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The goals of the Jaluit Atoll Environmental Resource Management Plan (ERMP) are to provide all stakeholders with a framework to guide environmental resource management initiatives that will assist the community to maintain healthy marine and terrestrial environments for current and future generations. The options set forth in the ERMP are specifically designed to promote and empower all communities to actively participate in the protection of the atoll’s valuable resources, while allowing for sustainable use.

This Conservation and Management Plan was the culmination of a community-wide consultation undertaken to review the 20-year old ACMCA Management Plan first endorsed in 1994.The scope of this Plan is dictated by AMP’s status as an established and internationally recognized conservation program that has been operated for more than 20 years to date. With such operational status, this Plan is therefore tailored to meet legal requirements for declaration as a protected area under the new legal regime.

Ancient Hawaiians developed sophisticated natural resource management systems that included various forms of spatial management. The state of Hawaiʻi established its first legislated marine protected area (MPA) in 1953, and today there exists a patchwork of spatial marine management strategies along a range of sizes, with varying levels of governance, enforcement, and effectiveness. Approximately 12% of waters within the 50 m depth contour and 5% of waters within state jurisdiction (≤3 nmi) have some form of marine management.

In 2016 a partnership was developed between the Tongan Ministry of Fisheries and James Cook University in Townsville, Australia. Its aim was to implement the first stage of a Tongan national coral reef monitoring project, and to provide an overview of the current status of Tonga’s Special Management Area (SMA) program. Since 2002 the Ministry of Fisheries has been heavily focused on expanding the SMA program, and communities throughout Tonga have been enthusiastic about introducing local marine management. As a result of this momentum, the Ministry has focused primarily on implementation.

The first edition of the Newsletter of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas Oceania (WCPA Oceania) for 2020 is now available.

Full Newsletter (Pdf)

This KBA report outlines key recommendations for the Government of Kiribati and its people for protecting its unique biodiversity and supporting sustainable livelihoods. A total of twenty-two island KBAs were identified and suggested for immediate management. Outlined below are the identified KBAs in order of their recommended priority rankings for each island group...The finding of Kiribati's KBA analysis provides a sound link to several significant ongoing and new initiatives within the environment division and at the national level.

Many areas outside national and regional protected area networks also contribute to the effective in-situ conservation of biodiversity. Appropriately recognising, reporting and supporting such areas is increasingly important in the context of biodiversity loss and climate change.

The 9th Pacific Islands Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas held in Suva, Fiji, December 2013 produced and adopted a new Framework for Nature Conservation and Protected Areas in the Pacific Islands Region 2014-2020.

The Cook Islands (CI), South Pacific, has one of the highest ratios of ocean to land area of any ocean island state in the world. Within it's EEZ exist abundant resources of seabed manganese nodules, thought to be the fourth richest resource of its type in the world, with a potential theoretical monetary value of c. $10 trillion US. The largely hydrogenetic nodules are rich in Ti, REE, Mn, Co and Ni. Economic studies suggest that a single twenty year-long mining operation could generate c. 150 jobs directly supporting 15% (c. $43M US) of the CI GDP.