'A gift to the world'

Two MSU professors help develop idea to make Micronesian islands first “world park”

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Across the globe in the Pacific Ocean lies a collection of 607 tropical islands unknown to most of the world’s travelers.

The islands make up the four states of Micronesia, which some have called one of the “last best places” on Earth — a place where biodiversity still is preserved and the lifestyle of its roughly 107,000 people is simpler.

Under a plan facilitated by two MSU professors, Micronesia could become the first “world park” — a new concept for a promise to conserve the land and protect its culture. About 7,200 miles away from East Lansing, the park would become a sustainable tourism destination.

“As we were sort of tossing the idea around … what it seemed to be was, in a way, a gift to the world and a gift to the Micronesians themselves,” said Richard Paulsen, a professor in the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies, or CARRS, who is serving in an advisory role for planning.

“If they’re going to be such strong stewards as to maintain their culture and their natural environment and resources as well as give a very positive future to their children, it is a gift to them and by sustaining that environment, the natural environment, it’s a gift to the world. These places are eroding quickly as well as their culture — those are eroding probably faster.”

The people of Micronesia are striving for self-sufficiency and a higher quality of life after 300 years of colonization, Paulsen said. Tourism is one of the answers they’ve looked at as a possibility for economic development, he said.

The nation would become a “living park,” in which the people would continue living and working in the preserved area.

The idea of a world park is a new one. There currently is no such thing, said Gail Vander Stoep, a CARRS professor and the concept’s other MSU adviser.

“There are a lot of ways that people in their own minds may try to manipulate and interpret it and try and make it match with things that they know, but frankly there is no such a thing and that’s why it’s so sticky,” Vander Stoep said. “Everyone wants to know, ‘What is this thing?’ Well, this thing isn’t a thing yet.”

A first

The idea of a world park came in 2001 from Howard Rice, an MSU alumnus and instructor in the College of Micronesia-Federated States of Micronesia, or COM-FSM, as a solution to the lack of job opportunities, fragile environments, loss of culture and hopelessness of the nation’s youth.

“The world park concept is not a silver bullet that will fix everything,” Rice said in an e-mail. “There is, in reality, no such thing. Instead, it is the best development option under consideration by officials here.”

In 2004, Rice was asked to seek independent assessment of the idea. He turned to Paulsen, remembering the mission of the MSU CARRS and believing the university could be fit to serve in an advisory role.
Paulsen received an e-mail from Rice, who he had met years earlier as a friend of a friend, seeking assessment of the idea.

“I said, ‘You know, this is intriguing, we’d like to talk about more about it, it sounds very interesting,’” Paulsen said. “The basic concept is a nation becomes a park.”

The two continued exchanging e-mails. Soon after, Paulsen and Vander Stoep took the lead in the advisory role, which still is in the proposal stage. The two professors now are working with the governor of Pohnpei, one of Micronesia’s four states, alongside Rice and the COM-FSM.

“What a fit (the relationship) has turned out to be,” Rice said in the e-mail. “Without MSU, I fear the world park initiative would not be where it is today, a bona fide option for bettering the lives of FSM citizens.”

Moving forward

The concept seems simple at surface level, Paulsen said. But it’s a complex situation.

Among considerations Paulsen and Vander Stoep are discussing with the people in Micronesia are resource and cultural conservation and economic development.

They are looking at the relationships between health care, education, business and the environment and how each relates to tourism, Paulsen said.The park is a possible way to create a better future, Rice said.

“Micronesians are a strong, resilient people and wish for a better future based on inviting the global traveling community to come and participate in this unique direction forward, to come and visit on Micronesian terms, to come and be a part of the process of saving and enhancing one of the last best places on earth,” he said in the e-mail.

The challenge is to simultaneously take the nation into the modern world while maintaining their autonomy, pride and identity, Vander Stoep said.

But the main idea is to ensure the people of Micronesia accept and embrace the park, Paulsen and Vander Stoep said. The two stress they have no intention of imposing a plan on the Micronesians. They have been supported all the way to the top in remaining engaged and MSU is in it for the long haul, as long as the people of Micronesia want them to be engaged, Paulsen said.

“In the end, it has to be owned by the people in Micronesia,” Paulsen said. “They’re the ones that are going to live the plan if they choose to do so, so they have to be the owners of it. It can’t be the experts coming in saying, ‘Here’s the plan. If you do this you’ll be great. Let us know how it goes’ and leaving.”

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