Please join us in welcoming Berna Gorong and Graham Gaines to the TNC Micronesia Program! Berna joins us as the new Partnership and Communications Coordinator and Graham will serve as the Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator for the BMUB Micronesia-Melanesia Project.
Berna established and has been running a small NGO called the Yap Networker that provides education and awareness on community, youth, and women issues in Yap, including a biweekly newsletter called the Yap Networker. She has also been working with her husband Thomas Gorong and their community on efforts to manage the Nimpal Channel Conservation Area. Since 2011, Berna has been a consultant with PIMPAC as a mentor on climate adaptation. In her role as PCC, Berna will be responsible for developing and managing partnerships, and providing capacity-building support to our key partners implementing conservation in Micronesia. She will also serve as the focal point for communications, sharing our work with partners and communicating conservation work happening in Micronesia within the Conservancy and to a wider audience.
Graham recently completed a one year volunteer program with the Peace Corps Response Program. He was placed in the Marine Resource Management Division, Yap State Government, where he helped develop staff capacity to improve resource surveying, monitoring and reporting. Previously, Graham spent two years in Fiji, as a Peace Corps Volunteer working as an Environment Resource Manager. In addition, Graham spent time as a fisheries observer with the US National Marine Fisheries Service. Graham holds a Master’s Degree in Marine Resource Management from the University of Akureyri, Iceland. His master’s dissertation was on conflict management in Icelandic fisheries through policy analyses and marine spatial planning. He will help to develop the overall framework for project Monitoring and Evaluation, to include annual project reviews, participatory impact assessments, guiding the process for identifying and designing the key indicators for each work package within the BMUB project, recording and reporting physical progress against overall project deliverables, and setting out the framework and procedures with stakeholders for the evaluation of project activities.