This week’s Hawaii Conservation Conference, hosted by the Hawaii Conservation Alliance (HCA) focuses on issues facing both Hawaii and Oceania’s ecosystems and how those issues interact with the region’s unique cultural contexts.

The theme of the event–Pacific Ecosystem Management and Restoration: Applying Traditional and Western Knowledge Systems–means that the presentations will elucidate the interaction between knowledge systems as they pertain to conservation and ecosystem management. Subjects of interest range from detailed ecological research projects to environmental education to traditional ecological and cultural practices.

“This year, the focus… is about bridging knowledge systems and ecosystem management specifically within the Pacific Island region,” says Deanna Spooner, former executive director of the HCA and current coordinator of the Pacific Islands Climate Change Cooperative. “We want to address the question of, ‘How do we move forward as a community in conserving, managing and restoring our native ecosystems using different knowledge systems?’”

Although such a theme has remained a prominent concern of the HCA for years now, this year will mark the first time the conference is dedicated to discussing culturally specific approaches to ecosystem management and conservation.

“Over the past decade…we’ve seen a shift from away from what some would say is a more Western approach–and by that I mean an approach that is founded more on laboratory science and experimentation in the lab or experimentation through computer modeling but then validated out in the field–toward a more integrated approach, and this has happened in part because of a greater understanding that science is practiced by every culture,” says Spooner. “Every culture has traditional scientific approaches to the way that it manages its resources. And most of the approaches are based on the same kind of premise that science consists of observing the world around you and then validating those observations over time. So we’ve seen a growing acceptance that there are different ways of approaching science.”

Keynote speakers–which include Aroha Te Pareake Mead, chairwoman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy and associate dean of Maori Research at the University of Wellington, New Zealand; and Togiola T.A. Tulafono, governor of American Samoa–will address specific topics relating to those different approaches.

“We’re seeing this happen more and more in Hawaii and the Pacific Islands: A variety of knowledge systems are having equal stature in approaches to management and recreation of forested and fresh water and marine ecosystems,” says Spooner.

HCA will also be holding a free open house for the public. The open house will provide a chance for the community to enjoy music and dance performances, attend the community sustainability market, view conservation posters and art exhibits and hear from local ecology specialists, including Jack Jeffrey, an award-winning wildlife photographer and biologist.

2010 Hawaii Conservation Conference, Hawaii Convention Center, Wed–Fri, 8/4–8/6, [hawaiiconservation.org]