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Putting Pacific biocultural indicators of wellbeing into policy and practice

Tracks
Tully 3
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
2:45 PM - 3:00 PM

Speaker

Dr Stacy Jupiter
Executive Director, Marine Conservation
Wildlife Conservation Society

Putting Pacific biocultural indicators of wellbeing into policy and practice

ISE Congress 2026 Abstract

Through a series of collaborative grants and working groups spearheaded by the late Dr. Eleanor Sterling, our research-practitioner team, which included expertise from Pacific Indigenous community leaders, government representatives and civil society representatives, developed knowledge co-production methods for the creation of biocultural indicators of well-being relevant within the Pacific Islands. We put these methods into practice in a number of fora and across various scales in the Pacific. At the community level in Solomon Islands, after measuring co-created biocultural indicators of well-being, our team created products to help support intergenerational knowledge transfer. For example, we co-produced a cookbook highlighting customary food preparations practices in one community and an ethnobotanical guide to plants of local value for another community to prevent erosion of kastom knowledge. We developed a series of process guides on how to co-create and implement culturally attuned monitoring and reporting indicators, including for governments reporting on international commitments (e.g., for the Sustainable Development Goals). These products and processes were socialized with some Pacific governments, including in Palau where guidance was incorporated into recommendations for operationalizing their Palau National Marine Sanctuary legislation, including development of a monitoring and evaluation framework. At the regional level, we helped integrate key aspects of biocultural approaches and indicators into the Pacific Resilience Standards (PRS), used for monitoring progress on the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific. Through specific early engagement, the final PRS better incorporates critical dimensions of well-being for Pacific peoples that were previously absent, including the connections between people and place, and Indigenous and local knowledges, practices, and worldviews.

Biography

Stacy Jupiter is the Executive Director of the Global Marine Program. She is a recognized thought leader in ocean conservation with over two decades of experience in tropical coastal ecosystems research and management and well over 100 peer-reviewed publications. She holds degrees from Harvard University and University of California-Santa Cruz and was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow.
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