“Only fish for my family and me. We don’t have enough time to get the fish and ship to Koror, we’re too far.” -Alfred
“Since when the weather is no good, the boat from Kayangel cannot come over sometimes, so we starve, we don’t have anything to eat. So, we eat tapioca and oil and salt. Put the salt and put the small oil, and then you get the tapioca and you dip and then you eat it.” - Lazarus
“The fish are smaller and getting less because too many boats, not like before [when there were] only a few boats. We have to go out only fishing by the bait and line, but now it is too many fishermen.” -Alfred
“Too much trash, right?”
“They’re all coming from the ocean, so we don’t know what to do with it. They’re all coming from outside.”
“We never clean this island.”
“Well, sometimes when you collect plastic there's made in Philippines, made in…Malaysia. Even a perfume bottle…all kinds of stuff.” - Lazarus and Renegal
“I think the fish will come back if we take care of the corals. We take care of the corals, or maybe make it more corals, and then I think the fish will come back.” -Jordan
“We have to talk about it [climate change] with most of the people who live in Koror. We need to talk about it with government agencies and try to rebuild our coral to come back again.” -Alfred
“Now the school, they start teaching people about the Palau traditional how to do – how they make baskets, how they make spear, how they…I think Ibobang is the one of them where they make spears, baskets, whatever they do.”
“Other schools too, but not much, not like Ibobang high school. Ibobang high school is a Palauan high school so they do all the traditional. They learn even our language. We have, most of our language we don’t use now.” – Lazarus and Renegal
“You can be a farmer, you can be a fisherman, you can be a carpenter, you can be a engineer, also like a marine resource they do. We learn a lot. I learn a lot. I can be a farmer, I can be a construction, I can be a fisherman. At school I learn a lot, I go one by one.” - Lazarus
“After the typhoon, it was really hard because it went straight to the land. And so our house – it just was torn down. So we helped each other to build one and one just like that. And we find the funding – I mean the state funding and by other groups – Surangel – came to help us rebuild the houses.” -Bob
“I wish no more typhoon to attack our island.” -Alfred
“We do the surveillance; we have a management plan to follow. We help community with whatever they need. We have rules and regulation about fishing illegal, or something, poachers. We do that. We just do our job. You know, this one is from the leaders, who plan these rules and regulation, and then, you know, we try to save more fish and try to protect them too. It's for us. For us.” -Bob
“The way I see it now, it's good. Because, you know, not like…not like before, we don't close the area, it's open. So, everybody, they go fishing, whatever they get. And then there's no size of the fish. So even small, even big they get. And what you do, if keep on doing it and doing it, soon no more. Cause you get the big one, you get the small one, sure no more. And this, law they do it now, the way I see because now in the conservation [Marine Protected Area], I've been working there for a long time and since when I started working there very few fish. So when they make a conservation, for about years and years and the time when I went there it's everything change. Clams are getting big, fish are getting big, lobsters are more bigger than I never seen before.” -Lazarus
“So the bus will pick them up at the hotel and bring them to the end of Babeldaob. Then they’re over there. They ride around on the boat, they go to Ebiil, Ebiil Channel, they're snorkeling. Then after snorkeling, they do the line fishing. And then when they get the fish, they come to my island, they barbecue and then they eat the fish. And then after that, they come here. So when they come here, that's why I always have bat, bananas. Because they come here, they see the bats, they eat banana.” -Lazarus
“Since when I was young, my father, every time when we go fishing, he always telling me about oceans. Try to get what you need. Don't harvest much because if you harvesting much, next time when you come, there will be few. So just get what you need. If you need two fish, just get two fish and go. That's it. Then the next day, if you need one, you can get one. Don't just harvest one time. If you harvest one time. And I think the people here are getting smarter because they make a law. They make a law - in the lagoon, we fish for ourself. We don't fish for bringing it to Koror, our neighbors, our cousins, father, mother living in Koror, we don't fish in the lagoon and send them, the fish in Koror. We get fish on the other reef, outside the reef and then we can pack them in the cooler and send it to our family but not in the lagoon. So that's the law here now.” - Lazarus
“Lazarus takes his son when he was eight years old, he start teaching him driving boat.”
“Mostly what I do, when I was young and my father was teaching me, I try to teach my son.” – Lazarus and Renegal