The Fiji Islands Marine Eco region which includes our coastal, Inshore and offshore marine environment is rich in marine biodiversity and endemism. A natural and vibrant ecological mosaic, it links coastal forests and mangroves; tidal estuaries, seagrass beds and lagoons; rich coral reefs and barrier islands.
The workshop was planned and organized by a steering group consisting of R.L. Brownell Jr., R.R. Reeves. N.J. Gales and W.F. Perrin (see Annex 1 for a list of participants). Brownell handled logistics and Reeves chaired the meeting in Samoa. Financial support was provided by WWF (International). The Ocean Conservancy, Animal Welfare Institute. Humane Society of the United States. Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. U.S. Marine Mammal Commission and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A report on the convention on migratory species for the conservation of cetaceans and their habitats in the Pacific Islands region
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 24 p.
There are low and high islands in the Pacific Ocean. All islands have some of the same environments (kinds of places such as coral reff, open ocean and forests)
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
ISBN/ISSN: 978-982-9123-87-9
Physical Description: 36 p. : col. Ill, 29 cm
In a unique partnership that crosses community, language, province, and religious borders, the Arnavon Marine Park seeks to strengthen our spirit and cultural links to the environment through the preservation and protection critical habitats and species in the first and longest operating marine protect area within Solomon Islands. We do this in the belief that one of our roles on Earth is to be good stewards and caretakers of the natural gifts that we receive from it and also appreciate the choice that we make today will also affect the lives of those who will come after us.
The Pacific Islands region that is served by SPREP covers 32 million km2 and is in
the middle of the largest continuous marine habitat on the planet, the Pacific Ocean.
This region is home to a diverse range of large marine animals, including cetaceans,
sirenians and marine turtles. Over half of the world’s known species of cetaceans are
found in the region. The area also supports the world’s largest remaining populations
of dugongs, and green, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles.
Available online
This 5th National Report for the Republic of the Marshall Islands provides an update on the biodiversity status and trends, as well as progress towards the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 including the Aichi Biodiversity Target 2020.
Low islands in the Pacific Ocean that are far from continets started as underwater vocanoes. The lava from the volcano rose above the ocean surface became an island with high hills or mountains.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
ISBN/ISSN: 978-982-9123-89-3
Physical Description: 42 p.
This factsheet was published by SPREP to provide small facts on its work in the reagion to provide technical support and advise to its members on the on-going works towards saving our Pacific Oceans etc.
Available online
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 4 p.
Finding help to get the ACMP registered as Solomon Islands first national park in May.
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 11 p.
Simplifying coral reef ecosystems to a single number for a country, or for a region, runs counter to our knowledge of the complexity and variability that characterise healthy reefs in a healthy ocean scape.
Pacific data are limited, but existing data show high
proportions of plastic in the waste stream (Table 29.1),
as marine litter, and as microplastics present throughout Pacific marine ecosystems, including in the guts of fish and their prey (SPREP 2016, Markic et al. 2018). In a 2011 study, plastics formed 12% of the waste stream in Honiara (SPREP 2017).
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 6 p.
Enterococci are used as an indicator for the microbiological quality of marine waters from the standpoint of human health. The same bacterial group is also commonly used as an indicator for safe consumption of shellfish. The safety thresholds differ by the type of use, such as swimming or consumption of seafood from the marine area.
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 4 p.
Island biodiversity continues to be extremely vulnerable, and 47% of the known threatened Pacific species are declining towards extinction. Pacific island species have high levels of endemism combined with small land areas and therefore limited habitat. Habitat change, naiveté to predation by introduced animals, vulnerability to invasive species-driven changes, pollution, and climate change combine to influence
the abundance and population structure of Pacific biodiversity.
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 6 p.
The Pacific island region has diverse wetlands, such as
the classic coastal ecosystems of mangrove forests, salt marshes, coral reefs, and seagrass beds along with rivers, freshwater lakes, and swamps (SPREP 2016). However, these wetlands are understudied. Land-use change and environmental change can alter the areal extent and condition of wetlands, and the pace of these changes vary among Pacific islands.
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 4 p.
The 50 Reefs Approach to Coral Conservation
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 32 p.
Jonathan Sauer (1961) remarked, in his Coastal Plant Geography of Mauritius, that the chance to study the coastal vegetation there was like being "admitted to a field worker's paradise"
and stressed that "most tropical coasts are beautiful and exciting, particularly to people concerned with natural processes . . .." The same can certainly be said for the tropical coasts of the often Edenized islands of the Pacific Ocean. Their "beauty and excitement" is considerably enhanced,
Coral atolls are natural laboratories within which to examine ecological processes (Sachet, 1967; Lee, 1984). They are often isolated, in some cases little disturbed, and have a geologically recent history of terrestrial plant colonisation. Reef islands around the rim of most atolls are Holocene in age. They are composed of biogenic skeletal sediments and have developed since reef growth caught up with sea level which stabilized after post-glacial sea-level rise. Plant colonisation of most of these islands must have occurred over a period of no more than 6000 years.
In a typical High Island coral reef complex of French Polynesia (transect of Tiahura, Hoorea Island, Society Archipelago!, 73 species of decapod Reptantia and stomatopod crustaceans were collected. Over 9 stations localised along the transect, 3 different units of hard coral substrate of simi1ar volume (about 17 litres each), were sampled at each station. The results are discussed from two aspects : the first shows that at least 50 carcinologic species occur within the cavitary biotopes ; 16 species (mainly Xanthid crabs), represent more than 90% of all collected individuals.
The conservation status, ecology, and cultural importance of sea turtles at the three Polynesian atolls of Tokelau are presented. The green turtle, Chelonia mydas. is the most common species, occurring as a migrant breeder mostly during September through November. The hawks- bill, Eretmochelvs imbricata. is present in small numbers at all three atolls, but nesting is only known at Nukunonu Atoll. A third species, the loggerhead, Caretta caretta. has also been recorded on rare occasions.