Network Members

When we first met Angelique Brathwaite, she was working as a marine biologist in the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU) in Barbados. As her career evolved over the span of a decade, Angie participated in three in-person trainings with the Reef Resilience Network, building skills in scientific writing, resilience-based management, and reef monitoring to address coral bleaching events and inform management actions. Angie applied those skills to publish papers ranging from coral bleaching to the sustainable financing of coastal protection, establish effective reef monitoring programs, and make management decisions for the CZMU to benefit Barbados' reefs. 

She also uses the network hub, reefresilence.org, for pertinent information. "With so much information online, it's helpful to go to one place and have such an array of reliable information available. And, of course, the webinars are excellent!" says Angie. Now, Angie serves as the Director of Conservation & Science at Blue Alliance, overseeing the marine programs and developing conservation measures to minimize negative impacts. We spoke with Angie during a recent Reef Exchanges podcast episode to hear her insights on sustainable financing of MPAs.

Anita Tsang is an Aquatic Biologist for the State of Hawai‘i Division of Aquatic Resources. She helps engage Hawai‘i residents through the Holomua Marine Initiative, a new community-centered engagement process to shape and inform the management of nearshore marine resources in Hawai‘i. To help Anita develop a comprehensive communications plan that will support the Holomua Marine Initiative, the Network trained Anita to use a strategic communication planning process that she has since used to guide the Initiative's community outreach and engagement efforts. Now, Anita is training to be a coach to help her colleagues in Hawai‘i learn and apply the same process that has helped her craft effective messaging and tactics to increase public participation towards collaboratively managing for healthy reefs and abundant resources.

Karen Stone is the director of Vava'u Environmental Protection Association in Tonga, where they support multiple coral reef monitoring programs and develop community-based strategies alongside the Government of Tonga. Vava’u Environmental Protection Association currently supports nine community-based fishery areas, conducts water quality monitoring and coastal planting to reduce runoff and sedimentation, leads invasive species eradication efforts, and more. 

““The coral bleaching and monitoring resources available on reefresilience.org have been wonderful. A typical textbook is not helpful to many of our team members who speak English as a second language. Reef Resilience Network graphics and web content are easy for our team to understand. We teach students about coral reefs at 13 schools here annually and translate information from reefresilience.org to Tongan to keep our outreach information up to date.” —Karen Stone, Director, Vava'u Environmental Protection Association