Meeting with the new Government of French Polynesia regarding the PROTEGE project
"Meeting of the Vice President and the Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources, responsible for Food and Research, with the PROTEGE project team from the Pacific Community, the Bureau of European Affairs (BAE), and the leaders of French Polynesia, namely the Departments of Agriculture, Marine Resources, and Environment (DAG, DRM, and DIREN)."
On August 14, 2023, Éliane TEVAHITUA, Vice President and Minister of Culture, Higher Education, Environment, Land, and Crafts, and Taivini TEAI, Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources, responsible for Food and Research, met with Madame Peggy ROUDAUT, project leader of the PROTEGE project, and Aurélie THOMASSIN, project coordinator for French Polynesia.
This meeting aimed to present the achievements implemented so far by the project, funded by the European Union, as well as the upcoming prospects, one and a half years before the program's closure. The participants reviewed the main achievements of the program in the presence of representatives of the leaders implementing the actions in French Polynesia in different sectors: agriculture and forestry, coastal fishing and aquaculture, water, and invasive species.
The program has led to the completion of around sixty actions across all the archipelagos of French Polynesia, some of which are innovative. This includes the case of algaculture, a promising industry.
Before the project's closure at the end of 2024, several workshops will be organized involving various stakeholders and partners from respective sectors: a 'fishing' workshop in Nouméa in November 2023, an 'agro-forestry' workshop in Nouméa in 2024, a 'water' workshop in Papeete in March 2024, an 'invasive species' workshop in Samoa in November 2024, and a 'sanitary risks and water sanitary security plan' workshop in Papeete in March 2024.
It's worth noting that a specific workshop on food systems, involving several Oceanic delegations (Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Australia) and the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), will be held in Papeete in early October 2023, alongside the agricultural fair.
The Vice President and the Minister of the primary sector praised the teams responsible for implementing the PROTEGE program, which has enabled significant skills transfer to technicians and officials of the country in priority sectors for its development.
