Rhea Moss-Christian was unanimously elected to continue in her post as chairperson of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission for an additional two years. She chaired the regional fisheries management organization for an initial two-year term that ended at last week’s WCPFC annual meeting in Fiji.
When the election of chairs for the WCPFC and its committees was held in the final minutes of the five-day meeting, only Moss-Christian was nominated and elected by acclimation.
She was widely praised during last week’s meetings for restructuring the format of the annual meeting by devoting more time to small group sessions to work on specific topic areas. About 500 government, regional organization and non-government group representatives attended this year’s meeting.
Moss-Christian is from the Marshall Islands and is based in Pohnpei, where the WCPFC Secretariat is located.
The RMI and Nauru are chairing two of the three main committees of the WCPFC. MIMRA’s Chief of Oceanic Division Berry Muller was voted in to oversee the Scientific Committee, while Monte Depaune of Nauru is the new chair of the Technical and Compliance Committee.
Read more about this in the December 16, 2016 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.