13 August 2025, Vailima, Samoa - Members of the Pacific Meteorological Council (PMC) conducted a special yaqona ceremony last Friday for the Director of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme’s (SPREP) Climate Change Resilience programme, as they start a new chapter under the Secretariat’s newly-formed Climate Science and Information programme.
Represented by Directors and officials from National Meteorological and Hydrological Services in the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu, members of the PMC conducted the ceremony to show their gratitude and appreciation to Ms. Tagaloa Cooper, Director of SPREP’s Climate Change Resilience programme, for her contributions to the work of the Council while under her leadership.
The Pacific Meteorological Council is a subsidiary body of SPREP, and prior to the establishment of the new programme, was managed under the Climate Change Resilience programme.
The Director of Fiji’s Meteorological Services, Mr. Misaeli Funaki, spoke on behalf of the PMC members, saying, “This yaqona is presented by members of the PMC, the family of Directors, but most importantly on behalf of Mr. Salesa Nihmei, the new Director of the Climate Science and Information programme to show our appreciation for the wonderful work that you did in overseeing the functions of the PMC.”
“This unit has moved, because it has been empowered and equipped in the best way,” he added. “There is nothing that we can do to repay all you have done, but we say this with all humbleness – thank you. Vinaka vaka levu.”
SPREP has established the new Climate Science and Information programme, which now supports the work of the Pacific Meteorological Council and the Pacific National Meteorological Services across SPREP’s 21 Pacific island countries and territories. This work was previously under the Climate Change Resilience programme.
Earlier this month, SPREP announced Mr. Salesa Nihmei as the first Director for the newly established programme; an announcement that was applauded and welcomed by the Pacific meteorological community.
Prior to his new appointment, Mr. Nihmei served as SPREP’s Meteorology and Climatology Officer from 2013, and was later appointed the Meteorology and Climatology Adviser in 2019 under the Climate Change Resilience programme.
SPREP’s Climate Change Resilience Director, Ms. Cooper, was humbled by the gesture, and thanked the Pacific Met Directors and the PMC community for the honour, and for their kind words of their time under her leadership.
“You as leaders yourselves know that you are only as good as the people that serve alongside you. And for that, I had a steady vaka. I had a team that did all the hard work, and my job really, was to place my trust in them.”
“The relationship between Climate Change Resilience and Climate Science and Information I will never sever. The way that I see it, adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage can only be informed by the science that you possess, so a critical part of the work that you do turns into action under those three areas.”
The newly formed Climate Science and Information programme houses the Weather Ready Pacific programme, the European Union-funded Intra-ACP Climate Services and Related Applications program, the Climate and Oceans Support Program in the Pacific, and the newly-signed Republic of Korea-Pacific Islands Climate Prediction Services project.
The programme will continue to provide crucial support to the work of Pacific NMHSs, World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), technical partners and coordinate the meetings of the PMC and Pacific Ministers of Meteorology Meetings. It is based at the SPREP Campus in Vailima, Samoa.
For more information, please contact Mr. Salesa Nihmei, Director – Climate Science and Information, at [email protected].