What if marine conservation began not with another boundary on a map, but with a question: who has lived with this ocean, and what do they already know?
In this new episode of Ocean Collaborations, Jan Maisenbacher speaks with Ihirau Piton, a 23-year-old Tahitian anthropology student and Pacific youth leader. His starting point is disarmingly clear: “Protecting the ocean cannot come without protecting the people.”
Ihirau takes us inside Tiaki Moana, a 2025 gathering that brought young people from across Oceania to French Polynesia to explore conservation beyond the usual marine protected area model. The conversations happened in an amphitheatre, on the beach, and long after the formal programme ended. The point was not only to exchange ideas, but to rebuild relationships across an ocean that connects communities often kept apart.
You’ll hear about rāhui: a Polynesian practice of temporarily restricting the use of a resource so it can recover. It is not a conservation “toolkit” to copy and paste. It belongs to a living cultural context -and raises a bigger question for all of us working in ocean regeneration: can policies succeed when they treat local people as an afterthought?
This is also an honest conversation about deep-sea mining, industrial fishing, colonial legacies, tourism, and the uneasy gap between protecting nature in principle and making a living in practice.
For anyone trying to build collaboration that is courageous, locally grounded and more than blue blah blah, this episode offers a needed reset.
Listen now - and stay with the question Ihirau leaves us with: what changes when we understand the ocean not as a place apart, but as part of who we are?
This is the third episode resulting from the media partnership with “One Ocean Science Congress” which happened in Nice 2025. Here are the other two episodes:#27 Alice Guittard: Advancing a Sustainable Blue Economy in the Black Sea
#24 Jorge Ramirez: Participatory Ocean Science on GalapagosYou are managing an ocean conference? Looking for a fitting media partner? Get in touch & let’s collaborate! info@janmaisenbacher.com
Linklist:
* Ihirau Piton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ihirau-piton-83827a285/
* Blue Cradle Projectpage: https://bluecradle.org/tiaki-moana
* Tiaki Moana Report: https://bluecradle.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Tiaki-Moana-Report.pdf
* Video Teaser (youtube): Guardians of the Ocean (watch it on Substack):
* Longer cinema documentary: (n.a. currently)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit janmaisenbacher.substack.com
