Thematic Area

Vanuatu signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) joining other 190 CBD parties to protect our global biodiversity. Vanuatu’s first National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) was developed and endorsed in November 1999. Revision of this NBSAP has led Vanuatu to develop this new NBSAP (2018-2030). This revised NBSAP indicates the progress, successes and gaps that lie within the organisational, systemic and individual capacities at national, provincial and community levels to protect, conserve and wisely use our biodiversity.

With marine biodiversity declining globally at accelerating rates, maximising the effectiveness of conservation has become a key goal for local, national and international regulators. Marine protected areas (MPAs) have been widely advocated for conserving and managing marine biodiversity yet, despite extensive research, their benefits for conserving non-target species and wider ecosystem functions remain unclear.

Larval dispersal is the key process by which populations of most marine fishes and invertebrates are connected and replenished. Advances in larval tagging and genetics have enhanced our capacity to track larval dispersal, assess scales of population connectivity, and quantify larval exchange among no-take marine reserves and fished areas. Recent studies have found that reserves can be a significant source of recruits for populations up to 40 km away, but the scale and direction of larval connectivity across larger seascapes remain unknown.

The fourth edition of the Newsletter of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Oceania (2018). IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) is the world's premier network of protected area expertise. It is administered by IUCN's Global Programme on Protected Areas and has over 2,000 members, spanning 140 countries. 

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In 2017, following growing public concerns about saltwater crocodile attacks on people, the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology (MECDM), the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) and WorldFish conducted a nationwide survey to collect detailed information on the extent and characteristics of human-crocodile conflicts. This report summarizes the main findings of the survey.

The persistent, non-native invasive alga Gracilaria salicornia has dominated the protected waters surrounding Moku o Loʻe, Kāneʻohe Bay since its introduction in 1978; however, a sudden decline in abundance (75%) occurred within a 30-day survey period. The consisent environmental conditions during the survey period, dominance of G. salicornia despite the presence of abundant herbivorous fish populations, and multiple observations of physical grazing by the green turtle, Chelonia mydas, on G. salicornia support our conclusion that C.

Understanding the behaviour of humpback whale mother-calf pairs and the acoustic environment on their breeding grounds is fundamental to assessing the biological and ecological requirements needed to ensure a successful migration and survival of calves. Therefore, on a breeding/resting ground, Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia, we used animal-borne DTAGs to quantify the fne-scale behaviour and energetic expenditure of humpback whale mothers and calves, while sound recorders measured the acoustic environment.

Communities dependent on natural resources for food and livelihoods are extremely vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. Tropical cyclones are a frequent occurrence in the Pacific and can have devastating impacts on coastal communities, particularly in remote or isolated areas. However, most post-cyclone studies focus on damages and losses to infrastructure and services, and do not quantify the impact on fishers or community fisheries. We conducted a study to assess the social and economic effects of Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Winston on mud crab fishers in Bua Province, Fiji.

This report explores the role of traditional marine resources management in meeting both the goals of communities and those of national and international conservation strategies.

This booklet is part of a series of compilations assembling PANORAMA solution case studies on a defined topic. “Solutions in Focus” zooms in on a topic of interest covered by PANORAMA, allowing to explore common elements and shared learnings across success stories. It is a snapshot of the PANORAMA portfolio at a given time, rather than a representative assembly of selected “best practices” on the issue at hand.

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