Management Plan for Upland Areas of Lake Lanuto'o National Park, Samoa

The management plan describes the priority strategies for the upland areas of the Lake Lanuto'o National Park that will best maintain and improve the key conservation values in these areas by reducing the impact of threats, including from climate change. The management planning process began in 20-24 August 2012 with the Site management planning workshop for climate resilience of Samoa's forest.

Assessing the quantity and quality of marine protected areas in the Mariana Islands

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are ubiquitous in global ocean conservation and play a pivotal role in achieving local, national, and regional area-based conservation targets. Often, such targets are merely met on “paper” and lack the political or managerial resources to produce positive conservation outcomes. Here, we apply the MPA Guide – a framework for assessing the quantity and quality of marine protected areas – to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), two U.S. territories in the Western Pacific.

Climate Change, Coral Reef Ecosystems, and Management Options for Marine Protected Areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) provide place-based management of marine ecosystems through various degrees and types of protective actions. Habitats such as coral reefs are especially susceptible to degradation resulting from climate change, as evidenced by mass bleaching events over the past two decades. Marine ecosystems are being altered by direct effects of climate change including ocean warming, ocean acidification, rising sea level, changing circulation patterns, increasing severity of storms, and changing freshwater influxes.

Case study: The Funafuti Conservation Area, Funafuti atoll, Tuvalu : drawing lessons for future marine conservation planning and management

Marine protected areas (MPAs) have gained wide acceptance among coastal planners,
managers, researchers, and scientists as an effective tool that can be utilized to protect
threatened marine and coastal ecosystems. MPAs allow depleted breeding stocks of
important food fish and invertebrate species to regenerate and become re-established,
providing a foundation for sustainable fisheries. Typically, the MPA model comprises a core
“’no-take” conservation area, within which harvest of fish and other consumable resources is

eDNA metabarcoding as a biomonitoring tool for marine protected areas

Monitoring of marine protected areas (MPAs) is critical for marine ecosystem management, yet current protocols rely on SCUBA-based visual surveys that are costly and time consuming, limiting their scope and effectiveness. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is a promising alternative for marine ecosystem monitoring, but more direct comparisons to visual surveys are needed to understand the strengths and limitations of each approach.