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Poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation are basic social goals and part of the policy agenda of postcolonial states and international agencies. It is not surprising therefore that a large number of programmatic interventions have aimed to achieve the two goals at the same time. These interventions are funded by governments, conservation NGOs, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, and private sector organizations. In this paper, we first examine the conceptual discussion around poverty and biodiversity, and then analyze three such interventions: community-based wildlife management, extractive reserves, and ecotourism. Our discussion shows that the literature on these programmatic interventions depends on relatively simplified understandings of poverty and biodiversity in stark contrast to the theoretical literature on the two concepts. Further, writings on programmatic interventions tend to operationalize poverty and biodiversity in distinct and quite different ways.

Kibarti is a small country in the central Pacific comprised of 33 low-lying atolls barely 2-3 meters high above sea level. The population of 84,494 (2000 Census) is mainly young that lives on a total land area of 810sq. km a vast ocean area of 3.5 million sq.km. The country has limited physical resources and relies heavily on fish and copra as the mainstay of the economy. Economic growth is thereby only 2-3 percent (real GDP) per annum on average driven mainly from the copra sector, construction, wholesale/retail, and government administration. Gratefully, growth is underpinned by foreign earnings and ODA from government and international financial institutions. The former comprises net factor income from abroad thaqt includes returns from the reserve fund and other foreign reserves, remittances, and fishing license fees. Government is the major provider of cash employment (2 out of every 3 employees) that contributes significantly to a relatively high level of its current budget each year. Fiscal policy is therby the major policy instrument of government as the use of the Australian currency precludes monetary policy and likewise the lack of export and other economic and geographical disadvantages prevent trade and other related policies. Given such economic and physical disadvantages and also the volatilities/vulnerabilities of some economic strengths already mentioned, Kiribati definitely cannot live and develop o its own but truly needs to be party to development at a regional and international levels.

This report provides a summary of progress made toward implementation of the reserve operations plan (ROP) and the activities and accomplishments of NDAA;s Northernwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve. This reserves include submerged lands and waters of the NWHI and extends approximately 1,200 nautical miles long and 100 nautical miles wide.