In a remote Fijian village, months after Cyclone Winston stripped the shoreline bare, a group of women waded into the mud and began to plant. They were rebuilding the mangrove forest that had long protected their homes. Watching them work was Mereoni Chung, the Talanoa consultant whose task was not to plant, but to hold together everything that made this planting possible: the funders, the scientists, the elders, the trust that let all three work as one. “My journey began in human rights and democracy advocacy. Over time, my connection to the ocean — central to Pacific culture — drew me toward climate resilience work, she says. As a Pacific feminist, I see my role as ensuring that all voices, especially those of women are included in solutions.”
A fund that belongs to Pacific women
Mereoni is exacting about who designs the mechanisms behind Pacific climate finance, not only the projects themselves. “One of my proudest achievements is co-designing the Pacific Feminist Fund, a homegrown funding mechanism that responds to the specific needs of Pacific feminists”, she says of a process that involved wide regional consultation and, in her words, hard conversations about how funding mechanisms can avoid capture and truly serve communities. “This fund is a gift to my people, a way to ensure that Pacific women lead the change they want to see.”
Talanoa: a word Fiji gave the world
This same conviction shapes Mereoni's work at Talanoa Consulting, the Fiji-based, multi-disciplinary firm where she practices as a consultant specializing in climate change, resilience, agribusiness, gender and social inclusion, and enterprise development. The firm takes its name from Talanoa, a word with Fijian and Tongan roots that names a wider Pacific tradition of open, inclusive, blame-free conversation, a tradition whose reach now extends well past its client list. When Fiji held the presidency of the UN's COP23 climate summit in 2017, it brought that same tradition to the negotiating table, proposing that the world's nations take stock of their climate commitments the way Pacific communities resolve their differences: through dialogue and storytelling rather than confrontation. The UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) adopted the approach as the Talanoa Dialogue, “it is structured around three deceptively simple questions, where are we, where do we want to go, and how do we get there, and used it to review global progress under the Paris Agreement ahead of COP24”, Mereoni explains. Not a diplomatic borrowing, but a true working method. “Today, we see Pacific Islanders leading consultancy work, bringing cultural nuance, relationships, and lived experiences to the table", she says of the shift she has helped drive across the region. “Localization also means knowledge exchange and peer support among Pacific consultants. This has strengthened our ability to challenge power imbalances and ensure that projects are owned and driven by Pacific people.”
Mangroves, wetlands and a whole-of-Islands approach
The Fiji mangrove project is one example of that philosophy in practice. After Cyclone Winston, support from the Kiwa Initiative, channelled through partners including SPC, SPREP and IUCN, allowed communities to fuse traditional planting knowledge with scientific monitoring. “My role was to facilitate relationships between communities, researchers, and funders, ensuring that traditional practices were integrated with scientific knowledge, Mereoni says. A defining moment was seeing a woman-led group in a remote village reclaim their coastline through mangrove replanting.” The outcome reached beyond carbon and coastline: that same group took on decision-making roles their community had rarely offered them before, improving livelihoods and food security along with the shoreline.
On Kiwa itself, Mereoni, who serves as the Initiative's human rights and GEDSI advisor, is direct about what sets it apart: “The Kiwa Initiative stands out for its commitment to human rights, gender equity, and social inclusion.” Its consensus-based decision-making, she notes, ensures that diverse Pacific voices, from Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia, are represented in the projects it funds. “What impresses me most are its flexible funding mechanisms, which enable local organisations to design and implement projects that reflect their priorities. Kiwa prioritises community-led solutions, offering them technical support to build their capacity.” Consensus across three sub-regions, she argues, is what makes the resulting projects genuinely grounded rather than imported. In the Pacific, Mereoni is not standing at the margins of climate strategy. She is one of the people writing it.
