The small-scale fisheries of Papua New Guinea (PNG) reflect the diversity of the country’s coastal environments. Along the mainland and high island coasts and in the smaller island communities fishing activities include the harvesting of the reef flats, spear fishing, shallow-water hand-lining from dugout canoes, netting, and trapping in the freshwater reaches of large rivers. In the swampy lowland areas net fisheries for barramundi, catfish, and sharks occur, while in the Gulf of Papua and parts of the Northern Islands Region there are also village-based lobster fisheries.
At its thirty-second session, in July 2016, the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) underlined the importance of trade in fisheries services and welcomed the work of the FAO on conducting a literature review on the subject. In September 2017, during its sixteenth session, the COFI Sub-Committee on Fish Trade (COFI:FT) was invited to note the literature review and to make recommendations for future work on the topic. On this occasion, the Sub- committee agreed to hold an expert consultation on trade
The Committee on Fisheries established the Sub-Committee on Fish Trade to serve as a multilateral framework for consultations on international trade in fishery products. The sixteenth session of the Sub-Committee was held in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 4 to 8 September 2017.
Gulf of Papua Prawn Fisheries (GoPPF) has come a long way since its development in the early years preceding Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australia. It started in 1969 and became PNG’s largest export fisheries apart from tuna. Prawn alone contributes significantly to the economy annually, earning between K2.5 million to K28 million or US$ 1.5 to US$ 11.5 million per annum. In fact, PNG’s prawn industry is very small compared to other countries in Asia. This is due to management regimes that limit all trawlers operating each season at 15 for the Gulf of Papua region (GoP).
Socio-economic surveys were carried out in pilot sites in Papua New Guinea (Gulf of Papua Prawn Fishery), the Philippines (Samar Sea), Thailand (Trat and Chumphon) and Viet Nam (Kien Giang) as part of the Strategies for Trawl Fisheries Bycatch Management Project (REBYC-II CTI), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and executed by FAO. No study was conducted in Indonesia as a result of the ban on trawl fisheries which began in January 2015.
The Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study (APFSOS) is a wide-ranging initiative to gather information on, and examine, the evolution of key forestry issues as well as to review important trends in forests and forestry. The main purpose of the study is to provide a better understanding of the changing relationships between society and forests and thus to facilitate timely policy reviews and reforms in national forest sectors. The specific objectives are to:
1. Identify emerging socio-economic changes impacting on forest and forestry
The decision to develop a Regional Plan of Action on Sharks (PI-RPOA Sharks) for Pacific island countries and territories (PICTs)1 was a response to:
· the requirement for management of sharks2 in their national waters to be compatible with measures adopted by them as members/participating territories of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC);
The purpose of fisheries management is to control the mortality rates of exploited populations within sustainable, or otherwise acceptable, limits. Proper fishery management thus requires that the mortality due to fishing activities be accurately estimated and taken into account in population status assessments and management measures. Mortality due to fishing activities has long been synonymous with catch but there is a growing recognition that catch statistics, particularly those representing landed catch, may greatly under-represent the actual number of fish removed from
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one of the largest countries in the Western Central Pacific region and is now the third largest producer of bêche-de-mer in the world, supplying around 10 percent of the global market. Species of commercial importance recognized by the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) include Actinopyga echinites, A. lecanora, A. mauritiana, A. miliaris, Bohadschia argus, B. similis, B. vitiensis, Holothuria atra, H. coluber, H. edulis, H. fuscogilva, H. fuscopunctata, H. scabra, H. scabra var. versicolor, H. whitmaei, Pearsonothuria graeffei, Stichopus chloronotus, S.
Socio-economic surveys were carried out in pilot sites in Papua New Guinea (Gulf of Papua Prawn Fishery), the Philippines (Samar Sea), Thailand (Trat and Chumphon) and Viet Nam (Kien Giang) as part of the Strategies for Trawl Fisheries Bycatch Management Project (REBYC-II CTI), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and executed by FAO. No study was conducted in Indonesia as a result of the ban on trawl fisheries which began in January 2015.
We reconstruct marine fisheries catches for Papua New Guinea (PNG) from 1950-2010 to account for catches missing from official statistics. Annual national landings statistics are dominated by tuna catches, which have been relatively well documented since 2000. Nonetheless, PNG’s national fisheries statistics are still considered to be incomplete and underreported due to the omission of small-scale sector catches. This reconstruction thus focuses on quantifying PNG’s small-scale fisheries by accounting for unreported catches.
This Tuna Fishery Report Card provides high-level advice on the current status of Pacific tuna fisheries in relation to the goals, indicators and strategies adopted by Forum Leaders in 2015 in the Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries. The report card takes into account the work of the Taskforce on Increasing Economic Returns from Fisheries, which was established by the Forum Leaders to develop a programme that will deliver real results within 5 years. Economic indicators now reflect Taskforce-agreed targets.
Significant international climate finance opportunities are imminent. Pending final policy design, new international climate finance frameworks (e.g. the New Market Mechanisms under the UNFCCC, and Carbon Offset Reduction Scheme for International Aviation - CORSIA) will present substantial opportunities for Papua New Guinea (PNG) to tap into and support sustainable resource management projects in its forestry, agriculture (and fishery) sectors – providing jobs and economic growth, boosting food security, and helping meet international and domestic climate change commitments e.g.
Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) forests are under pressure from several land uses such as small-scale agriculture and commercial agriculture, among others. These activities result in deforestation with diverse dynamics at the province level. It is therefore necessary to understand how drivers of deforestation influence the deforestation process and to predict what would be their future dynamics to identify where and when deforestation will take place. It is under this framework that UNDP, in close collaboration with PNGFA, decided to develop an agricultural mapping assessment in PNG.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) stands at a critical moment in its development. With Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of over 20 per cent expected for 2015, following the start of production from the massive PNG Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) project, the country has a unique opportunity to leverage significant sustainable and equitable improvements in levels of health, education, income and other elements of inclusive human development.
Changing temperature and precipitation pattern and increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are likely to drive significant modifications in natural and modified forests. Our review is focused on recent publications that discuss the changes in commercial forestry, excluding the ecosystem functions of forests and nontimber forest products. We concentrate on potential direct and indirect impacts of climate change on forest industry, the projections of future trends in commercial forestry, the possible role of biofuels, and changes in supply and demand.
There is growing evidence that global climate change is significantly altering forest ecosystems, and will continue to do so in the future. Changes in mean climate and climate extremes such as drought, storms, cyclones and wildfires can fundamentally alter species distribution, composition, phenology, and forest structure. This study reviewed the available evidence of climate change impacts on tropical forests. We selected 85 studies based on two selection criterias and recorded the impacts of climate change on different areas of tropicalforests.
Australia has a highly diverse and variable climate and its forests evolved under a relatively high level of climatic variation. However, human-induced changes in climate are likely to exceed historical ranges of variability and rates of change, and have effects on forests well beyond the experience of forest managers. These conditions will require implementation of management practices appropriate to a changing climate.
Nearly 4 % of the world’s forests are plantations, established to provide a variety of ecosystem services, principally timber and other wood products. In addition to such services, plantation forests provide direct and indirect benefits to biodiversity via the provision of forest habitat for a wide range of species, and by reducing negative impacts on natural forests by offsetting the need to extract resources. There is compelling evidence that climate change is directly affecting biodiversity in forests throughout the world.
Forest plantations are a possible way of increasing forest productivity in temperate and tropical forests, and therefore also increasing above- and belowground carbon pools. In the context of climate change, monospecific plantations might become an alternative to mitigate global warming; however, their contribution to the structural complexity, complementarity, and biodiversity of forests has not been addressed.