New Greengrants advisor Lucille Apis Overhoff is a native Pohnpeian, and she currently serves as The Nature Conservancy’s Partnership Specialist in Micronesia. Lucille’s main responsibility is to develop strong partnerships with governments, NGOs, community-based organizations, traditional/indigenous groups, and scientific/research organizations. Her work also focuses on building the non-government environmental movement through coordinated assistance to develop organizational leaders and their organizations. Prior to working for TNC, she worked at what is now known as the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP), a regional organization established by the governments and administrations of the Pacific region to look after the environment.
Greengrants: When did you initially get into environmental work?
Lucille: I remember as a child my grandmother always telling me, “Just take enough, because somebody else may need some too.” For example, when we would catch some shellfish in a mangrove area, and I would I take a lot, she would say, “No, no, no. Leave it, there’s another family that might need some.” So we would just take enough for our family and leave some for other people. It was only later that I learned there is such a term as “sustainable development.” We just knew it as a means of surviving until the next day, and the next month, and the next year.
Later, after I got my degree in marine science, I looked at what was going on in my country and decided that the environment was not being managed very well. I decided to do graduate work in environmental science, and then I was fortunate enough to get hired by the SPREP (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme), which is the headquarters for developing new methods of environmental protection for the Pacific.
Greengrants: What does your work at the Nature Conservancy involve now?
Lucille: Right now I’m the partnership coordinator, so basically what I do is build bridges between governments, NGOs and communities. TNC doesn’t actually implement conservation on the ground, what we do is we work with partners and help them achieve their conservation goals.
Greengrants: What is the most rewarding part of working with these partners?
Lucille: I think the most rewarding part of working with partners is seeing at the happiness on their faces. For example, when we go to the field and they show us “Look, look, look at the amount of fish we caught because of the marine protected area,” there is just so much joy on their faces.
Our word to describe the environment, is “kepikipik kan,” and kepikipik means “creation,” or something that’s given to you as a gift. So for us, the environment is a gift from above that we should take care of.
Greengrants: What do you see as the major environmental challenges that face the
Federated States of Micronesia?
Lucile: The government wants to bring the country to a stage of development that can sustain the livelihoods of people, but we have to find a balance between development and sustaining our resources. This is a big challenge now, because we have two groups of people in the country. One group believes the environment and all its resources are God-given, so therefore we should protect the environment and care for it as much as we can. And then on the other side there’s a group of people who believe that we should just use the resources because God will always provide. We have to find a balance so that we are able to manage our resources so that we can sustain our lives and livelihood. What it boils down to is that the environment is the economy and the economy is the environment.
And whether we like it or not, the people own the resources, and they will use the resources in the way they see fit. The government and environmental organizations can go to the people and support or advise them, but in the end it’s up to them. So the best way to get a long-term commitment from communities, from resource owners, governments and NGOs is to work with them as partners right from the start. And I think this is where Greengrants is really important, because Greengrants gives its grantees freedom to use solutions that are tailored to their own conditions.