of France, François Hollande in May 2016.
Sylvia A. Earle
Ocean Elder
President and Chairman, Mission Blue / The Sylvia Earle Alliance
Sylvia A. Earle is a National Geographic Society Explorer in Residence, Founder of Mission Blue, Founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research Inc. (DOER), Ocean Elder, Advisory Council Chair of the Harte Research Institute and former Chief Scientist of NOAA. She has been called Her Deepness by the New Yorker and the New York Times, Living Legend by the Library of Congress, and first Hero for the Planet by Time Magazine. She is an oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer with experience as a field research scientist, government official, and director for several corporate and nonprofit organizations.
His Excellency, Mr. Tommy Remengesau Jr.
President of the Republic of Palau
President Tommy Esang Remengesau, Jr., the ninth President of the Republic of Palau, is the first Palauan to be elected President four times. He was first elected President in 2000 and was re-elected in 2004. His election as President again in 2016 is a mark of his vitality and commitment to his promise to the People of Palau to work hard to “preserve the best, improve the rest” for Palau today and for generations to come. During his time in public office, Palau has been recognized for its financial stability and good governance. Remengesau has also amplified Palau’s international leadership and emphasized the importance of regional and global partnerships.
ʻAulani Wilhelm – Moderator
Senior Vice President for Oceans, Conservation International
ʻAulani Wilhelm has spent 20 years in natural resource management, primarily ocean conservation, leading the designation of what has become the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and World Heritage site, the largest protected area on Earth and first of its kind to honor indigenous relationships to the sea. Wilhelm is Senior Vice President for Oceans at Conservation International. Prior, she was Director of Ocean Initiatives for NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and a Social Innovation Fellow at Stanford University. She founded Island Water, a social venture to provide clean water and reduce plastic pollution on islands, and Big Ocean, a global network of large-scale marine protected areas. She is Chair of the IUCN-WCPA Large-Scale Marine Protected Area Task Force. She was privileged to be a crew member on Leg 27 of the Worldwide Voyage.
