Thread by @AusVols

At a recent Global Webinar, we heard from Birgit Hermann, Country Director of @BlueVentures #TimorLeste. She spoke about their work empowering the community to combat the effects of climate change.

Explore her thoughts in the below thread. ⬇️ (1/6)

"Everything we do is to build the resilience of the eco-system & coastal communities to enable climate change adaptation." (2/6)

"We provide our communities with technical expertise & knowledge to manage their coastal fisheries & to enrich the fishing livelihoods through eco-tourism." (3/6)

"Prior to the pandemic, our team was almost 50% international, and 50% Timorese. When many of our staff left due to repatriation, we realised that this was an opportunity to increase Timorese expertise on the team." (4/6)

"Now over 80% of staff are Timorese and we recently trained eight Timorese, including women, in scuba diving to help monitor coastal reefs thanks to a grant from the Australian Volunteers Program." (5/6)

"We have just secured new funding for the next three years, our goal is to continue to build strong local partnerships with partners working in conservation and to expand our community-led monitoring programmes to include mangrove mapping and monitoring." (6/6)