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PACRES aims to improve regional, national adaptation and mitigation solutions to climate change concerns faces in 15 Pacific ACP countries.

Three-month total rainfall is typically used for monitoring grasslands, shallow rooted plants and small water body (e.g. small water tanks, streams) moisture deficits. Allow for uncertainty associated with island size, topography, geology and soil type.

The Global Climate Change Alliance Plus (GCCA+) Scaling up Pacific Adaptation (SUPA) places people in the nine smaller Pacific Island countries and Fiji at the centre of climate change adaptation efforts as the project seeks to strengthen the sectors responsible for providing water, food, health, marine resources and coastal protection.

This brochure highlights the central role the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC) plays in the sustainable management of our oceans. Outside the ocean science community many people are unaware of the critical services the IOC provides from coordinating the global tsunami warning system, to supporting greater understanding of climate change, and sharing data on all marine life from bacteria to whales.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) through its Pacific sub-regional office are joining forces to provide support to Pacific delegates to the international UN Oceans Conference.

Fiji has been identified as one of the countries most vulnerable to declines in reef condition due to the high dependence on reef systems for key industries (tourism and fishing). Much of the waters of Fiji and adjacent international waters include highly prospective deposits of copper, gold, zinc, silver and chemical elements. Extracting these resources is only now becoming feasible due to technological advances in Deep Seabed Mining (DSM). A large area of Fiji’s waters is now subject to DSM exploration licenses. But very little is known of the risks DSM creates for key marine ecosystem services and the industries that reply on those services for both income and employment (e.g. tourism and fishing). This desktop study seeks to identify, scope and broadly estimate the potential costs to Fiji associated with DSM. Only once those costs are understood, can Fiji confidently make robust policy decision about the amount, location and management of DSM within its waters.

Until now, there has been only one source of data on global fishery catches: information reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations by member countries. An extensive, ten-year study conducted by The Sea Around Us Project of the University of British Columbia shows that this catch data is fundamentally misleading. Many countries underreport the amount of fish caught (some by as much as 500%), while others such as China significantly overreport their catches. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world’s foremost fisheries experts, and edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project. The Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. National reports describe the state of the country's fishery, by sector; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. While it has long been clear that the world’s oceans are in trouble, the lack of reliable data on fishery catches has obscured the scale, and nuances, of the crisis. The atlas shows that, globally, catches have declined rapidly since the 1980s, signaling an even more critical situation than previously understood. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries provides a comprehensive picture of our current predicament and steps that can be taken to ease it. For researchers, students, fishery managers, professionals in the fishing industry, and all others concerned with the status of the world’s fisheries, the Atlas will be an indispensable resource.

The Pacific Islands Roundtable for Nature Conservation (PIRT) Planning Meeting was convened in Suva on the 30th of March 2016. The main objective of the Planning Meeting was to discuss priority activities of PIRT and plan towards key events and activities commencing in 2016 and early 2017. The meeting was attended by: Taholo Kami (Chair, IUCN), Stuart Chape (SPREP,) Easter Galuvao (SPREP), Etika Rupeni (IUCN), Scott Radway (SeaWeb), Crissy Canlas (SeaWeb), Bridget Kennedy (CI), Jan Steffen (GIZ-MACBIO), Donald Stewart (Birdlife), Mark O’Brien (Birdlife), Eleni Tokaduadua (DOE-Fiji), Aminiasi Qareqare (DOE-Fiji), Prof. Elizabeth Holland (USP), Sangeeta Mangubhai (WCS) and Payal Maharaj (SPREP).

The Asia Pacific region is exceptionally rich in biodiversity. The tropical forests of South East Asia, the reefs of the ‘coral triangle’, the temperate forests and the large river basins found in the region are among the most unique on Earth. However, biodiversity in the Asia Pacific region is in fast decline. For example, the region recorded the world’s highest number of threatened species in 2014 and extensive coastal development and unsustainable exploitation of marine resources have resulted in the disappearance of over 40 percent of coral reefs and mangroves, leading to declines in fish stocks.