Partnerships

This manual is not a summary of all that is known about sea turtles. There are already very good books and resources that do that. It is also not exhaustive about research and monitoring. Nor it is the global synthesis of all turtle research options. Advanced research into breathing rates and blood plasma and stable isotopes and hearing and endocrinology are a bit out of our scope. Here, we will deal with the basics that inform conservation and management.

This document presents a synopsis of the current state of knowledge for hawksbill turtles in the western Pacific Ocean region, including biological and ecological knowledge of nesting and foraging populations, legislative provisions, and detailed recommendations and proposals for addressing identified deficiencies.

This report was commissioned by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) to raise awareness and understanding of the tools available to evaluate Protected Area Management Effectiveness (PAME); to provide case studies from the region on PAME assessment; and to help inform decision-making when choosing tools and planning assessments.

Aichi Target 11 committed governments to protect ≥17% of their terrestrial environments by 2020, yet it was rarely achieved, raising questions about the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework goal to protect 30% by 2030. Asia is a challenging continent for such targets, combining high biodiversity with dense human populations. Here, we evaluated achievements in Asia against Aichi Target 11. We found that Asia was the most underperforming continent globally, with just 13.2% of terrestrial protected area (PA) coverage, averaging 14.1 ± SE 1.8% per country in 2020.

Conserving our sea of islands: State of protected and conserved areas in Oceania is a landmark publication, bringing together regional and international experts to prepare the first comprehensive review of the status and issues for protected and conserved areas in the region. The report embodies the spirit of the late scholar Epeli Hau’ofa, who devised the phrase ‘Our Sea of Islands’ to help re-imagine the region as selfdetermined ‘Big Ocean States’ connected to place and each other – ideas that underpin conservation.

This new Pacific Islands framework for Nature Conservation and Protected Areas 2021-2025 was endorsed during the conference and subsequently at the 30th SPREP Meeting by 26 members countries and territories in 2021. It reflects the urgent need for transformative action in response to the multiple accelerating threats, both established and emerging, that are faced by nature and people in the Pacific. It identifies the key regional priorities for action which form the six Strategic Objectives for the Framework.

The Pacific Islands Regional Marine Species Programme (Marine Species Programme) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) is a regional strategy for conserving and managing dugong, marine turtles, whales and dolphins, sharks and rays, and seabirds, referred to throughout this document as marine species. The programme is designed to support SPREP Pacific island countries and territories, excluding metropolitan Members.