On 15-21 April, I went to Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA, to participate in the 7th International Conference on Environmental Future: Humans and Island Environments, with about 200 participants from all over the world. It was a chance to catch up with old friends from the Pacific and other island areas, and to make new ones. One other participant was Tara Palembe, a member of our International Environment Forum and island specialist who has been working on Saint Helena and most recently in the Falkland Islands, so we had never met. Another participant from Trinidad & Tobago was a former student of mine in environmental diplomacy. The meeting was held at the East-West Center on the University of Hawai'i campus, where I had been a fellow many years ago.

One day was devoted to field excursions to the botanical garden up on a mountainside, to an extension center devoted to traditional Hawai'ian culture, and in a catamaran from Waikiki out beyond the reef and around Diamondhead. There was also an evening banquet at the Bishop Museum.

I presented my keynote paper previously commissioned for the conference on Island Conservation Issues in International Conventions and Agreements published in Environmental Conservation 44(3):267-285, September 2017, theme issue on Humans and Island Environments. doi:10.1017/S0376892917000224. In comments on my paper, one person whom I had mentored years ago at the Secretariat of the Pacific Environment Programme said that I was "an islander by heart, an islander by nature and indeed an islander for nature". Two films were projected, one on the experience of a village in Vanuatu with climate change, the other the film of a poetic dance performance at the Bergen International Festival called "Moana: The Rising of the Sea", reflecting the feelings of those losing their land, their country and their culture as the sea level rises.

Honolulu Botanical Garden

We spent a morning climbing trails in the Honolulu Botanical Garden to enjoy decorative and economically useful plants from around the world.

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Lush tropical vegetation in the botanical garden

botanical garden

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IEF member Tara Palembe (center); YongLong Lu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Ilan Kelman (right); Gudrun Petursdottir (Iceland, second from left)

Lower on the mountain, a streamside agricultural extension center has restored traditional Hawai'ian agriculture with irrigation works and plots of taro.

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Extension center for traditional Hawai'ian agriculture and water management

ICEF Conference

The conference was held at the East-West Center, with both plenary and parallel sessions. I gave the keynote in the session on Island Conservation Issues in International Conventions and Agreements, followed by a number of other papers.

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Session rooms; the closing panel

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My former student, Stacey-Ann Robinson, presenting; the East-West Center conference building

Honolulu

Waikiki Beach

We were taken down to Waikiki Beach, the tourist center of Honolulu, to board a catamaran for a trip outside the reef and along the coast past Diamond Head, before returning to the beach.

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Waikiki Beach and its hotels; the catamaran

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Views of Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach

Bishop Museum

The conference dinner was held in the garden of the Bishop Museum, after which we were able to visit the museum with its wonderful collections of Hawai'ian history and Pacific Island cultures.

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Bishop Museum with beautifully-restored displays