Friday, March 22, 2013

An Open Letter for Sponsorship or In-Kind Donation

www.thenational.com.pg

The article in today's The National Newspaper (Friday 22, March 2013)  has instigated us to make this public appeal for assistance in order to sustain our Sea Turtle Restoration and Protection Project in Madang.
 
MAS KAGIN TAPANI ASSOCIATION
POB 1312, Port Moresby, National Capital District, PNG
+ (675) 71959665
magun.wences@gmail.com • maskagintapani.blogspot.com

Friday 22 March, 2013

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Sir/Madam,

REF: REQUEST FOR SPONSORSHIP

RATIONAL
We are applying for sponsorship or donation of in-kind support for our
marine education awareness program for our Sea Turtle Restoration and
Protection Project in Madang in order to achieve our organizations
project goal and vision to help protect and restore the declining
population of the endangered leatherback turtles and other marine
habitat and biodiversity in Papua New Guinea. We believe your
organisation has been assisting NGO’s and charity groups by way of
donations in cash or kind. Our organizations are in urgent need of
producing educational awareness materials, video documentaries,
promotional materials, and meetings and awareness for all our coastal
and offshore island schools in Madang.

BACKGROUND
Our organisation is at present adapting an alternative to marine
protected areas, using the conservation deeds approach which are
created and managed by communities not regulators.
Conservation deeds in Papua New Guinea are the result of a
community-driven process that creates a locally managed conservation
area, and a long term community stake in the protection of natural
resources in ways that also meet the economic and social needs of the
community.

We are now applying this model to coastal/maritime communities of
Madang as our pilot project site in Papua New Guinea. We envision a
maritime conservation process planned and implemented by the partners:
each local (coastal) community, Gildipasi planning committee (local
CBO), Mirap and KarKum (Duergo) STRP Committees, STRP Community
Facilitators. Community members will be the ones to actually set up
their marine conservation areas and eventually sign conservation
deeds.

We have heard personally from leaders and people in coastal village
who know in their hearts that they have to do something about the
decline, not only in the number of sea turtles frequenting their
beaches, but also the decline in the entire fisheries resources. They
are beginning to realize that they themselves had been and still are
one of the causes of the decreasing fish stocks (and sea turtles).
They also know that outside interests such as commercial fishing, sea
bed mining, sea tailings disposal will also impact their marine
environment.
Our goal is getting them through a process to think and work out what
they can do to address this issue and to develop actions plans to move
forward. Our effort has seen Karkum village in Madang, established its
locally managed marine area using conservation deed in 2008 (Please
see the media article).

COMMUNITY OUTREACH:
In 2007, we developed and facilitated a yearlong series of
conservation deed training workshops in villages along the north coast
of Papua New Guinea.

We worked closely with community partners to hold trainings and
community development activities for a total of 8 villages
representing approximately 3,500 people. Through this process, the
communities came together for workshops in sea turtle and marine
resource protection identify conservation measures to which they will
choose in exchange for support of community needs, such as health
centers and books for libraries and other social and infrastructure
developments. Additionally, the communities have requested help in
fighting the threat of deep-sea mining. As the conservation deed
process continues, we are providing assistance and consultation to
villagers on the best way to address these threats.

We have developed a core group of activist volunteers to assist with
the conservation deed process and other efforts in the region. The
volunteers in several communities are now conducting land and
marine-based resource surveys to provide detailed parameters for
developing conservation deeds. Village leaders and volunteers, as well
as individual resource owners, are highly interested in moving the
conservation deed process forward. We have continued to conduct
resource awareness seminars, surveys, and deed development into 2008.

Concurrent with the work to gain community support for immediate sea
turtle protections, we are building awareness of the impacts on
coastal villages of sea bed mining, sea tailings disposal, commercial
fishing, pollution and related issues. We are also working to educate
governmental leaders, university professors, urban professionals and
others in the nation about the financial and environmental impacts of
these issues. This year we are working to further engage these groups
and individuals in preparing an international call to protect PNG
waters from sea bed mining.

Contact
For further information and queries please do not hesitate to contact
Mr. Wenceslaus Magun on telephone number digicel 719 59665
or email: magun.wences@gmail.com.

We can supply further information should you require them.

For further recommendation of our efforts please contact the Education
Officer for Mahonia Na Dari, Ms Adolphina Luvongit on:
adolph.luvongit@gmail.com or Damien Ase on daseari2@yahoo.com

Yours sincerely,

WENCESLAUS MAGUN
The National Coordinator

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