Meity Mongdong

Mrs. Meity Mongdong is the Executive Director of Terra Papua, a conservation organization based in Sorong, Southwest Papua. In this role, she drives the organisation’s vision to conserve natural resources and biodiversity by fostering stakeholder collaboration and empowering Indigenous Community and local people across Papua.

Previously, she managed large-scale marine conservation initiatives with Conservation International and the Konservasi Indonesia program in the Bird's Head Seascape of Papua. In this role, she oversaw a network of 23 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) spanning over 5.2 million hectares of the world’s most biodiverse coral reefs. Furthermore, she partnered with the government to establish at least 2.3 million hectares of joint forest management under the Provincial Strategic Area for Biodiversity, famously known as the Crown Jewel of the Land of Papua. Focusing on conservation-driven development, particularly in Raja Ampat, Southwest Papua, her leadership successfully advanced ecotourism as a sustainable economic driver for both local communities and the regional government as well as the MPAs management sustainable financing.

Meity’s efforts were internationally recognized with the awarding of the Seacology Prize for indigenous islander conservation in 2002, Ashoka Fellowship in 2006 and subsequently a prestigious Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation in 2013, the latter of which she used to research and develop the legal basis for Papuan indigenous communities to issue traditional regulations on natural resource use and to legally enforce these regulations. Throughout her career, Meity’s work has focused on local community engagement and participation in Marine Protected Area (MPA) management, conflict resolution among marine stakeholder groups, marine conservation policy development, and capacity development of local marine protected area (MPA) staff. She was on the governance board of the Blue Abadi Fund; a trust fund focused on providing sustainable financing for marine conservation programs in the Bird’s Head Seascape and keep assisting partners in strengthening organizational capacity to effectively implement the project.