Reef fish assemblages were monitored annually from 1978 to 1981 at a series of stations adjacent to an airport runway construction site on Moen, Truk. Monitoring began prior to construction activities and continued through three years during which dredging and filling of adjacent reef areas took place. As a result of construction activities, large amounts of sediments were released into the water. Turbidity was measured monthly
Recent studies have shown that the Cook Islands' social infrastructure has limited preparedness against weather-related vulnerability. The inherent geographical vulnerability of the country to climate change can be ameliorated by initiating
integrated infrastructure and social development, including human resources development.
Most of the 96 national monuments designated under U.S. law
are on land. The majority are managed by the National Park
Service, though some are administered by the Bureau of Land
Management and other agencies. At this point neither the
name of the proposed Mariana Trench Marine National Monu-
ment (MTMNM) nor the management structure has been de-
termined. For guidance one could review the process of the
recently designated Papahanaumokuakea Marine National
Monument (PMNM), which is placed within the purview of the
The Minister responsible for environment acting in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet may, subject to the provisions of this Act, levy Deposits in respect of prescribed materials for waste material recovery.
Deposits levied under subsection (1) of this section shall be laid before the Maneaba ni Maungatabu within forty-eight hours of the day on which the next meeting of the Maneaba commences and shall come into operation on publication unless the Maneaba by resolution amends it or rejects it as the case may be.
The Cuvu Waste Management Workshop was held from the 13th - 14th of September, 2005 in the village of Cuvu. Paticipants included representatives from the seven villages. In the Tikina of Cuvu and a few from Tikina Wai. The purpose of the workshop was to
Fishing in Samoa is very important because one of the ways to achieve food security, particularly in
communities and villages in rural areas. In many communities, they do not appreciate the vision of the economy
and the marine environment. Bringing the use of such fishing a modern-day, there
What meanava, nets and hurry microfilm, and substances that would easily and more fish, but
are harmful to the marine environment and ecosystems. The implementation of projects in the
marine damage to many places and millions of species of living and breeding.
While acknowledging their diversity, the IPCC Third
Assessment Report (TAR) also noted that small island states
share many similarities (e.g., physical size, proneness to natural disasters and climate extremes, extreme openness of their economies, low adaptive capacity) that enhance their vulnerability and reduce their resilience to climate variability and change.
This Handbook is intended as a reference guide to decisions adopted by the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Conference of the Parties to the Convention serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (COP-MOP) as well as a guide to ongoing activities in relation to particular Articles and/or cross-cutting issues of the Convention. The structure of the Handbook has been conceived with a view to allowing frequent updates, so as to take into account new decisions of the Con-
ference of the Parties.
This report includes an introductory section on the geography and vegetation, and a main portion listing the species of vascular plants known to occur, or to have occurred, on the island, with detailed descriptions of those of which time permitted a careful study, and brief descriptions of the remaining native species. Those suspected to have been brought by Polynesians in pre-European time are also described and discussed in some detail.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is one of the global conventions on environmental conservation that came out of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. By signing and ratifying the CBD, countries have agreed to support its goals and aims. The three main objectives of the CBD are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components, and the fair
Satawal is a small flat coral island in the west central Caroline Islands about 1050 km east-south-east of Yap Island, at latitude 7'21' N, longitude 147'02' E. Although its surface is locally somewhat irregular, its greatest height is not more than about 4 meters above mean low water. Its long axis is about east-west and its area is 1.3 square km. It is surrounded by a fringing reef upward of 100 meters wide. It has no lagoon, so would be classified according to Tayama's scheme as a table reef. From the viewpoint of land ecology it is an atoll.
Fishing in Samoa is very important because one of the ways to achieve food security, particularly in
villages and rural areas. In many communities do not value taking care of the economy
and the marine environment. Making and using such fisheries jurisdiction for-or-not there
mask, nets and hurry microfilm, and substances that would easily and more fish but
are detrimental to the marine environment and ecosystems. The implementation of projects on
marine damage in many places and millions of species of marine wildlife.
The monitoring and evaluation system of CRISP programme is semester based with 2 reports describing activities from the 1st of January to the 30th of June and the 1st of July to the 31st of December respectively. Actions occurring on the field are classified according to the type of activities, which are explained according to projects comprised into different compo-
The wetlands of 21 countries and territories of the Pacific Islands region are reviewed: American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea,Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna. The regions wetlands are classified into seven systems coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangrove swamps, riverine, lacustrine, freshwater swamp forests and marshes.
There is growing evidence that seagrasses are experiencing declines globally due to anthropogenic threats (Short and Wyllie Echeverria 1996, Duarte 2002, Orth et al. 2006). Runoff of nutrients and sediments that affect water quality is the greatest anthropogenic threat to seagrass meadows, although other stressors include aquaculture, pollution, boating, construction, dredging and landfill activities, and destructive fishing practices. Natural disturbances such as storms and floods can also cause adverse effects.
- A defining feature of the Pacific is the Western Pacific Warm Pool ecosystem. The limited land base of the area is distributed among 200 high islands and 2,500 low islands and atolls. All
participating islands lie in the tropical zone and experience sea surface temperatures that rarely fall below 20 degrees Celsius. In general, the islands increase in size from east to west such that over 83% of the region's land mass is situated in Papua New Guinea, and most of the rest is in the other Melanesian countries and territories.
Historical reports of an earthquake in Tonga in 1865 November identify it as the only event from that subduction zone which generated a far-field tsunami observable without instruments.
Run-up heights reached 2 m in Rarotonga and 80 cm in the Marquesas Islands. Hydrodynamic simulations require a moment of 4 x 1028 dyn cm, a value significantly larger than previous
estimates of the maximum size of earthquake to be expected at the Tonga subduction zone. This warrants an upwards re evaluation of the tsunami risk from Tonga to the Cook Islands
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.
The American Samoa Local Action Strategies (LAS) are the result of a nearly two-year process that saw input from territorial agencies, non-profit groups, interested individuals, and other stake-holders such as local fishers, and federal agency partners. This process was initiated through the American
Several large regions of the world are plagued by
conservation problems shaped around a particular inherent
set of geographical, biological and human conditions which
have been operational for varying periods of time. Typical
of situations facing Latin America are the progress of
economic development in Amazonia with its attendant loss of
rainforest biodiversity, and the Central American
"hamburger connection" involving conversion of forests to
grazing land to support the export of cheap beef to the