The Roots to Reefs and Beyond Micronesia Fisheries Learning Event was a powerful event bringing together community-based fisheries management practitioners from across the Pacific to learn and share.
Co-led by OneReef and Rare, and co-financed by the Kiwa MiCOAST Project and SPC, this learning event brought together practitioners, leaders, and community partners from across Micronesia and beyond; intentionally designed as a co-created, participatory space shaped by their collective energy, insight, and lived experience.
Over the week, we achieved a lot together:
- We mapped our collective CBFM practices.
- We learned in the field — from people, place, culture, and practice.
- We explored systems of scale and the levers that strengthen impact.
- We developed learning agendas, clarified opportunities, and shared tools.
We turned our stories into a force for connection and advocacy.
More than anything, we strengthened a community of practice that stretches across Micronesia.
As we wrap up this journey, we are reminded of what this experience was truly about:
- Connection — between islands, between practices, between stories, and between people deeply committed to their communities.
- Learning in place — from Melekeok’s restoration sites, from Ngarchelong’s leadership and monitoring efforts, from each other’s lived experience, and from the reef itself.
- Shared understanding — of what CBFM looks like across our region: its strengths, its challenges, its opportunities, and the many creative ways practitioners bring it to life every day.
Looking Ahead
Through the Kiwa MiCOAST Project, OneReef will continue to grow this learning ecosystem, including targeted learning exchanges, community-level exchanges, and another practitioner-focused event before this first cycle ends. A heartfelt thank you to all participants for their stories, insights, and commitment. This week showed what is possible when collaboration, culture, and community lead the way.
This initiative was spearheaded under the Kiwa Initiative regional MiCOAST project, which is funded by the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, La politique étrangère du Canada – Affaires mondiales Canada, Canada in the Pacific, the European Union in the Pacific, AFD – Agence Française de Développement and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.