Small-scale fisheries provide many benefits to coastal communities in the Indo-Pacific region, including food security, improved nutrition and cash income. However, increasing engagement with the global economy is exerting additional pressure on marine resources and opportunities to engage in alternative livelihoods are often limited by remoteness and a lack of land-based farming opportunities.
Across the globe, many nations have gone through a period of unmanaged wildlife consumption characterized by massive population crashes and extinction of vertebrate species. The dramatic declines of useful animal resources because of this over-consumption have often been followed by a determined effort to regulate and manage wildlife consumption, often too late to avoid extinction and even more often too late to enable the resource population to recover to harvestable levels.
Artisanal fishing on coral reefs in Papua New Guinea is an important livelihood activity that is managed primarily at the level of local communities. Pockets of overexploitation exist and are expected to increase with plans for increased commercialization
HOME RANGES, MOVEMENT, AND DEN USE IN LONG-BEAKED ECHIDNAS, ZAGLOSSUS BARTONI, FROM PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Long-beaked echidnas (Zaglossus), which are endemic to New Guinea, are the largest and least-studied of the 3 extant genera of monotremes. Zaglossus is listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union and data regarding the natural history of long-beaked echidnas are critical to efforts to protect these animals. However, no detailed studies of the ecology of this genus have been published.
Numerous New Guinea birds, mostly psittaciforms and columbiforms, have been recorded feeding on soil. This study documents geophagy in the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area (CMWMA) in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. We present the first documented case of geophagy in the palm cockatoo Probosciger aterrimus and in up to 11 other species.
Clearing forests for oil palm plantations is a major threat to tropical terrestrial biodiversity, and may potentially have large impacts on downstream marine ecosystems (e.g., coral reefs). However, little is known about the impacts of runoff from oil palmplantations, so it is not clear howoil palmdevelopment should be modified to minimize the risk of degrading marine ecosystems, or howmarine conservation plans should be modified to account for the impacts of oil palm development.
The shell of the Manus green tree snail Papustyla pulcherrima is renowned for its beauty and is subject to international protection under CITES, having been harvested intensively in the past. To determine its threat status,
and whether further conservation action is justified, an inexpensive Wisdom of Crowds approach was used to estimate the change in relative density of the snail between 1998 and 2013.
Within the Pacific over the last two decades there has been greater recognition of the pre-existing tools within indigenous communities for natural resource management. Periodic tambu (Tok Pisin: a prohibition) is an indigenous resource management tool often used across Papua New Guinea. On Manus Island terrestrial periodic tambu areas are characterised by a cycle of resource closure followed by instantaneous harvest.
Estimations of survival rates of small mammal populations that occur on the isiand of New Guinea are crucial for conservation and management strategies. Here, we used mark-recapfure data in programme MARK to estimate apparent survival and defection of two murid species in a tropical rainforest in Papua New Guinea. The most parsimonious model allowed survival and recapture probability to vary by species.
A major gap exists in integrating climate projections
and social–ecological vulnerability analyses at
scales that matter, which has affected local-scale adaptation
planning and actions to date. We address this gap by
providing a novel methodology that integrates information on: (i) the expected future climate, including climate-related
To examine species richness patterns in Papua New Guinea’s terrestrialvertebrates test for geographical congruence between the four classes, and between lizard and snake subgroups. To assess the environmental correlates of Papua New Guinean terrestrial-vertebrate richness, and contrast effects of varying analytical resolution and correction for spatial autocorrelation.
Small Island Developing States in the South Pacific are particularly vulnerable to the effects of marine climate change due to their proximity to the ocean and their reliance on it for resources and transportation.
A strategy for the conservation of biodiversity on mid-ocean ridges
SHARKS and RAYS of PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Socio-economics of trawl fisheries
Annual Report