The people of Palau are still picking up the pieces that Super Typhoon Surigae left behind in 2021. Coupled with the impacts of climate change, including ocean acidification, flooding, and coastal erosion, the longer term impact could be devastating for the small island nation.
But the awarding of a US$150,000 grant to the Palau Protected Areas Network (PAN) is helping to improve the lives of Palauans.
The Disaster Recovery Grant has seen PAN work within its network in all 16 of Palau’s states to develop and implement mitigation strategies, build capacity, and develop a strategic plan.
Noting this achievement, USAID Senior Development Advisor, Michel Glees, told attendees at a recent grant awards spotlight event in Suva, “I won’t make light of the challenges the Pacific Islands are collectively facing.”
Glees noted that the U.S. support, through the Climate Ready Project, “has been working with target Pacific Island countries to support governments in achieving climate change adaptation goals and becoming more climate resilient in ways that are country-driven, coordinated, inclusive, and equitable.”
Under the grant, PAN’s focus is on watershed management, and wildfire mitigation and control measures, as well as developing a public education and community outreach campaign.
PAN’s project coordinator, Leah Whitten Petrus, says the organisation faced a few challenges in meeting its deadlines on the U.S. grant, due to supply chain issues exacerbated by the pandemic.
“I’ve seen in Palau that one of the biggest challenges is finding people who are qualified and capable of carrying out these types of things, so in Palau, there’s only a handful of organisations or individuals who are qualified and capable of carrying out these types of things,” Petrus notes.
“So the development workplan that would lead to implementation of this project took time, I believe it was summertime that they started pulling out these requests for proposals for a lot of deliverables,” she says.
The first major deliverables is to procure and install marine buoys. These buoys are indicators of marine protected areas, but due to typhoons, they are either lost or scattered. “The 40 buoys purchased have already been cleared by customs and will be installed in multiple locations over the next few months,” she explains.
“Those specific sites were heavily hit by our recent typhoon Surigae, so they don’t have any markers at the moment,” she says, “and unfortunately that is probably the most delayed aspect of the project.”
Petrus continues, “With strong winds during these monsoon seasons and threads of storms coming our way, a lot of time the buoys that are markers for the conservation areas are lost or unidentifiable, and therefore laws aren’t able to be enforced because there is no form of identification.
“Then in terms of the terrestrial sites, it’s really the sedimentation and the erosion that occur when it’s monsoon season, there is heavy rain that takes a lot of these sediments down the streams into our ocean, which then kill the life in the ocean,” she says.
While there is still some outstanding work under the grant, much has been achieved says Petrus. PAN partnered with the Ebiil Society, to carry out all the wildfire mitigation trainings, and watershed management programs.
A five-year strategic plan will also be finalised soon.
While it is a big job for a small team, they are taking it as a learning experience, and the workshop they conducted with key stakeholders was a great platform to be able to share ideas with technical partners, discuss the challenges, and plan for the future.
Pacific American Fund (PAF) now open for opportunities
PAF was established in 2020 to provide grants to a variety of new and local partners in order to assist Pacific Island communities in adapting to the negative effects of climate change. PAF has an allocated budget of US$35 million for 2020–2025, and as of September 2022, they have received 249 concept papers and 44 full applications.
Deputy USAID Senior Development Advisor, Patrick Bower, says they have developed new ways of evaluating applications.
“We’ve built-in options for co-creation to occur during the grant negotiation process, and we are committed to delivering grantees not just with funding but with high-value technical assistance that promotes and enhances their long-term growth and sustainability plans,” Bower says.
“This includes providing grant compliance and capacity building support, as well as customised services such as marketing and partner matchmaking,” he adds.
With US$3.3 million available for local organisations, PAF has now officially opened and is accepting applications for their Year 3 grant cycle, encouraging locally owned and innovative solutions.
Bower notes, “This next round, we want to see more innovative, locally led solutions come through our pipeline, this is a chance to try something completely new or scale up an existing project that has been proven successful.
“It is rare that I get to pass out cheques to organisations I think are doing amazing things at the local level. Please take advantage of this opportunity and consider submitting a solution to this call,” he urges.
PAF will provide 12- to 20-month grants up to $1,000,000, depending on the range, and the deadline for the application is March 31, 2023.
