 Maurice James Brownjohn (OBE) was born in England on September 4th, 1959. After a hands-on upbringing in the UK fishing industry, and an Honours degree in fishery science, he moved to PNG at the age of 21 to work in the area of community fisheries development in the remote Pacific islands.
As a naturalized citizen of PNG since 1989, he has continued to be active in developing the fishing sector, e.g. as former Chair of the PNG Fishing Industry Association for 19 years, a leading domestic tuna longline tuna fleet operator in PNG for over 15 years, and operating several businesses that serviced and supported the PNG fishing industry since the 80’s. Maurice has been at the forefront of development within an industry that has seen and continues to see exponential growth as the tuna fishery moves on shore.
Maurice has co-founded and chaired numerous fisheries-related organizations both in PNG and regionally, each geared toward the development of the domestic fishing sectors, and active in areas of policy, technology, training, trade, promotion and investment.
Aside from being the Commercial Advisor to the Parties of the Nauru Agreement (PNA) Office, based in Majuro, RMI, since 2010, Maurice continues as an active member of the Board of the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) of PNG since establishment in 1995.
In service to the PNG government, Maurice has held various other positions and worked in several capacities as State Delegate, and Industry advisor; including the Multilateral High Level Conference on Tuna, PREPCON and WCPFC as well as EPA, FFC, PNA, SPC, KOBE meetings since the 1990s.
In recognition of these achievements, he has received numerous awards including the Order of the British Empire (OBE) - HM the Queen’s News Year Honours List in 1998 for his “Services to the Fishing Industry in Papua New Guinea”.
Maurice is also PNA Commercial Director of Pacifical C.V., which markets sustainable tuna from the PNA people.
Note: Parties to Nauru Agreement [PNA] are: Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
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