ORDA

Oceania Research & Development Associates Inc. (ORDA) is an international consulting company registered in Samoa, and established in September 2000. ORDA’s geographical focus is on the Pacific Islands and the Western Pacific.

Capabilities:

Project Design, Development and Management; Coral Reef Monitoring, Surveying, and Training; Marine Biodiversity Surveys & Technical Training; Planning and Design of Marine Protected Areas; Surveying & Monitoring of Marine Protected Areas; Invasive Marine Species Surveys.

Principal Partners

G. Robin South, BSc PhD DSc CMarSci FIMarEST

Robin South has been linked with the International Ocean Institute since 1993, and is currently the Regional Advisor for the International Ocean Institute’s Operational Centre for Australia and the Western Pacific, and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Studies of James Cook University, Queensland, Australia. Robin was awarded his PhD in 1963, and his DSc in 1990, by the University of Liverpool, UK. He is an educator, researcher, administrator, editor, communicator and project manager, with forty years of experience in Canada, New Zealand, South Pacific and Australia. His scientific expertise is in the systematics of marine benthic macro-algae. Robin is a past Editor of Phycologia, and Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Botany; currently he serves on the Editorial Boards of the New Zealand Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research, and the Ocean Yearbook. He has served as consultant for projects with Parks Canada, TOTAL Eastcan Exploration Ltd. (Canada), the International Centre for Ocean Development, the United Nations Development Programme, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Government of Japan, the Nippon Foundation, the Marine Conservation Action Fund (Boston), the TOTAL Foundation (France), the International Ocean Institute, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, and the Global International Waters Assessment. He has published more than 260 papers and technical reports on algae, oceans policy, and related topics.

Posa A. Skelton, Dip Env Health Sci, B Appl Sci (Env Health), MSc (Mar Sci), PhD (Mar Sci)

Posa Skelton is the Director of the International Ocean Institute Operational Centre for Australia and the Western Pacific. He received his bachelor’s degree in Wellington, New Zealand in public health in 1995, his Masters in Marine Science from the University of the South Pacific in 2000, and his PhD in Marine Science from the University of the South Pacific in 2005. Posa is an experienced diver and field biologist, and a good communicator. He has worked with the IOI since 1998, and coordinated the Southwest Pacific Node of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, based in Fiji; previously he was a Fisheries Research Officer with the Government of Samoa. His expertise is in coral reef monitoring, tropical fisheries, and in the systematics of tropical benthic marine plants. He has experience in the organisation of community workshops focussed on coral reefs, assisted with the Global International Waters Assessment for the Pacific Islands, was Co-Principal Investigator of the coral reef biodiversity conservation project in Bunaken National Park, Indonesia, and has participated in biodiversity surveys in Samoa (with the University of the South Pacific), American Samoa (with the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawai’i, and as principal investigator with the Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, American Samoa), in Fiji (with the University of the South Pacific) and in North Sulawesi, Indonesia (with the TOTAL Foundation). Posa is well published in refereed journals, and has produced a number of technical and consulting reports.