08 Mar Coral Triangle Women Leaders: Promoting Sustainable Financing for Women in Conservation

KAWAKI Women’s Network is a newly established community initiative involving women of the three communities that are custodians of the Arnavon Community Marine Park (ACMP). Although ACMP was established more than twenty years ago, most of its efforts have gone into protecting turtles in the Marine Park. It is observed that capacity development, women’s empowerment and conservation benefits from ACMP are often not realized, appreciated and valued by women in the three communities resulting in low participation and no visible progress of similar conservation and sustainable development practices in these communities.

This challenge seeks to offer a ‘best practice’ model of sustainable financing, tailored for women of KAWAKI to replicate the benefits and opportunities from the ACMP and to take lead and engage in sustainable environmental practices in their own communities

Solomon Islands Women Leaders are Taking Action!

In the Solomon Islands, women leaders who are part of the CTI-CFF Women Leaders’ Forum Intergenerational Learning Program is tackling the challenge promoting sustainable financing for women in conservation.

Agnetha Vave-Karamui is a Conservation Officer within Environment & Conservation Division of the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management & Meteorology (MECDM) since 2008. She is the Chair of the CTI-CFF Women Leaders Forum. Her strength is having a deep understanding of policy and regulatory frameworks of forestry, marine & environmental resources management, conservation, practices and issues in Solomon Islands and the Pacific Region.

She is making strides towards promoting conservation and environmental management within the government bureaucracy and maintaining networks amongst non-government and other stakeholder communities. As Chair of the CTI-CFF Women Leaders Forum, Ms. Vave-Karamui will lead the process of developing a gender policy for the CTI-CFF. She is also a mentor in the ongoing CTI-CFF Inter-generational leadership learning program.

Agnetha is excited to mentor and help instil the experiences and values she learned from years of personal and professional engagement with the CTI-CFF programs and its networks. She feels able to raise confidence in mentees for ocean governance and regional collaboration and also national pride and responsibility on the issues of the Coral Triangle region.

Duta Bero Kauhiona is a coordinator of the Expanding the Reach of Community Based Marine Resource Management in the Solomon Islands Project at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources where she assists in – progressing national Community-Based Resource Management activities through awareness, mentoring of national and provincial officers and the development of community fisheries management plans, standard operating procedures and advising Inshore Fisheries Management on policy and legislation development that covers the scope of coastal communities.

Duta hopes to learn how women can take on environmental stewardship and leadership roles by participating as a mentee in the WLF. She would like her mentor to help interpret coastal resource management commitments at a local, regional and global scale and clarify how her resource management activities fit together in achieving or falling short of these commitments.

Agnetha’s strength in having a deep understanding of policy and regulatory frameworks of marine resource management and conservation in the Solomon Islands coupled with Duta’s experience in Community-Based Resource Management will be well suited to solve the conservation challenge of increasing community participation in conservation and sustainable development practices for the custodians of the Arnavon Community Marine Park through developing a ‘best practice’ model of sustainable financing, tailored for women.

The CTI-CFF Women Leaders Forum Intergenerational Learning Program is being implemented by the US Department of the Interior and the Coral Triangle in Center, in collaboration with CTI-CFF Regional Secretariat and CTI-CFF National Coordinating Committees and funded by USAID.