Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The StarKist cannery in American Samoa kicked off its operations for 2026 after a two-week pause in December for its annual holidays. The cannery is expected to produce 450 M/T per day, another 10 M/T more compared to last year’s daily production.

The plant witnessed “one of its highest worker turnouts” when production began last week, reported news site Talanei. A majority of the workforce, as usual, arrived from neighboring Samoa.

A spokesperson for the company said that currently, StarKist has about 1,700 workers, which would reach 2,000 by the end of this week.

Last month, Injoo Ha, President of the cannery, met with Samoa’s Prime Minister Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt, to talk about recruiting at least 300 more workers from the neighboring island nation. StarKist also stated that it has taken an initiative to build two new housing facilities for the guest workers.

IMPACTS OF SEABED BIODIVERSITY ON DEEP SEA MINING

After years of activist alarm that impacts over deep sea mining would spread thousands of kilometers beyond the mine site, a study cited by The Metals Company shows something far more encouraging: biodiversity impacts are confined to the directly mined area, with no significant change in plume-affected zones. A few key facts that may not make the headlines:

- A 37% drop in density in the tracks means that fewer individuals were counted immediately after disturbance by our collector vehicle. This was lower than expected and is a positive indication that impacts are contained to only the directly mined areas.

- A 32% drop in species richness immediately following mining is also to be expected. There will likely be recolonization of the mined areas over time, increasing species richness as we have observed with other size classes of sedimentary benthic biota.

Bottom line: just 2 months after test mining, the data confirm impacts are manageable. It is also likely that the community has seen recovery in the two years since this data was collected.

THE NATIONAL CIVICS BEE 2026 COMPETITION

As the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, the National Civics Bee, held by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, is a nationwide student competition being held in 2026 that is elevating the importance of civics education and offering students a chance to win their state prize, and contend for the national.

With declining civic education nationwide, this event provides a timely, solutions-oriented story for your audience tied directly to America’s founding principles and its future.
Students in grades 6, 7, and 8 across American Samoa are now invited to apply (https://my.reviewr.com/NationalCivicsBee/ site/NationalCivicsBee2026 utm_source=wordpress&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=tctncb26) for the civics bee with applications due February 3rd. Home schooled students
 are also invited to compete.

Those interested in applying must submit a short
 essay discussing an issue of concern to them in their community and how they
 would address it. The winner will receive $1,000 and has the chance to
 advance to the national bee, where finalists can compete for up to $100,000.

OFU AND OLOSEGA COMMUNITY HEALTH CLINIC UPDATE

A local family from Ofu, Manu‘a has formally offered a parcel of land located next to the Ofu EOB as a potential site for the Ofu and Olosega Community Health Clinic. This offer was presented to the Governor last week, along with the reasons for placing the clinic at that location.

The proposal is now under review by the Governor, together with the Department of Health and its leadership team, who will determine the next steps.

At this time, there is no public update on the position of the Ta‘auau family of Vaoto, Ofu, whose land currently holds the clinic lease near the Ofu Airport runway, nor is there any confirmed update regarding the proposed Olosega village site or landowner.