Biophysically special, unique marine areas

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Biophysically special, unique marine areas of Solomon Islands

In April 2016, the Cabinet of the Solomon Islands Government endorsed the establishment of the Ocean12 National Steering Committee (comprising the twelve Ministries relevant to ocean management and use) with the mandate to progress Integrated Ocean Governance for the Solomon Islands. The Ocean12 set up a technical working group tasked with implementing the priority aspects of Integrated Ocean Governance including marine spatial planning and the development of an ocean policy. One of their tasks was to identify Solomon Islands’ special and/or unique marine areas (SUMAs) as part of this process.
This report brings together data, literature and the outputs of a special workshop synthesising information about the areas identified. The areas were described, justified and scored according to four criteria: geographic explicitness, justification, information sources and legal obligations associated with each site. Each site was described in as much detail as the available information sources allowed, and given a score out of 12. Sites were divided into large-scale mainly offshore sites and finer-scale mainly inshore sites; the former were divided into regions and the latter were divided into Provinces.