New leadership for the Micronesia Conservation Trust

The Micronesia Conservation Trust board and management staff met in Guam at the Ernst & Young office from Sept. 23 to 25 to adopt a new three-year (2016-2018) Strategic Action Plan for the organization and to organize its board of trustees.

The organization, which was established in 2002 to support local, national and regional programs for biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation and sustainable development for the people of Micronesia, adopted a new vision—”Enduring partnerships that conserve our land and sea to improve quality of life for communities across Micronesia”—and will focus on three main impact areas: Conservation, Climate Resilience, and Sustainable Livelihoods.

The Micronesia Conservation Trust has a new board in place. Representing the CNMI on the board is former lieutenant governor Diego Benavente. (Contributed Photo)

Outgoing board chair Kembo Mida said: “MCT strives to be a world-class organization that is truly Micronesia.” This means the MCT board and management work hard to meet the requirements of international donors in order to bring more financial and technical resources to the region, while maintaining its ability to prioritize and focus on the needs and aspirations of local communities by making its programs highly accessible to them.

At the meeting, the board and the senior management team— executive director William Kostka, deputy executive director Lisa Andon, and finance officer Meileen Albert were able to finalize MCT’s 2014 annual audit with Ernst & Young and received an update on MCT’s investment portfolio from Jason Miyashita and Maree Pelkey of the Asia Pacific Group of Raymond James.

The board also welcomed three new trustees: former CNMI lieutenant governor Diego Benavente; Haser Hainrick, current Public Auditor for the Federated States of Micronesia; and Julian Aguon, a private lawyer in Guam whose practice focuses on international and regional human rights laws.

The board and staff also bid farewell to two of its leaders who had each served two full terms over the past six years: Mida, who was chairman for the past two years, and Denise Adams Boylan, representing the private sector, who served as the organization’s board treasurer.

They leave the organization in the hands of the new leadership of board chair Doreen deBrum, Assistant Secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Marshall Islands; board vice chair Elbuchel Sadang, Palau’s Finance Minister; board secretary Jared Morris, CEO of the FSM Petroleum Corp./Vital; and board treasurer Hainrick.

The MCT board has four standing committees:

-The Governance Committee is chaired by Trina Leberer, the new director of The Nature Conservancy’s Pacific Program. Members of the Governance Committee include Aguon and Debrum.

-The Finance, Audit and Investment Committee is chaired by Hainrick, with Sadang and International trustee Megumi Araki, currently with Japan’s Association for the Promotion of International Cooperation and formerly with the Asian Development Bank.

-The Partnership and Development Committee is chaired by Carlotta Leon Guerrero, former president of the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures while serving in the Guam Legislature and currently with the Ayuda Foundation, a humanitarian organization in Guam that has been very active in the Maysak and Soudelor typhoon recovery efforts in Chuuk, Yap, and the CNMI. Benavente and international trustee Dan Martin, formerly with the MacArthur Foundation and based in Washington DC, are members of this committee.

The Technical Committee, which is currently chaired by Morris with Leberer as member. MCT’s Technical Committee is the only committee that includes non-board member scientists, community experts, and academics, etc., to assist MCT with its grant-making and capacity building programs.

Along with its numerous community development programs, MCT was selected in 2006 by the presidents and governors of the Micronesia governments and the Global Environment Facility-United Nations Environment Programme, The Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International to serve as the financial mechanism for the Micronesia Challenge Endowment Fund (www.micronesiachallenge.org).

“We now manage an $18 million endowment for the Micronesia Challenge,” said deBrum. “The board and management take this responsibility very seriously and have made sure over the years to have appropriate leadership, systems and processes in place in order to assist the Micronesia governments succeed in delivering on this initiative, which they made as part of their commitments to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and their gift to the world.” (MCT)