The Council held a workshop at the end of April 2022 that brought together indigenous Council members, advisory panel members, NOAA regional staff and leaders working on equity and environmental justice (EEJ) issues. The group talked about how EEJ integrates with Western Pacific Council work.

We also shared the Council’s EEJ impacts and contributions globally, regionally and for our communities in fisheries management. We focused on 4 tools of organizational change – Fund, Empower, Implement and Advocate. Take a look at the live scribe panels from the event to see our thoughts around how we want to effect good EEJ momentum for our region. Participants included outreach and engagement, building local capacity, fostering the bottom-up approach, funding community impact, collaborating with local agencies and supporting self governance.

Moving forward we will:
-capture the dialogue into a draft strategy, remaining steadfast to continue as a voice for the community in the federal process and respect cultural values within decision making.
-model the change/be the change, using the Council as an EEJ tool.
-plan to meet again in summer 2022.

We look forward to working with NOAA to advance EEJ for our communities.

Welcome and Panel Discussion

Big Takeaways that we can use for WP Fisheries

Our Contributions and Impacts Globally, Regionally and for the Community

How WPCouncil will effect good change

How we want to move forward