The Society for Conservation Biology’s Oceania Section is pleased to announce that the winner of our 2022 Regional Distinguished Service Award is the Mauberema Ecotourism, Nature Conservation, Education, Research and Training Centre (MENCERTC) from Papua New Guinea!
The Mauberema Centre is an Indigenous-led organisation located in the highlands region of Simbu Province, Papua New Guinea. This award recognises their extraordinary achievements centred on nature conservation, socioeconomic development and sustainable livelihoods in a megadiverse developing nation.
We would also like to highly commend another nominee, A/Prof. Tammy Steeves from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand for her achievements in conservation geonomics research that is conducted in ethical partnership with Indigenous communities and conservation practitioners to recover threatened taonga (treasured) species in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Mr Moses Kerry, founder and director of MENCERTC, said “Thank you for recognising our community conservation efforts. Our hard work, commitment, patience and perseverance have been truly rewarded in time”.
The Mauberema Centre’s origins and activities are entirely grassroots, being led and managed by local people who have a deep understanding of local needs and issues. The Centre brings together 11 community organisations to achieve common goals relating to wildlife conservation, education, research, culture, and sustainable livelihoods.
These goals are achieved through a range of activities including reforestation projects, environmental education courses, biodiversity mapping and monitoring, and community forest conservation, as well as cultural festivals, ecotourism, and crop improvement. The Centre protects 665 ha of primary montane forest along the Bismarck Range, which is one of the most biodiverse landscapes of New Guinea, and indeed the world.
Prof. Vojtech Novotny of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the New Guinea Binatang Research Center said “The Mauberema Centre is exceptional in that it combines biodiversity and cultural conservation into a single activity while also uniting a large number of villages and their grassroots organizations”.
Dr Adrian Tejedor of the Wildlife Conservation Society PNG described MENCERTC as “an incredibly active team, always showing great initiative, and constantly seeking opportunities to enhance local capacity and inspire community members about conservation”.
Mr Moses Kerry, the director of the Mauberema Centre, will accept the award and provide a keynote address about their work at the joint Ecological Society of Australia–Society for Conservation Biology Oceania conference being held in Wollongong, Australia in November.
SCB Regional Awards are supported by Wiley, publisher of the SCB journals Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters and Conservation Science & Practice. You can find out more about the awards here.
