The Conservation & Environment Protection Agency (CEPA) finally signed an official memorandum of understanding to protect the marine habitat.
The MOU was signed with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Central Provincial Government for a 5-year project of Mangrove and Marine Protection.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the participating agencies at the Hiri East LLG facilities at Mirigeda, on the outskirts of Port Moresby city.
It was an endorsement of a pilot project which has pioneer areas at Varirata at Sogeri and Mirigeda at Bootless Bay.
The MoU was signed by the Minister for Conservation and Environment and Climate Change, Geoffrey Kama, and Governor for Central Province, Robert Agarobe.
It covers two pilot projects: the pilot terrestrial project in Varirata and the Bootless Bay is the pilot project for the marine ecosystem in terms of implementing the policy of protected areas.
Explaining the project, Yvonne Tio said there are four outputs of this project and it is a capacity building project under CEPA for protected areas governance, for sustainable use of resources working with local communities.
The first one is the National Government’s governance and management arrangements for protected areas, second is Varirata National Park also working up in the terrestrial and the one for the Bootless Bay is the third output. The fourth output is public relations.
Within the project, target sites are identified and working with communities MoUs are established.
Governor Agarobe acknowledged that the provincial government will be assisting with finances where it is needed in the implementation of the project activities.
As a token of partnership, gifts were exchanged among the Minister for ECCC and the Governor for Central Province.
(Minister Geoffrey Kama being presented a copper version of a traditional ‘lakatoi’)