By Dr. Safeeya Mo­hammed

‘The view of the world through a fe­male lens, par­tic­u­lar­ly in po­si­tions of in­flu­ence, is cer­tain­ly some­thing that can rev­o­lu­tion­ize the way we do things: from the de­ci­sions that are made, the way peo­ple are en­gaged to ef­fect change and the way we go about our dai­ly lives,” shares Dr. Maris­sa Gowrie.

The Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col

The Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col on Sub­stances that De­plete the Ozone Lay­er is the land­mark mul­ti­lat­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal agree­ment that reg­u­lates the pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of near­ly 100 man-made chem­i­cals re­ferred to as ozone de­plet­ing sub­stances (ODS). Adopt­ed on 15 Sep­tem­ber 1987, the Pro­to­col is to date the on­ly UN treaty ever that has been rat­i­fied every coun­try on Earth - all 198 UN Mem­ber States.

The Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col al­so makes im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tions to the re­al­iza­tion of the UN Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals. Giv­en all of these fac­tors and more, the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col is con­sid­ered to be one of the most suc­cess­ful en­vi­ron­men­tal agree­ments of all time. What the par­ties to the Pro­to­col have man­aged to ac­com­plish since 1987 is un­prece­dent­ed, and it con­tin­ues to pro­vide an in­spir­ing ex­am­ple of what in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion at its best can achieve.

Ear­li­er this year, one of our “daugh­ters of our T&T soil” was ap­point­ed Vice Pres­i­dent of the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col and high­light­ed as one of five women of the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col mak­ing a dif­fer­ence and lead­ing the charge on en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion to build a more sus­tain­able fu­ture for all.

The five women of the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col high­light­ed at IWD:

1. Liana Ghahra­manyan, Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col and Vi­en­na Con­ven­tion Fo­cal Point, Na­tion­al Ozone Unit, Min­istry of En­vi­ron­ment, Ar­me­nia

2. GUO Xi­aolin, Deputy Di­rec­tor, For­eign En­vi­ron­men­tal Co­op­er­a­tion Cen­ter Min­istry of Ecol­o­gy and En­vi­ron­ment, Chi­na

3. Maris­sa Gowrie, Deputy En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­ag­er/Na­tion­al Ozone Of­fi­cer, En­vi­ron­men­tal Pol­i­cy and Plan­ning Di­vi­sion, Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment, Trinidad and To­ba­go

4. Cindy New­berg, Di­rec­tor, Stratos­pher­ic Pro­tec­tion Di­vi­sion, Unit­ed States En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, USA

5. Maria Uj­falusi, Se­nior Ad­vis­er, Swedish En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, EU Unit, Swe­den

Fe­males are held in Equal Stead

“From my ex­pe­ri­ence, the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col has pro­vid­ed this plat­form of eq­ui­ty, where fe­males are held in equal stead with our male coun­ter­parts, al­low­ing fe­male ozone cham­pi­ons the av­enue to con­tribute in a mean­ing­ful way to­ward the pro­tec­tion of the ozone lay­er at the glob­al, re­gion­al and na­tion­al lev­els. It has al­lowed that space for gen­der di­ver­si­ty, and a bal­ance in the ex­pres­sion of opin­ion where voic­es of women are heard and val­ued, and the traits of re­silience, de­ter­mi­na­tion, at­ten­tion to de­tail, sen­si­tiv­i­ty and mul­ti­task­ing are in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to our glob­al ef­forts. This has with­out a doubt con­tributed to the over­whelm­ing suc­cess of this mul­ti­lat­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal agree­ment,” shared Dr. Maris­sa Gowrie.

Pro­tect­ing the En­vi­ron­ment is not a job, it is a way of life

She has been in the en­vi­ron­men­tal field for the last 22 years and holds dear to her heart, her ear­ly aca­d­e­m­ic ex­pe­ri­ences, “I am a proud grad­u­ate of St. Au­gus­tine Girls High School and from then the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies where I ob­tained a PhD in En­vi­ron­men­tal Bi­ol­o­gy.”

Elect­ed by the Group of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (GRU­LAC), Dr. Maris­sa Gowrie holds one of three Vice Pres­i­den­cy Posts to the Meet­ing of the Par­ties of the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col for 2022.

As one of the Vice Pres­i­dents, Dr. Gowrie has the im­por­tant role of sup­port­ing the Pres­i­dent to en­sure that all Par­ties, mem­bers and par­tic­i­pants fol­low the rules of pro­ce­dure for both the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col and the Vi­en­na Con­ven­tion.

Her source of strength

Dr. Maris­sa Gowrie shares, “I feel ex­treme­ly ful­filled to be able to con­tribute to the work of pro­tect­ing the ozone lay­er and be a pos­i­tive ex­am­ple, not on­ly to my daugh­ter, but all young ladies who may dream of one day get­ting in­volved in sav­ing our plan­et.”

“Be­ing true to your word, gen­uine, re­li­able, as in­clu­sive as pos­si­ble, and en­sur­ing open and hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tion with every­one I in­ter­act with in this field have been key el­e­ments in over­com­ing any chal­lenges. I have al­so learned that if ever things seems over­whelm­ing you should nev­er be afraid to ask for help, Be­ing able to ac­cept sup­port is ac­tu­al­ly a sign of strength.”

She em­pha­sizes her grat­i­tude to those along her jour­ney. “I have al­ways been blessed to be sur­round­ed by per­sons who have en­cour­aged and sup­port­ed me. This in­cludes my fam­i­ly, my par­ents, daugh­ter and hus­band, my friends as well as the net­work of amaz­ing peo­ple that make up the Na­tion­al Ozone Unit Fam­i­ly and the Mon­tre­al Pro­to­col Fam­i­ly, na­tion­al­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. There un­wa­ver­ing sup­port has cer­tain­ly pro­pelled me to be the best ver­sion of my pro­fes­sion­al self.”

World Re­frig­er­a­tion Day

– June 26

What can we do to en­cour­age more women to pur­sue ca­reer in air con­di­tion­ing and re­frig­er­a­tion?

“Air con­di­tion­ing and re­frig­er­a­tion is a fast grow­ing and im­por­tant sec­tor. Al­though this in­dus­try is tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed, I think it of­fers a great chal­lenge and op­por­tu­ni­ty for women to be­come in­volved and they should not be afraid to trans­form stereo­types and break the bar­ri­ers of tra­di­tion­al think­ing.

I en­cour­age women in­ter­est­ed in this sec­tor to seize the op­por­tu­ni­ties for train­ing and de­vel­op­ment that ex­ist and de­vel­op their skill and unique tal­ent. As a moth­er of a girl my­self, I think it is im­por­tant that we en­cour­age their cu­rios­i­ty and nat­ur­al in­ter­est with pro­grams and ac­tiv­i­ties at a young age and keep the spark alive dur­ing their de­vel­op­men­tal jour­ney. No mat­ter your gen­der, the on­ly per­son who can ever lim­it your growth is your­self, you have it with­in you to be whomev­er and what­ev­er you want to be!