A deadly tsunami hit the Western and Choiseul provinces on the 2nd April 2007 following an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Ritcher scale. Other parts of the pacific, including Australia and Papua New Guinea, also received Tsunami warnings. The tsunami caused a lot of damage to properties and loss of lives in the two provinces. A number of communities The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is working in partnership with in Choiseul
province have been badly affected.
Available online
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Physical Description: 8 Pages
Coral reef monitoring lias been an on-going activity in Samoa since 1997. In 1998. a pilot Village Level Coral Reef Monitoring Project (VLCRMP) was initiated in collaboration between The Fisheries Division, the Division of Environment & Conservation and the International Ocean Institute Pacific Islands. The pilot project provided monitoring equipment and assisted in training the trainers that, in nuns trained 46 villagers from six villages selected from around the country ( Mulipola 2001 ).
The term Marine Protected Area (MPA) includes any area of the coast and ocean that is under management to control potentially destructive activities and conserve the biodiversity resources. Other terms used in the Pacific to describe such an area are
Western Samoa, the larger and more westerly portion of the Samoan Archipelago lies approximately centred on latitude, 13°45 ' south and longitude 1.72° West;. There are two main islands, namely Savai'i and Upolu, the smaller islands of Apolima and Manono and five uninhabited islets. The land area of Western Samoa is approximately 1,100 square miles and the archipelago lies approximately 2,500 miles from Sydney and Hawaii, 1,800 miles north east of New Zealand, with Fiji lying approximately 800 miles to the west.
The Western Samoan Turtle Hatchery Project is, as the accompanying documents will show, a low-input, high-potential stock-reviving programme aimed primarily at increasing the amount of fresh protein currently available to the local population.
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Physical Description: 13 p.
WITH UNRULY hair; a cheerful glint in his eye and a mischievous grin. Samoan-born Vili lese is passionate about conservation. Right now, he's undertaking ground-breaking research in Tuvalu's waters to help build a sustainable future for Tuvalu's community of almost 12,000 a community who rely heavily on fishing and
farming to survive.
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Physical Description: 6 Pages
In most tropical countries, coral reef ecosystems provide coastal populations with a number of goods and services. However, a variety of anthropogenic practices threatens reef health and therefore jeopardizes the benefits flowing from these goods and services. These threats range from local pollution, sedimentation, destructive fishing practices and coral mining, to global issues such as coral bleaching.
In The Early 1990s, Residents Of UCUNIVANUA VILLAGE, On The Eastern Coast Of Fijis largest island, realized that the marine resources they depended on were becoming scarce. Village elders remembered when a
The reefs of Guam have been spared from severe and widespread coral mortality associated with large-scale bleaching events, but observations in 2006 and 2007 suggest that bleaching events in Guams reefs may become more frequent and severe in the coming decades. The first large-scale bleaching event reported in Guam since the establishment of the University of Guam Marine Laboratory (UOGML) in 1970, was an event in 1994, with another event reported in 1996 (Paulay and Benayahu, 1999).
Since the 1997-1998 El Niño event, which was described by Golbuu et al. (2005), Palau has not experienced any major bleaching events. However, there have been reports of localized bleaching in different parts of Palau that are believed to be related to human impacts.
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Physical Description: 29 p.
Pacific Islanders traditionally have enjoyed diverse ways to achieve food security, through gardening, fishing, hunting, and selling products or labour for cash, reports JON BARNETT.
But robust local food production has significantly been eroded with urbanisation and cheap, poor quality food imports. Climate change will increase threats to food security, through
Tonga has made "good and steady progress" towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as reported in Tonga 1st National Status Report: Millennium Development Goals Today and Tomorrow and summarised .
The report on a new regional institutional framework was commissioned by the Pacific Plan Action Committee (PPAC). The aim in doing so was to present the report to Pacific Islands Forum Leaders at their October 2006 meeting, after PPAC had considered it in August 2006 in Nadi,Fiji Islands.
The main map shows that higher population densities occur (i) around and inland from major coastal towns, (ii) in the elevated PNG Highlands (H) and the Baliem Valley (B) of Papua, and (iii) along most of the coasts of the mainland and major islands. The distributions of inhabited places and of annual fires reveal that people and their effects are widely dispersed across much of the landscape. However, vast landscapes in the upper catchments of the Mamberamo River (M) in Papua and in parts of the upper Fly River (F) and Sepik River (S) in PNG remain sparsely inhabited.
Some presentations refer to the term Marine Managed Area (MMA) instead of Marine Protected Area (MPA) in order to cover more management options. The workshop proposed and adopted a rough typology of MM As that will be useful to communicate with the key decision makers (land use planners, coastal zone planners and managers, regional planners, protected area planners and managers, community leaders, sectorial planners in fisheries and environment...)
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Physical Description: 28 p.
Principles for designing marine protected area (MPA) networks that address social, economic, and biological criteria are well established in the scientific literature. Climate change represents a new and serious threat to marine ecosystems, but, to date, few studies have specifically considered how to design MPA networks to be resilient to this emerging threat. Here, we compile the best available information on MPA network design and
In February 2005 Campaign Strategy Ltd1 and Cultural Dynamics2 (CDSM
Cultural Dynamics Strategy and Marketing) commissioned a nationally
representative telephone survey of over 1000 adults, who were asked a number
of questions about climate change. Some of those results3 are reported here.
The same sample was asked a large number of other questions about
environmental issues, and their political identity. They were also asked ten
questions about their lives which enable Cultural Dynamics to place them into 12
The freshwater resources of small island states can be classified as either "conventional" or "nonconventional." Conventional resources include rainwater collected from artificial or natural surfaces, groundwater, and surface water. Nonconventional resources include seawater or brackish groundwater desalination, water importation by barge or submarine pipeline, treated wastewater, and substitution (such as the use of coconuts during droughts) (Falkland 1999a).
Kept in vertical file collection|Source: The World's Water 2002-2003. Chapter 5: 113-131
Following the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the governments of the Asian and Pacific region have, within certain limitations and constraints, drawn up and implemented national strategies, action plans and programmes to attain the objectives of sustainable development. The international, regional and subregional organizations have developed their respective action programmes to assist the governments in their efforts. There were also some common problems and transboundary issues that lent themselves to action at the regional and subregional levels.