Majority of the members of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation support the Micronesian Islands Nature Alliance\u2019s request for assistance last Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Though a handful of delegation members weren\u2019t present at Wednesday\u2019s session, at least more than half attended the MINA presentation, said delegation chair Rep. John Paul Sablan (R-Saipan).<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody supports environmental cleanups, beautifications, and [damage] preventions, so this is a given; everyone is concerned for our environment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
MINA, led by board chair Frances Castro, said it needs $150,000 to continue operations, which mostly consist of doing beach cleanups and advocating for the cleanliness of the environment.<\/p>\n
They also asked the delegation for a $2-million endowment in order to participate in the Micronesia Challenge\u2014a commitment signed back in 2006 by the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Guam, and the CNMI to preserve their natural resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs chairman right now, most likely [the delegation] would appropriate the $150,000. More than half of the members were here [and they] were offering their support,\u201d said Sablan.<\/p>\n
As for the Micronesia Challenge, Sablan believes that that is more of a \u201cCommonwealth-wide\u201d effort.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026I feel that it is not only the Saipan and Northern Islands\u2019 obligation, but also Tinian and Rota\u2019s, so we need to tackle the $2 million as a Commonwealth body in the Legislature,\u201d he said, adding that Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has already initiated discussions. Sablan did not specify who Torres was in discussion with.<\/p>\n
In a separate interview, Castro said that MINA\u2019s funding has been diminished by several federal cuts. <\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026MINA does not really benefit from [the funding], it\u2019s the community and the environment. As we all know, the environment is really our economy,\u201d she said, adding that tourists are attracted to coral reefs and beaches.<\/p>\n
The four-man crew of MINA, two of which are rangers, would be supported by the $150,000 appropriation, said Castro. <\/p>\n
She added that it would also go to the purchasing of equipment for the operations of MINA, such as plastic bags for beach cleanups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Majority of the members of the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation support the Micronesian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7238,554,541,2738],"class_list":["post-273913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-micronesia-challenge","tag-mina","tag-northern-islands","tag-snild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}