Over the past decade since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio, there has been only modest progress in the Asia-Pacific Region towards sustainable development. Since 1992, environmental quality in the Region has deteriorated. In advance of the September, 2002, World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), a number of agencies active in the Asia-Pacific Region, including ADB, ESCAP, UNDP, and UNEP, agreed to co-ordinate a series of subregional and regional preparatory meetings.
Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have committed themselves to considering the special needs and concerns of developing countries resulting from the adverse effects of climate change in the area of insurance. The needs of small island states have been are highlighted for attention, due to their unique geographic features and exposure, and thus unique vulnerability.1
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Physical Description: 49 p.
In failing to tackle climate change with urgency, rich countries
are effectively violating the human rights of millions of the
world's poorest people. Continued excessive greenhouse-gas
emissions primarily from industrialised nations are - with
scientific certainty - creating floods, droughts, hurricanes, sea- level rise, and seasonal unpredictability. The result is failed harvests, disappearing islands, destroyed homes, water
scarcity, and deepening health crises, which are undermining
The field visit to Tegua in the Torba Province. Vanuahi was undertaken to carry out a post relocation survey. The relocation was earned out under the Capacity Building for the Development of Adaptation Measures in Pacific Islands Countries (CBDAMPIC) project as an adaptation measure to the vulnerability that
the people of Tegua are facing due to salt-water inundation.
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Physical Description: 12 Pages
The main purpose of SEM-Pasifika is to improve site management of the coastal and marine areas in the Pacific region. It should guide interested communities in the region (including communities who have used existing methods and new communities without experiences in socio-economic assessment), management and project staff, researchers, and other practitioners, to understand important steps involved in a socioeconomic assessment and to be able to conduct the monitoring.
Each Suwarrow motu was surveyed during July 2008 for seabird chick numbers and age-states using a simple sampling method used for a similar survey in August 2000. Totals for each species are presented in the Table below and detailed data for each motu can be found in the Results section.
"There is a window of opportunity for avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but that window is closing: the world has less than a decade to change course. Actions taken - or not taken -... will have a profound bearing on the future... The world lacks neither the financial resources nor the technological capabilities... What is missing is a sense of urgency, human solidarity and collective interest (2007/2008 Human Development Report).
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Physical Description: 126 p.
The overall aim of this study was to look at how human activities are impacting on the coastal zone in Timor-Leste, what type of management challenges arise from these
impacts, and what kind of management approach can help to address current and future problems in the coastal zone.
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Physical Description: 88 p.
Poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation are basic social goals and part of the policy agenda of postcolonial states and international agencies. It is not surprising therefore that a large number of programmatic interventions have
This paper suggests that this terrestrial and marine biodiversity inheritance constitutes the foundation upon which rests the survival of the relatively benign and peaceful ways of life in the Pacific ("Peaceful") Ocean. It is stressed that this inheritance, including traditional knowledge concerning it, is endangered by modem development and education, and that if it is not maintained or strengthened, the cultures, economies and rich biodiversity inheritances of Pacific societies WILL NOT SURVIVE.
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This article briefly outlines the cause of global warming, its trends and consequences as indicated by the International Panel on Climate Change. Sea-level rise is one consequence of particular concern to Pacific island states. It also reviews the views of economists about connections between economic growth and global warming. Whereas the majority of economists did not foresee a conflict between economic growth and global warming, the possibility of such a conflict is now more widely
Beginning with the 1972 Stockholm Summit on Sustainable Development, the links between economic, social and environmental aspects to achieving sustainable development have received increasing attention.
This report is based on a master set of data that has been compiled by an Inter-Agency and Expert Group on MDG Indicators led by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, in response to the wishes of the General Assembly for periodic assessment of progress towards the MDGs. The Group comprises representatives of the international
This booklet features practical projects and programmes that governments and their partners have developed in their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The booklet has been prepared for the High-Level Event on the MDGs which has been convened by the UN Secretary-General and the President of the UN General Assembly and which will enable world leaders to review progress, identify gaps, and commit themselves to
the necessary efforts, resources and mechanisms.
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This thesis applies an approach of political ecology to analyze environmental change in the Cook Islands in the context of the fiscal crisis of the state in the 1990's. Questions and methods from both human and physical geography are brought to the empirical case. Corruption and financial management surrounding a hotel development on Rarotonga, Cook Islands presents a case of "criminal ecology" This research finds that the Pacific
Highlands Pacific Limited is currently seeking finance for the development of a Nickel-Cobalt mine in Madang Province. Papua New Guinea. The mine will be located near the Ramu River, with processing facilities at Basamuk Bay on the Rai Coast. Basainuk Bay is a small embayment of the larger Astrolabe Bay. Highlands Pacific plans to dispose of mill tailings through a submarine outfall into Astrolabe Bay. Oceanographic conditions in Astrolabe Bay make this practise inadvisable if consideration is given to the ecological health of the Madang region.
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The World Conservation Union (IUCN) is the world's largest and most important conservation network. The Union brings together 84 States, 108 government agencies and more than 800 non-government organisations, together with 10,000 experts, in a unique worldwide partnership.
In order to identify hotspots in the Cook Islands a meeting of the Cook Islands Water Safety Committee (WSC) was convened on January 26, 2007. As explained in the GEF Diagnostic Report for the Cook Islands (Davie & Parakoti, 2007) it is recommended, in order to minimize duplication of roles, that the WSC forms the IWRM committee used in any GEF project.
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Physical Description: 14 p.
In the Pacific, land and sea are life; livelihoods and the natural environment are inseparable. Culture, tradition and livelihoods, are underpinned by the incredible biodiversity of the nearly 3,000 islands and atolls of the Pacific. However, high birth rates, unsustainable use of natural resources, increasing dependency on the cash economy, labour migration, and the deterioration of traditional social systems, are changing traditional lifestyles.
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Physical Description: 36 p.
Few studies1 have been published on school-based environmental education (EE) in the Pacific islands, and there is little available information on effective initiatives in schools. The key purpose of this study is to review and assess the extent to which EE is being carried out in Pacific Island schools to support ongoing dialogue about environment and sustainable development education at the national, regional and international levels.
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Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 74