Search the SPREP Catalogue

In addition to the extensive coral reef habitats described in Chapter 5, the shallow subtidal and intertidal zones around the coasts of Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) often support large areas of mangroves and seagrasses.

Angaur is a 8.4 sq. km island located (654' N, 134 09' E) in the southwestern Palau Islands. The island makes up one of the Republic of Palau’s 16 states. Angaur has suffered considerable land degradation due to past phosphate mining as well as military action during WWII. Land degradation problems in recent years have been compounded by El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) high tides exacerbated by a gradual increase in average sea level attributed to climate change.

Many ant species that have been accidentally spread throughout the world have significant economic, environmental and social impacts in areas that they now infest. One of the most notable invasive ants is the Yellow crazy ant, A. gracilipes, and this species is present in Samoa, including on the Aleipata islands. The Aleipata islands are considered to be of great regional conservation significance because they are uninhabited, relatively pristine, contain many species threatened throughout greater Samoa, and lack many exotic species present within greater Samoa. The presence of A. gracilipes on these islands is therefore of great conservation concern.

Invasive weeds are one of the most serious threats to biodiversity and sustainable development in the Pacific region. Biocontrol is likely to be the only feasible way of managing many widespread weeds, but is not always appropriate or successful. With so many weed species to tackle and inevitably limited resources, prioritising where to direct control efforts most effectively is of key importance. Landcare Research recently developed a framework for the Australian government that allows the best and worst weed targets for biocontrol to be identified. Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund and USDA Forest Service International Programs funding enabled this framework to be applied to weeds of the Pacific region.

Invasive species are widespread and can have devastating effects on biota, especially insular biota. Invasive species eradications are increasingly employed to promote island recovery to preinvasion states. However, it remains unclear if additional restoration actions may be required on islands that were once heavily reliant on seabird guano for ecosystem functions. Active seabird augmentation has been suggested as necessary to exact ecosystem recovery on contemporary timescales in some cases. I use two experiments on offshore islands in Cook Strait, New Zealand, to test the hypothesis that seabird restoration will restore island ecosystem functioning following invasive rodent removal. The first is a small-scale single-island fertilization experiment that simulates seabird recovery.

The Helping Islands Adapt workshop was held in Auckland, New Zealand between the 11th and 16th of April 2010 to support regional action against invasive species on islands, in order to preserve biodiversity and adapt to climate change. It arose from decisions under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) relating to invasive alien species and island biodiversity, and was hosted by the Government of New Zealand with support from a number of partner organisations and countries. The workshop focused on four major island regions: the Caribbean, Coral Triangle, Indian Ocean and Pacific, and involved participation by 82 people from 24 countries and territories, and 29 national, regional and international organisations (see participants list in Appendix 5). The workshop was specifically designed to allow for the maximum exchange of experience and support between representatives from diverse island regions working in invasive species management. It also included a field inspection of one of the Department of Conservation‘s invasive species management projects on Rangitoto Island in Auckland‘s Hauraki Gulf. The workshop built on efforts under the Cooperative Islands Initiative, a partnership launched at the World Summit for Sustainable Development and the CBD 6th Conference of the Parties in 2002. Its intended outputs had been agreed by the organiser‘s steering committee and set out as a 'road map‘ that was used to ensure clarity of the workshop‘s intended purpose, outputs and outcomes. An overview of the workshop, its sponsors, participants and conclusions was developed during the workshop and submitted to the 14th ?Subsidiary Body on Scientific Technical and Technological Advice (SBSSTA 14) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nairobi 10-21 May 2010. That report is provided in full in Appendix 5 to these proceedings.

Economic impacts from invasive species, conveyed as expected damages to assets from invasion and expected costs of successful prevention and/or removal, may vary significantly across spatially differentiated landscapes. We develop a spatial-dynamic model for optimal early detection and rapid-response (EDRR) policies, commonly exploited in the management of potential invaders around the world, and apply it to the case of the Brown treesnake in Oahu, Hawaii. EDRR consists of search activities beyond the ports of entry, where search (and potentially removal) efforts are targeted toward areas where credible evidence suggests the presence of an invader. EDRR costs are a spatially dependent variable related to the ease or difficulty of searching an area, while damages are assumed to be a population dependent variable. A myopic strategy in which search only occurs when and where current expected net returns are positive is attractive to managers, and, we find, significantly lowers present value losses (by $270m over 30 years). We find further that in the tradeoff between search costs and damages avoided, early and aggressive measures that search some high priority areas beyond points of entry even when current costs of search exceed current damages can save the island more ($295m over 30 years). Extensive or non-targeted search is not advised however.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is conducting research for the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) into the effects of climate change on species protected by CMS. Species have been identified as having a high, medium or low vulnerability to the threat of climate change and have been categorised on the basis of a standardised assessment process. This leaflet summarises the emerging results from an assessment of CMS Appendix I species, in order to provide guidance to policy makers at the earliest opportunity. Results highlight a number of processes by which greenhouse gas emissions and climatic changes will increasingly threaten migratory species; all species assessed will be affected by these impacts. A broad set of biological, geographical and socio-economic factors will influence species vulnerability. Identifying these factors and developing further conservation management practices will be essential for the short term future of these species. In the long term, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is vital if we are to avoid unmanageable levels of climate change.

Within the context of an additional commitment of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for the ongoing ACCPIR Project GTZ commissioned an appraisal mission in order to investigate the options for extending it regionally and thematically. The regional scope of the mission includes all independent member states of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC). The thematic scope of the mission focused on climate change adaptation strategies for land- and marine based natural resources, adaptation options in the tourism sector and with regard to mitigation potentials to renewable energies as well as energy efficiency issues. Despite constraints in terms of time covering the whole South Pacific region, the regional institutional framework being under “reconstruction” and, the multitude of, hardly manageable donor initiatives in the field of climate change the team finally was confident that sufficient information was available to assess the climate change context of the region and to come up with a proposal which adds value to ongoing and planned climate change activities at the regional and national level.