Global calls for greater ocean protection have sparked renewed interest in very large marine protected areas (VLMPAs, >100,000 km2) to achieve management targets; however, their conservation value is debated.
Today the world faces three interconnected crises: biodiversity loss, climate change, and unsustainable debt, each greatly exacerbating the other. Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) have increasingly focused on using commercial debt refinancing to simultaneously take action in support of conservation, build resilience to environmental change, and reduce or reprofile sovereign debt.
Crown-of-thorns seastars (COTS, Acanthaster spp.) are the most notorious coral predators, whose devastating outbreaks cause recurrent and extensive coral depletion across Indo-Pacific reefs. However, the spread potential of COTS outbreaks and the anthropogenic role in their initiation have remained a subject of intense debate for over five decades.
This study seeks to shed light on the rates and drivers of tree cover loss in island catchments focusing on a case study from Fiji. Global Forest Watch (GFW) is critically assessed as a framework for quantifying terrestrial tree cover loss and associated forest carbon stocks. The study assesses the role of the drivers of tree cover loss identified by GFW global models including anthropogenic deforestation: shifting agriculture, wildfires, urbanisation and plantation forestry as well as other drivers outside of the globally standardised list.
The Blue Carbon Finance Toolbox aims to provide the global blue carbon community with an overall guide to understanding and leveraging finance mechanisms that support the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of blue carbon ecosystems.
If the ocean was a state of its own, it would be the seventh largest economy in the world – with a “gross marine product” of at least US$ 2.5 trillion per year. This Blue Economy is underpinned by diverse ecosystems that provide valuable services to the world, be it fishing, tourism or shipping. On the one hand, the ocean is undoubtedly an important part of the world economy. On the other hand, its asset base, that is to say its capital, is steadily declining. This is because the sea is a commons.
mo e ngaahi Feitu’u Pule’i Makehe pe Special Management Areas (SMA). Ko e kaveinga, ke fai ha ako mo ha fevahevahe’aki fekau’aki mo hono fokotu’u mo fakalele ‘o e ngaue ni ‘i Tonga ni. Ne fakalele mo fokotu’utu’u ‘a e konifelenisi ni ‘e he MACBIO (ko e polokalama ngaue ki hono tokangaekina, pule’i mo malu’i ‘o e ngaahi me’amo’ui kotoa ‘i ‘oseni ‘o tautefito ki he ngaahi matafanga ‘i he Pasifiki). Ne kau atu mo e Potungaue Toutai pea mo e Sosaieti Sivile ‘a Tonga ‘i hono fakalele ‘o e konifelenisi ni ki ha kau fakafofonga ‘e toko 65 mei he ngaahi tapa kehekehe ‘o Tonga .
Marine spatial planning is underway now, or starting, in many Pacific Island countries, including Tonga. This planning aims, amongst other things, to achieve the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Aichi Target 11 which states, in part, that at least 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas are conserved through ecologically representative and wellconnected systems of protected areas. However, means for countries who have signed on to the CBD to achieve an ecologically representative system of marine protected areas is missing.
In understanding effective marine management, the project aims to support communities in its five partner countries to learn about existing management practices. “Learning sites” were chosen over “pilot sites” as MACBIO aspires to highlight examples of communities who have been recognized for their effective marine management approaches. Within Fiji, two proposed learning sites were chosen including the Vanua1 Navakavu and the province of Macuata. In this report, we highlight lessons from the Yavusa Navakavu.
In 2015, the Tongan Cabinet embarked upon a National Marine Spatial Planning process, establishing a marine spatial planning technical working group comprising seven Ministries (the “Ocean 7”). One of their tasks was to identify Tonga’s special, unique marine areas. This report brings together data, literature and the outputs of a special workshop synthesising information about the areas identified. Data collected informed a scoring system by which the areas could be rated.
