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Pacific News Briefs

SAMOAN PHOTOGRAPHER EXPLORES GENDER IDENTITY

An emerging Samoan's photography exhibition that explores multiple strands around gender identity and mythical storytelling hopes his exhibition will get to go abroad.

Pati Solomona Tyrell's work focusses on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Pacific communities in New Zealand.

An emerging Samoan's photography exhibition that explores multiple strands around gender identity and mythical storytelling hopes his exhibition will get to go abroad.

Pati Solomona Tyrell's work focusses on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Pacific communities in New Zealand.

His first solo photo exhibition, which is part of Auckland's Festival of Photography, at St Paul Street Gallery.

Using the Samoan concept of fagogo Mr Tyrell said his work told stories about his sexuality and highlights other relationships within his family.

"Fagogo is the Samoan term for fables, and I was looking at fagogo as a way to share stories through the artwork, specifically stories about the queer Pacific community here in Aotearoa and using fagogo as a way to share a story about creating counter narratives for our community to see themselves in the future." he said.

(Source: RNZI)

HOKULEA NAVIGATOR WITNESSES IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE

 An apprentice navigator on Hawaii's well known ocean sailing vaka, the Hokule'a, says climate change was evident on the journey around the world.

250 people served as crew members at different times on a journey that relied heavily on traditional navigation by the stars.

Jenni Ishii from the Polynesian Voyaging Society, says it is important to look after the earth's resources and to not take things for granted.

She said that a physical challenge was navigating changing and extreme weather patterns.

"You know once we left the Pacific, everything changed, and all the forecasts were changing with us. Because it was one of the hottest years with El nino and so that really changed our sail plan and it made us be aware that we can't just rely on the old data that this earth is changing and that it was really important to share that this world is changing and that we really have to pay attention now," said Jenni Ishii.

Hawaii put on a big celebration to welcome the return of the Hōkūle'a over the weekend.

(Source: RNZI)

PACFISHID, A NEW APP FOR LEARNING HOW TO IDENTIFY COMMON COASTAL FISH IN THE PACIFIC

The Pacific Community (SPC) has just released PacFishID, a new mobile application for learning how to recognise Pacific marine fish species. Just like Tails, a catch-data collection application launched by SPC last year, this app uses technology to improve resource management.

The first dataset available on PacFishID is based on SPC’s recently published Identification guide to the common coastal food fishes of the Pacific Islands region. This guide was initially produced to facilitate the work of fisheries officers during market and landing surveys. But the number of copies downloaded since its publication shows that it has reached a far wider audience.

The fun-to-use app works offline once the data and pictures have been downloaded and contains detailed information on marine species classified by family.

Each fact sheet shows a species’ identification keys, maximum size and the Pacific countries or territories where its presence or absence is either scientifically confirmed or probable.

Users can test their fish-name knowledge with the quiz function’s progressive multiple-choice test that gets harder as the number of right answers increases.

The app is available at:

Apple Store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pacfishid/id1238553695?mt=8

Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=spc.pacfishid&hl=en

and Windows Store https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/pacfishid/9nvg3dkqj0th

It is currently available in English only, but a French version is in the making.

The app will be upgraded with more datasets including offshore and aquarium fish, invertebrates and sea turtles.

(Source: RNZI)