The overall growth performance in the Pacific improved in 2007 with annual growth increasing to around 3 per cent compared to an average of about 2.2 per cent for the 2002-2005 period (Table 1). Vanuatu, Palau, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea grew at above average rates in 2007. Economic growth picked up in Fiji in 2006 but declined in 2007 following the coup in early December 2006. The Cook Islands, Marshall Islands and Samoa also experienced a pick up in growth.
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.
The process by which individuals, groups, organisations, institutions and societies increase their abilities to:
Perform core functions, solve problems, define and achieve objectives
Understand and deal with their development needs in a broad context and in a sustainable manner.
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Physical Description: 129 p.
The initiative supports environment and health actors working together to address issues of common concern. Traditionally, health and environment sectors have acted independently
of one another, each in defined domains. While much can and has been achieved, HELI aims to add a further dimension by focusing specifically on the large and important range of decisions
which cannot be taken by one sector alone and require a coordinated approach.
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ISBN/ISSN: 978-92-4-156372-7
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
As early as 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change might be on human migrationwith millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption.3 Since then, successive reports have argued that environmental degradation, and in particular climate change, is poised to become a major driver of population displacementa crisis in the making.
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Physical Description: 64 p.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) defines its "strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sus-
tainable use in an equitable way" as the Ecosystem Approach to management. This use incorporates the concept of an area used by humans as well as one containing plants and animals in a recognisable configuration.
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Call Number: 333.75 SHE [EL]
ISBN/ISSN: 978-2-8317-0957-4
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
This report describes the background, progress and status of activities under the accountability of SPREP's Assistant Project Officer. Ozone Depleting Substances (APO ODS) during the three-year contract at SPREP. It is intended as an overview primarily for SPREP Management, the new APO ODS and SPREP programme staff. This report may also be used by Pacific Island Countries (PICs).
executing agency (UNEP) and donors (Montreal Protocol's Multilateral Fund and Australia) on the status of the Project at SPREP.
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Specifically the Community Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment was conducted to make it possible for the people of Aitutaki to tell the CBDAMPIC project team what climate related
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.
This report has been prepared by the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts for Members of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) to support discussion on Agenda Item 8.1 'Streamlined reporting by Pacific Island countries (PICs) to the biodiversity- related multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) - the development of a consolidated reporting template' at the 19th SPREP Meeting in September 2008.
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Physical Description: 49 p
The main purpose of this paper is to help policy makers,
particularly those in developing countries, think about the national policy instruments needed to contribute to the
fight against climate change, how such needs can be articulated in order to seek internal and external financial resources and how these needs may be reflected in negotiations of a future climate change agreement. This paper is an input to a series of workshops which the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will organize in developing countries with the aim of improv-
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to our
planet and its people. Reducing emissions of greenhouse
gases (GHG) is called mitigation. Responding to the impacts of climate change is called adaptation. A certain amount of adaptation will be necessary, no matter what we do. But, there will come a point where it will not be possible to adapt our way out of the problem.
In 2007, the UNFCCC Secretariat prepared a report on
"Investment and Financial Flows to Address Climate
Change".11 The report covers mitigation and adaptation in
various sectors over the period to 2030. The report defines
an investment as the initial (capital) cost of a new physical
asset with a life of more than one year, such as the capital
cost of a gas-fired generating unit or a water supply
system. A financial flow is an ongoing expenditure related
to climate change mitigation or adaptation that docs not
Adaptation to climate change is a complex topic that presents a number of challenges. Indeed, one important challenge lies in defining adaptation and understanding the full scope of its implications. Adaptation is currently the topic of numerous studies that offer a range of definitions. The IPCC offers a starting point by providing a broad definition of adaptation: adjustment in natural or human systems to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.
"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.