Efforts to rename the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument are underway after an advisory assessment found that the naming process should include input from Indigenous Pacific Islanders.
The assessment, released last week from the Udall Foundation's John S. McCain III National Center for Environmental Conflict Resolution, took officials nine months to gather input for renaming the region.
More than 65 individuals from over 25 organizations and 16 states, nations, republics, commonwealths, territories and countries have shared their feedback.
Most participants felt the renaming process should include and empower diverse voices, especially those of Indigenous communities with connections to the islands and ocean areas in and adjacent to the monument.
"We're trying to look at what would be an appropriate way to approach finding a name that is going to be reflective of not just a place to go give it life again, we want to be able to be very supportive, and we want to be able to be inclusive," said Solomon Pili Kahoʻohalahala, vice chair of the Pacific Remote Islands Coalition.
The Pacific Remote Islands Coalition is a group of cultural practitioners, elders, fishers, educators, nonprofits, community groups, scientists and others who aim to expand protections for the islands and their surrounding waters.
"We want to be able to be sensitive to the multiple cultures of people that have had a history on these islands," Kahoʻohalahala continued.
The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is home to the largest collection of tropical islands and coral atolls: Howland, Baker, Jarvis Islands, Johnston, Wake and Palmyra Atolls, and Kingman Reef.
Although the islands have no permanent residents, Pacific Islanders are said to have ancestry to the Pacific Remote Islands between 1935 and 1942.
The region is nearly 500,000 square miles, nearly five times the size of all U.S. National Parks combined and nearly twice the size of Texas. The area is currently managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense.
The Pacific Remote Islands Coalition initially requested President Joe Biden to consider renaming the Monument.
Kahoʻohalahala said stakeholders are still working on a name, whether in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi or another Pacific Island language.
To read the full report, click here.
