The funding is supporting pilot conservation sites and a series of trainings aimed at “building regional resilience for climate change,” said Micronesia Conservation Trust Director Willy Kostka, who is based in Pohnpei.
Three sites each in Palau and the Marshall Islands, and four in the Federated States of Micronesia are receiving a share of the $2 million, three-year grant from Germany that has been provided to the MCT.
In the Marshall Islands, the funding is supporting fisheries-related management plans in the three islands, Kostka said.
“The project is helping build capacity of the countries to manage these areas,” said Kostka, whose organization is overseeing funding for the Micronesia Challenge — a program aiming to put 30 percent of coastal marine areas and 20 percent of land under conservation management. It involves Palau, FSM, Marshall Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Depending on the success of this project and MCTs success in raising other money, it could open offices in both Majuro and Guam, Kostka said.
“The closer we are (to local projects), the better,” he said of the possibility of establishing new offices in different islands.
