The Pacific Islands Regional Marine Species Programme (Marine Species Programme, or PIRMSP) is a regional strategy for the cooperative conservation and management of dugongs, marine turtles, whales and dolphins, sharks and rays, and seabirds. The programme is designed to support SPREP Pacific island countries and territories, excluding metropolitan countries, through a series of action plans.
In a collaborative effort, the Division of Environment and Conservation, of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE), united with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) to successfully conclude the initial phase of the Terrestrial Biodive
The 26th PIRT Annual Meeting will be held on Monday 16 & Tuesday 17 October. Participation is either online, or in person at the IUCN-ORO offices in Suva.
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.
Following a workshop in March to collect and collate data for enhancing spatial analysis in the Solomon Islands under the Ensuring Resilient Ecosystems and Representative Protected Areas (EREPA) project, a successful second workshop to validate the data was held with Solomon Islands’ key na
The findings summarise the status of sea turtles in Vanuatu, including turtle research, monitoring and knowledge management approaches, ni-Vanuatu cultural values, threats to sea turtles, and government and customary management systems.
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.
The Aleipata group of offshore islands have been identified as one of eight Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) in Samoa. They are located at the south-eastern end of Upolu Island at 14o3’447.28”S, 171o25’23.84”W (Nu’utele) and 14o4’22.11”S and 171o24’36.17”W (Nu’ulua) offshore. This project updates population estimates and establish baseline data and information on breeding seabirds of the Aleipata offshore islands and investigate the feasibility of future tracking studies of some species.
Every year, the amount of plastic waste entering aquatic ecosystems is estimated between 9-14 million tons and this projection could nearly triple to 23-37 million tons per year by 2040. A report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has revealed that there are now over 150 million tonnes of plastics in the oceans. That's about one tonne of plastics for every three tonnes of fish. If the trend continues, plastics will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050. This results in risks to human health and well-being through ingestion of seafood and fish contaminated with plastics.
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.