Komba Jossie Konoyima

Dr. Konoyima has a Master of Philosophy Degree in Marine Sciences (major in Mangrove Ecology and Governance) and a doctorate in Fisheries Science (Biology, Economics, and Management). He is the present Director of the Institute of Marine Biology and Oceanography, University of Sierra Leone.

He has personally written and won international grants grounded in research and statistical data analysis, with the first grant focused in the Yawri Bay coastal landscape, where detailed socioeconomic and biological studies were carried out. The second project in 2023 targeted the Sherbro E River Estuary and focused on the Fish Nursery Functions of Mangroves. Yet, given the rising issues of climate change and the need for socioeconomic resilience of coastal communities, with pressures on coastal resources, an updated study is timely.

Despite this, Dr Konoyima and his team have just concluded research on Environmental, Socioeconomic, and biodiversity aspects in the Scarcies and Sierra Leone River Estuaries in 2025, supported by the Environmental Protection Agency of Sierra Leone.

He has served as a consultant for Stakeholder mapping and Capacity Needs Assessment, as well as the development of a Training of Trainers Manual on Forest Landscape Restoration, Adaptive, and Integrated Forest Landscape Management: the Western Area Peninsular Forest, Sierra Leone case. Funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency of Sierra Leone (EPA-SL).

Dr Konoyima was the lead mangrove specialist for the Conservation International (CI) project titled “Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) Biological Survey of the Coastal Ecosystems of Liberia,” with a focus on the mangrove ecosystem in 2022 (details in later sections).

He has worked as an Environmental Specialist for the Environment Protection Agency-Sierra Leone (EPA-SL)/United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on various projects and training exercises, including the development of a Coastal Adaptation Action Plan, developing a Coastal Ecosystems-Based Adaptation (CEBA) Manual, assessing the vulnerability of coastal assets to climate change in coastal areas of Sierra Leone, developing training tools and training of trainers including district council staff members and other key stakeholders on climate change impacts, mitigation and/resilience.

He has worked as an environmental scientist for various local and international firms for the conduct of ecological, social, and health impact assessments, including CEMMATS Group Ltd., Combined Ecology/Environmental Resources Management (ERM-USA) in 2015 (Rokel River), West African Biodiversity and Climate Change Programme (WABICC) in 2015, 2020 (Marine Protected Areas of the Sierra Leone Coast), The Biodiversity Consortium (TBC-UK) in 2018 (Rokel River), Earth-Time Ltd. (Monrovia, Liberia), and Multi-Consult (UK) as an aquatic ecologist.

More recently (2024), Dr Konoyima served as the lead consultant for the development of the Environmental and Social Management Plan (ESMP) for the Leone Afric Metals (SL) Limited Lithium mining project, which was submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency of Sierra Leone for approval of a successful operation license.

Finally, Dr Konoyima has over ten years of experience in environmental and socioeconomic consultancies and is a trained thematic user (training of trainers) in earth observation remote sensing, trained by ECOWAS through the Monitoring for Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) program.