Community Liason/Advisor, Tuo Island, Solomon Islands
Lawrence Nodua is from Tuo village in the Reef Islands. (lnodua@gmail.com)
He's graduated with a Bachelor of Business Management majoring in Public Policy. Combined with his extensive experience in community development, previously working for World Vision, AusAid and EU programmes, Laurie has also represented the Solomon's in the Oxfam International Youth Parliament.
“It is an honour to work with OceansWatch, to me it is a dream come true to be able to assist my community on possible ways of looking after our sea resources. My community feels that our local knowledge will be well blended with OceansWatch experience and technical knowledge, and we are proud of this. We hope that through our work with OceansWatch our future children will enjoy what the present generation has in terms of harvesting sea resources.”
Community Liason/Advisor, Rennell Island, Solomon Islands
Willie Sau Kaitu'u is from Nukumatangi village in the Rennell Island of Rennell Bellona Province, Solomon Islands. (willie.sau.kaituu@gmail.com) He is currently working towards getting his Diploma in Youth Development after he completes two years studies. He looks forward to build up his capacity in other related areas important to rural communities and youths. He is a Training of Trainers (Tot) in 'Participatory Learning and Action' (PLA), Gender equality and Spear Project approach for NGOs and rural communities. He is a community mobilizer using PLA approach. He is working with World Vision for the last ten years hold different roles in the organization; project manager, associate program officer and currently he is a Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator in the same organization. He worked with the Embasy of Japan in Solomon Islands as a Grassroot project Coordinator in 2007 (1 year contract) overseeing a number of water and sanitation, classrooms building and clinic building projects implemented in the rural communities in the nine provinces in Solomon Islands.
"I would like to thank the Oceanswatch to recognise and respond quickly to our request in 2008. Oceanswatch practically by physically visited twice our community to provide skills and education awareness to landowners on Marine Protected Area and other sustainable activities. Chris and the team, provides support through education awareness on environment, assisted by providing first hand information about our marine resources and assist us to identify the area we now protect as a MPA. We gain new knowledges and new experience to bring about change for working together to restore, manage and monitor our marine resources with the aim for our children to self maintain and enjoy the resources."
Coral Reef Ecology
Vince Kerr is a biologist with a background in environmental education, forestry, horticulture and conservation management and is currently working for the Department of Conservation, based in Northland, New Zealand as an advocate for marine conservation. He has been an active marine conservation campaigner for many years. Vince has experience in marine protected area planning. Vince is a founding trustee of the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust and the MarineNZ web site project. Vince has a keen interest in coral reef survey and protection work in the Pacific.
Whales, Reef Check training
Glenn Edney lives and works between New Zealand and the Kingdom of Tonga where he runs a diving and whale watching business. He is an accomplished sailor and diver and runs Reef Check courses for OceansWatch from his base in the Ha'apai islands. In conjunction with a researcher from Macquarie University in Australia, he is currently studying humpback whales and is in the process of establishing a database of whale tail identification photos that will be available to OceansWatch members. He is a well respected underwater photographer with many published images and has written a field guide to the Poor Knights Wonderland - a marine reserve off the north coast of New Zealand.
