New Women-In-Fisheries network bulletin editor

Press release

SPC appoints new Women-In-Fisheries network bulletin editor

Tuesday 21 November 2006, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) – Dr Veikila Vuki, formerly with the Fiji Fisheries Division and the University of the South Pacific (USP) and currently the Director of Oceania Environment Consultants, a consulting firm based in Guam, is the new coordinator of the SPC Women-In-Fisheries (WIF) bulletin.

SPC Director-General Dr Jimmie Rodgers said, “We have in the region people with a wealth of skills and extensive knowledge. I am delighted to welcome Dr Veikila Vuki to SPC’s fisheries work programme. Professionals of this calibre, especially if they are Pacific Islanders, are a great asset to the organisation.”

The WIF editor will seek and collect information for the network’s biannual bulletin through regular contact with contributors and networks of people working on the relevant subject, and edit the information through direct exchange with authors.

Dr Vuki hails from Ono-i-Lau – the most isolated and southerly inhabited island in the Fiji Group. She has 20 years of research experience in Australia, Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae and Yap), Guam, Marshall Islands and Palau.

She has varied experience in issues related to coastal fishing communities, coastal management, women in fisheries and fisheries development, and has published widely, with most of her recent publications being on the subsistence fisheries of Ono-i-Lau. Dr Vuki is currently an adjunct research associate at the Marine Laboratory, University of Guam. She holds a doctorate in coral reef ecology from Southampton University in England, and a Master of Science degree in marine biology and marine botany from James Cook University, Australia.

Recently, Dr Vuki helped develop and coordinate the Pacific Islands Marine Protected Areas Community (PIMPAC) in the US Pacific Island Territories and the US Freely Associated States (Micronesia). Before working for PIMPAC, she was a research associate at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory for two years researching watershed and coral reef management in Guam.

Dr Vuki was a member of staff at USP’s Marine Studies Programme in Fiji for nine years, where she taught undergraduate and graduate students in marine pollution, oceanography, and coral reef ecology and fisheries management. At USP she was also Principal Investigator for the global monitoring programme SeagrassNet. She has also worked as a Fisheries Officer for the Fiji Department of Fisheries, where she was actively involved in training women in fisheries management, and was a board member of the regional Women in Fisheries network based in Suva.

You can access issues of the Women in Fisheries bulletin: http://www.spc.int/coastfish/News/WIF/wif.htm

ENDS