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NESSC Quarterly Meeting No. 5, Thursday 25 August, 2016

Final report for Samoa's 2015 national water and sanitation baseline survey, on methods, results and outcomes.

Rodents remain one of the most widespread and damaging invasive alien species on islands globally. The current toolbox for insular rodent eradications is reliant on the application of sufficient anticoagulant toxicant into every potential rodent territory across an island. Despite significant advances in the use of these toxicants over recent decades, numerous situations remain where eradication is challenging or not yet feasible. These include islands with significant human populations, unreceptive stakeholder communities, co-occurrence of livestock and domestic animals, or vulnerability of native species. Developments in diverse branches of science, particularly the medical, pharmaceutical, invertebrate pest control, social science, technology and defense fields offer potential insights into the next generation of tools to eradicate rodents from islands. Horizon scanning is a structured process whereby current problems are assessed against potential future solutions. We undertook such an exercise to identify the most promising technologies, techniques and approaches that might be applied to rodent eradications from islands. We highlight a Rattus-specific toxicant, RNA interference as species-specific toxicants, rodenticide research, crab deterrent in baits, prophylactic treatment for protection of non-target species, transgenic rodents, virus vectored immunocontraception, drones, self-resetting traps and toxicant applicators, detection probability models and improved stakeholder community engagement methods. We present a brief description of each method, and discuss its application to rodent eradication on islands, knowledge gaps, challenges, whether it is incremental or transformative in nature and provide a potential timeline for availability. We outline how a combination of new tools may render previously intractable rodent eradication problems feasible.

Before you leave Samoa, stop and think... Could you be breaking wildlife laws? Souvenirs and handicrafts can sometimes include plant and animal products that are protected under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Before you leave Samoa, stop and think... Could you be breaking wildlife laws? Souvenirs and handicrafts can sometimes include plant and animal products that are protected under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Samoa is home to many threatened species including corals, marine turtles, whales, dolphins and more. The survival of these species is further endangered by the global trade in plants, animals and products that may be made from them.

Samoa's National Environmental Capacity Strategy (NECS) is drawn on the assessment and analysis of priority thematic and cross-cutting capacity needs. These needs have identified priority actions for capacity development and opportunities to promote synergies across the 3 Conventions which are highlighted as project profiles in the NECS. Strategies to implement these project profiles including means of monitoring and evaluation of outcomes are also highlighted in the NECS.

Protecting a species is an aspect of conservation which many organizations and individuals have put effort into so that the balance within the ecosystem can be maintained. Protection implement when factors of threats have been identify. Factors of pressure or predatory that may lead to competition and results in extinction. These are the sequence our world works since the beginning

The community based conservation (CBC)paradigm predicts that sustainable biodiversity can only be achieved if local people perceive benefits from conservation. Through interviews, the situation in Samoa portrays that the CBC of mangroves was received with apprehension because the mangrove biodiversity was more significant than sustaining the livelihood of the local communities. In contrast, Iriomote Island residents were able to achieve maximum socio-economic benefits but to the extent that they were over commercializing the mangrove ecosystem. More research is imperative to find out how biodiversity conservation can be married with sustainable development objectives to sustain the local communities' livelihood.