NMC joins Japan pre-confab for Pacific island nations

The Northern Marianas College joined other universities and colleges across the Pacific in a conference held in two cities in Japan last week.

NMC president Tony V. Deleon Guerrero said the CNMI’s lone tertiary institution joined other universities and colleges in the Pacific in the first International Workshop for the Islands: Islands of the World IX Okinawa Preconference held at the University of Ryukyu Center for Asian-Pacific Island Studies in the cities of Okinawa and Miyako.

The workshops adopted different themes in both sessions. The Okinawa workshop had the theme “Toward Global Networking and Collaboration of Island Societies” while the Miyako workshop had “Biodiversity and Livelihood of the Islanders.”

Guerrero said the workshop had 100 percent attendance from the Pacific region. University of Hawaii, University of New South Wales in Australia, and other universities and colleges in Fiji, Republic of Palau, Marshall Islands, and Federated States of Micronesia joined Guerrero in the workshop in Okinawa.

He was given a chance to speak in front of the large audience; his piece was entitled “Building Regional Tourism Capacity Through Inter-Institutional Relationships.”

Guerrero said the workshop intended to focus on the same theme, which is promoting and strengthening institutional and cooperative relationship among the islands in the Pacific. In his speech, Guerrero said the CNMI and its neighboring small island nations in Micronesia are challenged by rapidly and constantly changing economic conditions, an increasingly competitive global economy, technological advances, social influences, and environmental factors.

“These changes are impacting every corner of our Asia-Pacific region and our global community as a whole,” he said.

Guerrero said it was hoped that through the conference, the institutions would collectively plant the seeds of collaboration, cultivate cooperative partnerships, and enhance the performance of people and organizations in the local and regional communities.

He also said the workshop aimed to collectively improve the competitive advantages of island nation in the Pacific by assessing the effectiveness of their human resource development programs.

The first conference of the International Small Island Studies Association was held in 1994, which was held in conjunction with “Islands of the World VI.”

The first Okinawa conference garnered worldwide attention, leading to creation of various island studies organizations, including the Japan Society of Island Studies in 1998. The University of the Ryukyu is the only major academic institution to pursue island-related education and research and has for many years taken advantage of its unique geographical location. Last year’s conference was held on Kinmen Island in Taiwan.

According to the organizing committee the main objectives of the pre-conferences are to identify the issues and problems of sustainability efforts in island societies; its fragile and diminishing resources, focusing on the small South Pacific islands; and finding ways to sustain the islands’ biodiversity and lifestyles through collaborative and sustainable efforts among island societies.