Biodiversity conservation - that is, the conservation of plants and animals that make up the species richness of a country - is widely recognised as an issue of importance for the South Pacific as it is relevant to family livelihoods, culture and economic development as well as to the unique biological story that these islands possess. The biodiversity of the region is threatened by a broad range of causes including unsustainable logging and fishing, invasive species, pollution, soil erosion, fire, habitat conversion and agricultural run-off.
Background of Environment Management Act.
Available online|Powerpoint presentation
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 140 p
Environment related legislation review
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Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 20 p. ; 29 cm
Fijis marine ecosystems are worth FJ$2.5 billion per yearexceeding the countrys total export value. We are strongly committed to sustaining these values to build an equitable and prosperous blue economy
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Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 88 p
Natural disasters such as hurricanes, cyclones, and tropical depressions cause average annual direct losses of US$284 million in the Pacific. With a combined population of fewer than 10 million people, annual losses are the highest in the world on a per-capita basis. Extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall are closely linked to climate change, suggesting that Pacific Island nations face increasing risk of disasters such as flooding and landslides. Proactive management through infrastructure development, social solutions, and/or ecosystem-based adaptation can mitigate these risks.
The time-tested Indigenous fishing knowledge (IFK) of Fiji and the Pacific Island is seriously threatened due to the commercialization of fishing, breakdown of tradition communal leadership and oral knowledge transmission systems, modern education and the movement of the younger generations to urban areas for work and/or study.
Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 18 p.
Globally and locally, conservationists and scientists work to inform policy makers to help recovery of endangered sea turtle populations. In Fiji, in the South Pacific, sea turtles are protected by the national legislation because of their conservation status, and are also a customary iTaukei resource. Centered on our interview based study at Qoma and Denimanu villages, parallel management systems coexist, where both the (written) national legislation and the (unwritten) customary iTaukei rules determine the time and the quantity of sea turtle harvest.
Most legislation governing natural resources in Fiji is very old and outdated, and very little attention is given to environmental issues in these statutes. The absence of a legislative environmental policy results in an absence of statutes with an express or implied environmental mandate, while laws governing resource development fail to recognise the environmental basis of natural resources. As a result, legislation provides little in the way of capacity to protect the environment from the impacts of development activities.