Data Analysis & Interpretation

We report on preliminary observations of the abyssal megafauna communities in the exclusive economic zone of Kiribati, a huge abyssal area with few previous studies.

Connectivity of protected areas (PAs) is crucial for meeting their conservation goals.

Protected areas (PAs) are the main instrument for biodiversity conservation, which has triggered the development of numerous indicators and assessments on their coverage, performance and efficiency.

Expanding the global protected area network is critical for addressing biodiversity declines and the climate crisis. However, how climate change will affect ecosystem representation within the protected area network remains unclear.

Marine protected areas are increasingly touted for their role in conserving large marine predators such as sharks, but their efficacy is debated.

This Toolkit offers a suite of simple tools for collecting the sound scientific data needed for the conservation and sustainable management of shark and ray populations.

A BIORAP is a biological inventory programme undertaken in marine and terrestrial environments, and is designed to rapidly assess the biodiversity of highly diverse areas.

Regime shifts can abruptly affect hydrological, climatic and terrestrial systems, leading to degraded ecosystems and impoverished societies.

A new paradigm has emerged for management of coral reefs in an era of changing climate – managing for resilience. A fundamental need for such management to be effective is our ability to measure and map coral reef resilience.

This report presents the results of the 2016 Funafuti Community-Based Ridge-to-Reef (R2R) Rapid Biodiversity Assessment (BIORAP) of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES), hereafter referred to as the BIORAP.

The community based conservation (CBC)paradigm predicts that sustainable biodiversity can only be achieved if local people perceive benefits from conservation. Through interviews,

This chapter focuses on the temporal dynamics, spatial extent and cumulative impacts of current and future drivers of change on Great Barrier Reef water quality, and subsequent impacts on marine ecosystems in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Despite islands contributing only 6.7% of land surface area, they harbor ~20% of the Earth’s biodiversity, but unfortunately also ~50% of the threatened species and 75% of the known extinctions since the European expansion around the globe.

The 2020 IUCN/MTSG Regional Report for Sea Turtles in Oceania was recently finalized and approved. The report consists of 675 pages and was three years in the making.  There are 25 chapters written by 23 dedicated knowledgeable authors and coauthors.  For the purposes of this repor

The future vulnerability of low-lying atoll nations is inextricably linked to the production of carbonate sediments by organisms living in their adjacent marine environments.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are being implemented worldwide, yet there are few cases where managers make specific predictions of the response of previously harvested populations to MPA implementation.

Understanding the value of fishers’ Indigenous and Traditional Knowledge (ITK) and of fishers’ spatial use of customary fishing grounds is an important contributing factor to marine resource management.

Previous research has cast doubt on the potential for marine protected areas (MPAs) to provide refuge and fishery spillover benefits for migratory species as most MPAs are small relative to the geographic range of these species.

State of Conservation in Oceania - Regional Report

This report of 220 pages written by nearly 90 authors clearly presents the summation of an enormous amount of data and information on 19 of the 23 nations and states of the Pacific and outlines both the problems and stresses on these thousands of reefs, and the potential that these reefs will pro

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a“Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species).

A key feature of life’s diversity is that some species are common but many more are rare. Nonetheless, at global scales, we do not know what fraction of biodiversity consists of rare species.

Protected areas are a cornerstone for biodiversity conservation, and typically support more natural and undisturbed habitats compared to unprotected lands. The effect of protected areas on intra-specific ecological niche has been rarely investigated.

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has the potential to balance demands for ocean space with environmental protection and is increasingly considered crucial for achieving global ocean goals.

The inherent complexity of high‐diversity systems can make them particularly difficult to understand.

One of the most fundamental questions in ecology is how many species inhabit the Earth.

Natural habitats have the ability to protect coastal communities against the impacts of waves and storms, yet it is unclear how different habitats complement each other to reduce those impacts.

This report updates the 1992 State of Environment report with the latest findings from the Marshall Islands. Environmental reporting is defined as a requirement for RMI in the ‘Office of Environmental Planning and Policy Coordination (OEPPC) Act 2003’.

This edition of SOFO examines the contributions of forests, and of the people who use and manage them, to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

The 2020 edition of The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture continues to demonstrate the significant and growing role of fisheries and aquaculture in providing food, nutrition and employment. It also shows the major challenges ahead despite the progress made on a number of fronts.

The great majority of marine protected areas (MPAs) fail to meet their management objectives. So MPAs can be effective conservation tools, we recommend two paradigm shifts, the first related to how they are located and the second related to how they are managed.

For tropical forest carbon to be commoditized, a consistent, globally verifiable system for reporting and monitoring carbon stocks and emissions must be achieved.

Oceanic islands harbour a disproportionately high number of endemic and threatened species.

Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted 20 targets, known as the Aichi Targets, to benchmark progress towards protecting biodiversity.

Tropical forests play a critical role in the hydrological cycle and can influence local and regional precipitation. Previous work has assessed the impacts of tropical deforestation on precipitation, but these efforts have been largely limited to case studies.

A variety of factors can affect the biodiversity of tropical mammal communities, but their relative importance and directionality remain uncertain.

The 2018 UN List provides up-to-date information on marine and terrestrial protected areas globally, and identifies those protected areas that have been the subject of management effectiveness evaluations.

Despite worldwide demand for tuna products and considerable conservation interest by civil society, no single global dataset exists capturing the spatial extent of all catches from fisheries for large pelagic species across all ocean basins.

This report was a collaboration Science and Conservation of Fish Aggregations, University of Hong Kong, Fiji Ministry of Fisheries, Wildlife Conservation Society, and the University of British Columbia (Canada).We conducted a seafood VCA for the coral reef grouper (Epinephelidae) fishery in

Bleaching and disease are decimating coral reefs especially when warming promotes bleaching pathogens, such as Vibrio coralliilyticus. We demonstrate that sterilized washes from three common corals suppress V.

Bleaching and disease are decimating coral reefs especially when warming promotes bleaching pathogens, such as Vibrio coralliilyticus. We demonstrate that sterilized washes from three common corals suppress V.

The ongoing sixth mass species extinction is the result of the destruction of component populations leading to eventual extirpation of entire species. Populations and species extinctions have severe implications for society through the degradation of ecosystem services.

The term “green growth” and its sister concepts, “blue‐ green growth,” the “green economy,” and the “blue‐ green economy,” have gained considerable traction in the Pacific island region in a short space of time.

The Pacific Ocean is the scene of a new wild west. Companies and their investors, hungry for profits, are driving a speculative rush for seabed minerals. They are aided in this by donor government supported programs that promote the development of ‘responsible’ sea bed mining regulations.

The agricultural matrix has increasingly been recognized for its potential to supplement Protected Areas (PAs) in biodiversity conservation.