Our campaign will protect our coral reefs in Southern Guam by influencing the local communities to prevent and report wildland fires in order to reduce harmful sedimentation.
— Elaina Todd, Rare Conservation Fellow
Campaign for Effective Watershed Management/Guam will increase the percentage of branching coral species by reducing the number of fires on the island, thereby decreasing sedimentation and improving water quality, by 2011-12-31 See full Theory of Change
Our symbol of pride is the Flame Angelfish.
Here is the presentation I shared at the conference... not my best work, was time restricted since they changed my date and I am a procrastinator, but thanks to some awesome presentation skills learned from Rare (thanks Laurie) it went over great! Shared lots of stories, personal experiences and thoughts, and of course lessons learned. I hope to get many opportunities to share lessons learned and make this even better :)
After many months in the making, Elaina's Guam campaign song is complete and it's awesome. Written to the theme of MC Hammer's "Can't Touch This" is the new and improved song "Can't Burn This!" written by Brett Tibbatts and produced by Julius Santos is here. Enjoy!
Yesterday I presented the Na Para i Guafi campaign at the Center for Island Sustainability Conference. There were a few quirks but thanks to my critical anaylsis presentation, I had a great place to start! (Thanks Rare!) The audience was so great and responsive and I had wonderful humbling feedback. I wanted to share a comment from a person who attended who has also been a partner in the campaign... This speaks to the true value of these campaigns and the need to continue the kind of work we are doing!
I opened my inbox this morning and this is what I saw: The Center for Island Sustainability (CIS) at the University of Guam is pleased to inform you that your presentation entitled - Na'para i Guafi - Southern Watersheds Campaign- has been selected as one of our presenters for our upcoming conference on sustainability issues unique to our island communities– April 19-20 at the Hyatt Regency Guam. With this year’s theme - Guam 2050: Developing a Sustainable Future: What is the cost of Doing Nothing?- we received many timely and engaging proposals.
(SORRY, PICTURES ARE COMING- HAVING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES, FOR NOW, TEXT ONLY)
The last three months have been a blur! Since returning from Arlington, just about everything that could change has changed, and boy is that adaptive management training coming in handy!
Last month, we hosted another series of three hunter expos in the villages of Talofofo, Mangilao, and Chalan Pago. They went well, though the last two were not as well attended as we had hoped. We were able to distribute the rest of the deer attractants and build our hunter database, which now contains over 115 hunters!
As part of our matching funds for our BROP, the Guam Coastal Management partnered with the Division of Soil and Forestry Resources to conduct watershed restoration in the Masso watershed in the village of Piti. We could not do the project ourselves because of.. well.. the Rare campagin and other projects kept us pretty busy.
The project met a few stalls, but ultimately took off with the faciliation assistance of the non-profit organization, the Guam Environmental Alliance (of which I am a proud board member!) and Marianas RC&D, The first of several massive volunteer driven tree planting effort is scheduled for tomorrow morning where about 1,500 native trees will be planted!
See facebook link here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=163321087031482
Hurray for campaign partnership results: increased constituency and capacity resulting in conservation!
During one of our hunter expos, Mark Aguon, a conservation officer with the Department of Agriculture, said something that will stick with me for a long time. He had just given a great presentation about the impacts of fire on our forest, our rivers and our reefs. He had explained the importance of preventing wildland fires and using sustainable and safe hunting practices to ensure the health of the resources for a long time to come. He hit each of our “key messages” from the training agenda, and people seemed to really enjoy his presentation. But then he threw in something I hadn’t even asked him to say. He told the hunters in attendance, “If you know anyone that’s doing this practice, that’s burning, try and educate them after tonight… Even if you just spread that to ONE person, it wo
200 runners learn about fire protection during this 5k event in Guam.
Take a look at this great video put together by Elaina's colleague from one of her latest Hunter Expos: www.youtube.com/watch
