Dozens of residents attended this year’s Green Gala, a fundraising event that honors environmental stewards while raising funds to support the Marianas Islands Nature Alliance.
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THE Mariana Islands Nature Alliance held its annual Green Gala fundraiser event on Friday, Sept. 20 at the Crowne Plaza Resort, to celebrate environmental protection and honor green advocates.
At each Green Gala, MINA announces the recipients of the Green Business of the Year, the Environmental Champion, and the Environmental Hero awards.
This year, the Green Business of the Year is Bwiibwii’s Professional Lawn Care Services, which MINA called an “exceptional example of a commitment to enhancing the beauty of our island.”
Bwiibwii’s Lawn Care Services was recognized for adopting Makaka Beach, the area between Grandvrio Resort and Crowne Plaza. The company is also a supporter of the international coastal cleanup.
MINA likewise recognized Bwiibwii’s practice of including family members and children during conservation projects and community beach cleanups.
Rita Iglecias, office manager for Tasi To Table, says their organization would like to expand the programs they undertake to teach island youth about sustainable fishing.
Tasi to Table is this year’s Environmental Hero Awardee.
The non-profit organization “engages the youth through teaching fishing methodologies, boating safety, protecting and safeguarding our environment and mental health,” according to its website.
At the MINA Green Gala, Tasi to Table was recognized for its “connection with the youth on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.” Tasi to Table’s programs “have successfully offered young people opportunities to learn leadership skills” and to “contribute to stewardship of our local ecosystems,” MINA said in a media release.
Tasi to Table office manager Rita Iglecias said the award came as a “complete surprise.”
“We’ve put in a lot of work and it’s really nice that the community gets to see what we’re doing these past few years,” she told Variety. “We’re still fairly new and it’s a great feeling to be recognized for all the things we try to do for our youth.”
Iglecias said Tasi to Table’s mission involves boating safety, caring for their catch, and “giving back to the community.”
“They go out, they fish and then whatever they have left they give back,” she added.
She said they would like to expand to middle schools, grade schools, and private schools.
There are around 120 students who participate in the organization’s workshops and fishing derbies, Iglecias added.
Randy Harper and Marilyn Swift — not in photo — are this year’s recipients of the MINA Environmental Champions Award.
The Environmental Champion Award went to Randy Harper and Marilyn Swift for their conservation of wildlife on Managaha and in their own home.
Harper and Swift were recognized for taking in “sick, injured or orphaned birds” and rehabilitating them before their eventual release into the wild.
Harper told Variety that he and Swift were in charge of caring for and conserving the wedge-tailed shearwaters on Managaha for 14 years. Shearwaters are seabirds that dive beneath the ocean’s surface to catch their food. According to Harper, Managaha is the only location in the CNMI where they are known to have a colony.
Harper said 14 years of research gave him and Swift the knowledge they needed to rehabilitate birds, which eventually led them to caring for sick birds in their home.
“Marilyn and I decided that we’d just turn our living space to bird rehab because you can’t use cages,” he said. “If you put them in a cage they ruin their feathers and they can’t take off, and our idea is to let them go.”
Harper said although he and Swift are archeologists by trade, after a Christmas Day bird count experience and interacting with Mike Flemming, a local investigator on a project site, they were able to appreciate the birds singing above their heads while they worked.
“It was the luckiest archaeologist you can imagine to be able to do that,” Harper said of his years conserving birds. “It was so phenomenal to be able to work with birds like that.”
MINA Executive Director Roberta Guerrero said the funds raised by the Green Gala support MINA’s operations, which in turn keep their community programs running.
She said the organization receives grant funding to support projects, but the grants are for specific purposes or activities.
“A lot of the grants don’t allow us to take care of general operation expenses and also to pay our stipends for our volunteer rangers. A really big part of what we do is our workforce development program,” she added.
