30 Oct “Pejuang Laut” noted Top 10 Best Ideas at OOC Youth Summit

The local champions empowerment program in Maluku and North Maluku Province, called as “Pejuang Laut” or Champions of the Sea, implemented by Coral Triangle Center (CTC) under the USAID SEA Project was chosen as the best 10 ideas towards marine conservation in the Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit 2018 in Nusa Dua, Bali, on October 30^th 2018. The decision was made by the committee of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA) after hearing more than 200 presentations from all over the globe, each for less than 60 seconds, during the ideas marketplace session on the day before.

The commitment of “Pejuang Laut” was presented by Yoga Putra, CTC Field Communication Officer for USAID SEA Project, who was selected to be the participants of Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit 2018. Besides Yoga, another CTC intern, Cameron Ogden-Fung, also joined the summit attended by 200 participants from more than 50 countries.

The basic concept of “Pejuang Laut” is local leaders and champions empowerment to be the role models to inspire the coastal community members about the importance of marine conservation for biodiversity and natural resource protection, livelihood sustainability and food security. The empowerment is done by providing trainings and knowledge sharing to the selected “Pejuang Laut” to increase their understanding about marine conservation. Eventually, the idea will create an enabling environment for positive behavioral change in the community through good leaderships.

CTC has initiated the “Pejuang Laut” program since early 2017 and held the official launching on November 21^st 2017, in commemoration of World Fisheries Day celebration in Ambon, Maluku. So far, CTC has successfully engaged 20 “Pejuang Laut” from the proposed marine protected areas (MPAs) in Buano Islands and Lease Islands (Maluku Province), and in Sula Islands (North Maluku Province). In addition, CTC also includes the youths in Ambon City to be part of this program to inspire their peers.

After being selected as the best 10 commitments, the forum was divided into smaller groups whereas all participants had deeper discussion on how the ideas could be implemented better and have broader impacts. The discussion concluded with group reflections using various approaches such as empathetic understanding, divergent thinking, convergent thinking, prototyping and testing.

As an integral part of the Our Ocean Conference, this was the third Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit that aligns with the main conference theme and feature ocean solutions in one of the following areas: MPAs, climate change, sustainable fisheries, marine pollution, sustainable blue economy and maritime security. The youth summit is an opportunity to showcase youth-lead ocean solutions and entrepreneurial innovations, and to create a networking opportunity for youth to engage with leaders in policy, industry, research, government initiatives, ocean conservation and NGOs from all over the world.