By Andrew Roberto
Variety News Staff
PART of the mission of the Mariana Islands Nature Alliance is to help keep the environment clean, but the Saipan-based nonprofit organization is also dedicated to making sure that the CNMI always has a local workforce of people dedicated to natural resources conservation.
Marianas Variety learned from speaking with MINA’s programmatic staff—Daniel Ogumoro, Andrea Roberto, Mary Urena, and David Benavente—that early exposure to the sciences got each of them started in their journey toward environmentalism.
In the case of Ogumoro, Roberto, and Urena, MINA programs are a direct reason why they are in environmental management.
Ogumoro began volunteering with MINA in 2015, in the weeks after Super Typhoon Soudelor. Since then, he’s been involved with the organization for a decade now. He transitioned his volunteerism into being a Tasi Watch Ranger, before recently becoming a project support specialist.
According to Ogumoro, the day when he volunteered with MINA had a huge impact on his career.
“At the time, I was going to school for culinary [arts] and I had no interest, no background, no experience in college education in terms of environmental science or anything about conservation,” he told Marianas Variety. “It wasn’t until the first year of working with MINA that I grew an appreciation for our natural environment.”
Through the Tasi Watch Rangers program, Ogumoro became certified in SCUBA diving and has contributed to land-based cleanups and school and community outreach.
He calls the Tasi Watch Rangers program a “really great launchpad” for anyone to get into natural resources fields.
“[Participants] get to expand their capacity in all aspects [of ecology],” he said. “It’s good for networking. It’s good for experience.”
Like Ogumoro, Roberto began her experience with MINA as a Tasi Watch Ranger.
She says she always had a “spark” for environmental sciences, which only deepened with her involvement with MINA.
“I think I kind of took inspiration from the people around me,” Roberto said. “I always had great science teachers or a few family members who were interested in our environment. It definitely solidified it for me through the Tasi Watch program. I learned a lot. I met a lot of people, and I got to try different areas in the conservation field.”
Her involvement was also tied to typhoon recovery, as she recalls surveying the kind of, and types of, debris left on Saipan after Super Typhoon Yutu in 2018.
Roberto believes the program can be beneficial even if a participant wants to work outside of the natural resources field.
“I think it’s right for everybody, even if you have just a little bit of interest in the environmental field,” she said. “I would definitely say, ‘Give it a shot.’ Try it out and you’ll realize there’s not just one type of conservation work; there’s so many types of fields.”
In her current role as a project support and outreach coordinator, she does help with cleanups and the like, but she is also in front of the community, educating about the environment.
Mary Urena’s full circle moment with MINA began with her involvement in its Schools for Environmental Conservation program. She was in an environmental club in high school and eventually began volunteering with MINA to help the middle school students in Schools for Environmental Conservation.
Urena said the program introduces its participants to environmental issues in the CNMI related to plastics pollution. It also introduces them to the professionals who work in natural resources management.
She said the program helped her realize she has a passion for the environment.
“As a senior, I was thinking, ‘What do I want to pursue for my degree?’ and really sitting down I thought, ‘Wait, I’ve been doing environmental work. Maybe I should pursue environmental science,’” she said.
Today, as one of the organization’s project managers, she credits MINA with being one of many influences that helped her stay in conservation.
“These things were stepping stones leading to where I’m at today,” she said. “I networked with wonderful people here who were mentors, showing me what it’s like in conservation work. I decided to pursue a bachelor’s in environmental science, went to Hawaii for school, learned more there and wanted to come back to contribute to our island community.”
Like his co-workers, Benavente’s formative experience in his youth helped set him up for a career in environmental conservation. He is a program manager at MINA and a private environmental consultant. At one time, he served as a lead biologist for Coastal Resources Management.
Benavente says an internship at a natural resources agency on island introduced him to a professional field he had never considered before.
“I was like, ‘Man these people get paid to go swimming, be in the water,’ things that I love to do, so it stayed in the back of my mind,” he said. “I was like, all right, I’m going to get a degree in something that will help me get in this field so I can spend my life doing what I love.”
The benefit of having a workforce of local residents in conservation is that they are familiar with how the CNMI runs itself, he said.
“We probably have a better understanding of our own resources and we’re on the ground,” he said. “I see people come here from other places and they get all these projects and they call the local offices and ask questions of how they should proceed. You could circumvent that whole process by having someone from here that can do all the work and they have the local knowledge to get it done. We operate differently here than in California or other places. I really think it’s important to have our residents doing the work and benefiting from it.”
Benavente says he looks forward to ensuring that the youth of the CNMI get opportunities to do the science and conservation that he and his co-workers experience.
“I realized [mentoring] was a calling for me,” he said. “I like working with the rangers and training and mentoring and giving back. Creating that space for locals to be able to get jobs in this career to me is really important. I see it as community service to be there for the next generation and continue to build capacity so we can be self-reliant.”
