Daily log: Clive's voyage through CBD COP 10 in Nagoya, Japan

Daily Journal 19 October - Clive Hawigen is a 25 year old now interning with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). He was born and raised in a village in the highlands of Papua New Guinea in Goroka. For Clive, traveling is a new experience - he had never left Goroka until he ventured to Samoa to start working for SPREP.

This is a daily journal of Clive's voyage during the CBD COP 10 in Nagoya, Japan. He will share with us his adventure as it's his very first time to leave the Pacific region and travel far across the World.

Read on!

How does one master the art of using chop sticks? Seeing someone else do it is easy enough but trying it for the first time is hard especially when you’re keen to savor the taste of Japanese style cuisine. As the old saying goes it’s like riding a bike, once you’re used to it you’ll never forget. Yet how many times must one try until he or she becomes an expert and in the process of toning your skills ruining a lovely meal with the aid of a spoon or fork.

My colleague Posa Skelton laughed till he cried when he saw my umpteenth effort of trying out noodles using the chop sticks. As if refusing to be eaten, these noodles slipped back down as I went for it missing almost every time my mouth came an inch closer to the noodles attached to the chop sticks.

At the Nagoya conference centre, covering stories at a big worldwide conference is something that I’ll have to work hard on. With so much going on, you have to be at the right place to get information especially useful and helpful biodiversity news related to the Pacific. And apart from that you have to meet deadlines, my colleague Nanette keeps reming me!

One story that was interesting was that of New Zealand’s Kakapo bird.

It took 20 000 pieces of green notepads with messages on NZ biodiversity to build this giant kakapo made from mesh and flown half way around the world. The longer I am involved at the conference the more I understand what other’s are constantly trying to do to protect our biological diversity.