20th Anniversary of the legal protection of the world’s largest sacred marine natural area

It has been 20 years since Papahānaumokuākea was designated as a US National Marine Monument (equivalent to a comprehensive nature reserve) and 10 years since the expansion that made it the largest protected marine natural space in the world, with an area of ​​more than 1.5 million km². This immense natural space is sacred to the indigenous Hawaiians, as revealed by the place name that unites the name of the Mother Goddess who gave birth to the islands, Papahānaumoku, with the name of the Celestial Father, Wākea. As a group of islands, islets, atolls and coral reefs, it has a profound cosmological and spiritual significance for the indigenous Hawaiian culture, as an ancestral cradle, embodying the traditional concept of kinship between people and the natural world, where life originated and where souls return after death. In 2010, UNESCO registered it as a Mixed, natural and cultural World Heritage Site.