Traditional way of life in the pacific islands in the expression of each and everybody's identity. The link between people and their natural habitat, living and unliving things is key to someone's social status, relationship to other member of its community and existence in the world. The session shall look at the importance of traditional knowledge and its relation to the environment as a way to protect existing biodiversity and thus ensuring that the cultural heritage of Pacific Island population i preserved. The issue of the modification of natural ecosystems, fauna and flora and hoe the traditions shall adapt to this situation if key to understanding the challenging the region will be facing in the coming years.
Pacific islands are hotspots of unique biodiversity. Our ancestral traditions are linked
to nature. However, these traditions, the natural environment, and biodiversity are
threatened by changing global and regional environmental pressures, ecological
degradation, growing human populations, changing demands of our societies, and the
impacts of climate change and sea level rise.
Measuring the amount that a government allocates to the environment is challenging due to overlapping sector plans or integration of environmental management into a larger ministry without a corresponding public budget report that specifies ‘environmental’ spending. Some countries separate the management of fisheries and marine resources from that of other environmental and climate change response actions.
The number of multilateral environment agreements (MEAs) varies by country, with at least 20 MEAs for the Pacific islands region. Pacific leaders have adopted the
Convention on Biological Diversity with its Aichi Targets
(2011–2020), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and several other global, regional, and national commitments that rely on resourced environmental management.
The full range of wildlife use in the Pacific islands region is outside of the scope of the present indicator. Many wildlife species are used in modern Pacific societies, on land, at sea, and in coastal areas. Wildlife is used for subsistence, traditional ritual, and in a range of industries, including the aquarium and seashell trade, decorative arts, agrifood, tourism, pet trade, and more
The status of the region’s forests was deemed Fair to Good, with the majority of Pacific islands still having relatively high for est cover, higher than the global average. The area of unlogged primary forest varies across the region, with large areas in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and countries like Cook Islands and Kiribati having no primary forest left
There are active drinking water or freshwater monitoring progra mmes in 11 of 14 Pacific countries and 6 of 7 territories. The primary challenge is the regularity and frequency of sampling, the capacity to process samples accurately in country, and the official response process to the findings. There is no regional data collation for this proposed indicator , to date. Escherichia coli occurs naturally in human and animal intestines and therefore can be used as a proxy for untreated sewage contamination or other pollution.
Agriculture is a foundational industry in Pacific island economi es and central to the independence of island communities. Together, agriculture, forestry and fishing provide from 3% to over 25% of the GDP of Pacific island countries, with a regional average of 17% (World Bank 2020), and agriculture accounts for a large share of employment (ADB 2015). The status of the region’s land under cultivation was deemed fair to good, based on national estimations in national State of Environment reporting (seven countries) and given the use of over 20% of land for agriculture in over half of the islands.
The Pacific island region has diverse wetlands, such as
the classic coastal ecosystems of mangrove forests, salt marshes, coral reefs, and seagrass beds along with rivers, freshwater lakes, and swamps (SPREP 2016). However, these wetlands are understudied. Land-use change and environmental change can alter the areal extent and condition of wetlands, and the pace of these changes vary among Pacific islands.
Simplifying coral reef ecosystems to a single number for a country, or for a region, runs counter to our knowledge of the complexity and variability that characterise healthy reefs in a healthy ocean scape.
The Pacific island region has very diverse corals and many types of reefs. Due to differences in the coral shapes and associated community of species, it is not possible to identify a single value as a health threshold for live coral cover. Instead, we can look for changes in live coral cover at a given reef, along with changes in species abundance and other factors that characterise a coral reef system.
