Indigenous Innovation and Leadership - Small Islands and Indigenous Communities Priorities
Tracks
Thursday Stream 1
Thursday, October 16, 2025 |
8:00 AM - 10:30 AM |
Speaker
Dr Hiroya Abe
Researcher
National Institute for Environmental Studies
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Researcher at CCCA specializing in coastal ecosystem responses to climate change. His research involves evaluating marine and water environment dynamics and their implications for climate resilience.
Ms Yvette Kerslake
Technical Adviser, Science To Services
Pacific Climate Change Centre SPREP
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Yvette is Technical Adviser for Science to Services at PCCC, translating scientific research into practical services that enhance climate resilience across the Pacific. Having previously worked at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Multi-Country Office in Samoa, Yvette has emphasized the importance of partnerships and practical applications of scientific research.
Dr Yuji Masutomi
Director
National Institute for Environmental Studies
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Head of the Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Research Section at CCCA. His research focuses on assessing the impacts of climate change on agricultural crops and developing adaptation strategies using crop modeling and climate risk assessment.
Contribution: Active participation
Ms Maki Shibuya
Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator
National Institute for Environmental Studies
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Climate Change Adaptation Coordinator leading the development of GCF content on AP-PLAT. Supports capacity-building and enhances access to climate finance in the Asia-Pacific region by providing strategic guidance and tools for GCF proposal development.
Dr Manabu Watanabe
Representative Director
Blue and Tech Ltd
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Manabu is a private sector researcher specializing in climate change adaptation and the founder of blue and tech, Ltd., which conducts research on climate change impacts and adaptation while developing related data and tools. He is currently leading the design of “Climate Impact Viewer” update.
Dr Leanne Webb
Research Scientist
CSIRO
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Leanne is Science Lead on Asia-Pacific Climate Intelligence at CSIRO Environment. She has several decades of experience with translating climate science into practical applications, including through case studies of climate impacts on different sectors.
Dr Yuki Yoshida
Researcher
National Institute for Environmental Studies
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Yuki is a researcher at the CCCA and member of the AP-PLAT development team. Her recent research focuses on community relocations in Fiji. She was trained as a sustainability scientist with a background in social sciences, and served as lead author on the IPBES assessments on Transformative Change and Values.
Dr Yuki Yoshida
Researcher
National Institute for Environmental Studies
Addressing the gap: Prioritising needs of Pacific Island countries and territories for climate and impact projection tools
8:30 AM - 9:15 AMBiography
Yuki is a researcher at the CCCA and member of the AP-PLAT development team. Her recent research focuses on community relocations in Fiji. She was trained as a sustainability scientist with a background in social sciences, and served as lead author on the IPBES assessments on Transformative Change and Values.
Manabu is a private sector researcher specializing in climate change adaptation and the founder of blue and tech, Ltd., which conducts research on climate change impacts and adaptation while developing related data and tools. He is currently leading the design of “Climate Impact Viewer” update.
Yvette is Technical Adviser for Science to Services at PCCC, translating scientific research into practical services that enhance climate resilience across the Pacific. Having previously worked at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Multi-Country Office in Samoa, Yvette has emphasized the importance of partnerships and practical applications of scientific research.
Leanne is Science Lead on Asia-Pacific Climate Intelligence at CSIRO Environment. She has several decades of experience with translating climate science into practical applications, including through case studies of climate impacts on different sectors.
Contribution: Introduction of CSIRO and implications of climate projections
Dr Ritu Verma
Associate Professor
CLCS / UCLA / Carleton University
Indigenous knowledge, colonial continuities: The limits, opportunities and challenges of adaptation and loss and damage in the islands of the South Pacific
9:15 AM - 10:00 AMBiography
Rebecca Monson is a sociolegal scholar who draws on legal geography, political ecology, feminism and Pacific Studies to explore questions of law, environment and development. Her work includes the prize-winning book ‘Gender, Property and Politics in the Pacific’ (Cambridge 2023) and Solomon Islands’ climate relocation guidelines, praised by Human Rights Watch as ‘the most rights-respecting in the world’.
Glenn Finau is an Indigenous Fijian academic who teaches accounting at the University of Tasmania. His research seeks to understand the interface between accounting (and other calculative technologies) with attempts to (dis)empower Indigenous communities with respect to the management of their natural resources.
Young Su Park is an Assistant Professor at the Department of the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities, Seoul National University. He undertook ethnographic fieldwork in Kiribati for the WHO’s climate crisis and health project. Dr. Park received his PhD in Anthropology (Culture and Society track) at Stanford University.
Ritu Verma is Adjunct Professor at Carleton University, Research Scholar at UCLA, and Associate Professor at CLCS Bhutan. An anthropologist of development and political-ecologist, her work explores the climate-culture-wellbeing nexus from a decolonial and post-growth lens, and includes “Women at the Frontline of Climate Change: Gender Risks and Hopes” (UNEP).
