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This paper explores traditional Yapese fishing techniques, especially the tidal stone-wall fish weirs, called aech. These fish weirs provide a classic example of a traditional sustainable fishing practice that promotes food sustainability. To study Yapese environmental philosophy is to examine Yapese sustainable food practices. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how Yapese maintain balance and harmony in acquiring their major staple, fish. The paper extracts a food-sustainability virtue ethics from Yapese traditional ecological knowledge, fishing practices, and agroforestry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specimens of an extremely long, heteropolar nitzschioid diatom from mud scraped from mangrove pneumorrhizae on two Micronesian islands were identified as a new species of Gomphotheca. This genus contains two other, rarely seen species, only one of which has been observed with SEM. Our SEM images showed that G. marciae n. sp. is structurally similar to G. sinensis, with very long, heteropolar, cuneate cells with a central keel and internal costate fibulae, and thick, chambered copulae with contrasting external and internal pore patterns. However, the raphe path of G. marciae lacks a central break, conopea are present along each side of the keel, the fibula height is different, pseudosepta are present at both poles, while valve cross section and stria density also differ. We also report the presence of single-walled pleurae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The islands of the western Pacific have increasingly been portrayed by policymakers, military strategists, journalists, and scholars as places caught between a rising China and traditional powers such as the United States and their allies. In this article, however, we aim to challenge the geopolitical view of islands as 'falling' into the sphere of influence of one power or another. Specifically, we use an approach informed by assemblage theory to highlight the ways that islands in the Pacific simultaneously engage with multiple powers and their associated political, economic, and social influences. To ground our argument, we discuss two 'great power' schemes that aim to bring islands in the region into specific relational configurations: U.S. 'littoral defense lines' and China's Belt Road Initiative. We also include a brief case study of Chinese tourism investment in Yap Island (Wa'ab) in the Federated States of Micronesia (which is a state in 'free association' with the U.S.). Through these examples, we show how influence in the island Pacific is not a zero-sum game between foreign powers vying for hegemony. Instead, from an island perspective, residents and policymakers are attempting to weave together and navigate multiple foreign influences in ways that frustrate colonial and neocolonial logics of international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacific Islanders suffer from chronic diseases attributed largely to an over-consumption of processed foods. As a response, the CDC-funded Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) Go Local Project in Yap, Federated States of Micronesia (population: 12,000) sought to create a food intervention that would not only increase access to fresh, local foods, but benefit food vendors as well for a sustainable effect. For this program, a number of markets were chosen for selling any fresh local produce, meat, and catch. These markets agreed to allow purchasers of healthy local food of a minimum amount to be entered into a monthly raffle. Monthly winners received fresh food gift certificates while participating markets received a gift upon certificate redemption. REACH and partners distributed healthy island recipes and nutrition information at these partner markets. Formative evaluation examined customer and vendor satisfaction through interviews and surveys, and tracking of healthy food purchases and customer demographics were garnered via raffle information. Brief interviews with customers and vendors revealed favorable reactions to the Go Local Project. People enjoyed winning and vendors found satisfaction in promoting health through their businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Recent theoretical perspectives focusing on interregional interaction can help explain the evolution of western Micronesian societies. Data from ethnohistoric accounts, oral traditions, and more recently, archaeological investigations, document the interactions between culturally and linguistically distinct island groups in the northwest tropical Pacific. Here, I look at the nature and emergence of these interaction networks between the islands of Yap and Palau in the Western Caroline Islands of Micronesia and the implications they had for transforming indigenous lifeways, exchange systems, and sociopolitics. In particular, I discuss a major facet of these interaction spheres—the Yapese quarrying of their famous stone “money” disks in the Palauan archipelago. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines Micronesian examples of megalithic transport, focusing particularly on the ocean transport of the famous stone money disks quarried in Palau by Yapese Islanders and moved back to Yap prior to European contact. Using a combination of climatic, oceanographic, ethnohistorical, ethnographic, and archaeological data, we examine the maritime technologies that the Yapese could have used to transport stone money across several hundred kilometres of open-ocean and offer hypotheses to show how this might have been accomplished using bamboo rafts, canoes and rafts towed by fishing canoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pacific Islanders suffer from chronic diseases attributed largely to an overconsumption of processed foods. As a response, the CDC-funded Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) Go Local Project in Yap, Federated States of Micronesia (population: 12,000) sought to create a food intervention that would not only increase access to fresh, local foods, but benefit food vendors as well for a sustainable effect. For this program, a number of markets were chosen for selling any fresh local produce, meat, and catch. These markets agreed to allow purchasers of healthy local food of a minimum amount to be entered into a monthly raffle. Monthly winners received fresh food gift certificates while participating markets received a gift upon certificate redemption. REACH and partners distributed healthy island recipes and nutrition information at these partner markets. Formative evaluation examined customer and vendor satisfaction through interviews and surveys, and tracking of healthy food purchases and customer demographics were garnered via raffle information. Brief interviews with customers and vendors revealed favorable reactions to the Go Local Project. People enjoyed winning and vendors found satisfaction in promoting health through their businesses., (©Copyright 2020 by University Health Partners of Hawai‘i (UHP Hawai‘i).)

Tobacco use is high among Pacific Islanders in general and little tobacco research has been done in Yap, Micronesia. This study aimed to explore perceptions of tobacco use coupled with chewing of betel (areca) nut among adults in Yap using self-administered questionnaires based on the health belief model. A Likert scale (ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree or very unlikely to very likely) was used to measure susceptibility, severity, benefits, barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy among individuals aged 18 and older. Older adults felt quitting tobacco or betel nut use would be significantly more difficult because of social reasons and withdrawal problems. Most participants felt susceptible to tobacco-related diseases. These findings possibly indicate a receptive attitude toward any future tobacco use prevention and intervention program. Older Yapese population would need to be especially targeted. Health promotion programs should target smoking behaviors and risk reduction., (© The Author(s) 2015 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.)

The Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus (Aedes), similar to other arboviruses, first identified in Uganda in 1947. Few human cases were reported until 2007, when a Zika outbreak occurred in Yap, Micronesia, even though ZIKV activity had been reported in Africa and in Asia through virological surveillance and entomological studies. French Polynesia has recorded a large outbreak since October 2013. A great number of cases and some with neurological and autoimmune complications have been reported in a context of concurrent circulation of dengue viruses. The clinical presentation is a "dengue-like syndrome". Until the epidemic in French Polynesia, no severe ZIKV disease had been described so far. The diagnosis is confirmed by viral genome detection by genomic amplification (RT- PCR) and viral isolation. These two large outbreaks occurred in a previously unaffected area in less than a decade. They should raise awareness as to the potential for ZIKV to spread especially since this emergent disease is not well known and that some questions remain on potential reservoirs and transmission modes as well as on clinical presentations and complications. ZIKV has the potential to spread to new areas where the Aedes mosquito vector is present and could be a risk for Southern Europe. Strategies for the prevention and control of ZIKV disease should include the use of insect repellent and mosquito vector eradication., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)