Marine protected areas (MPAs) are essential for conserving marine biodiversity, ensuring sustainable fisheries, and maintaining the health of ocean ecosystems. They also provide economic and cultural benefits, including ecotourism opportunities and the preservation of livelihoods for coastal communities. However, merely establishing an MPA is generally insufficient to secure these protections and benefits.
1. Societies around the globe harvest wild species, to a greater or lesser extent, for food, building materials, healthcare, medicines, pest control, ornamentation, income, recreation, and cultural and spiritual purposes. While this use of wild species directly contributes to the well-being of billions of people globally, over-exploitation of wild species is one of the key drivers of biodiversity loss.
Community-based natural resource management is recognized as an effective area-based conservation approach. Accordingly, conservation organizations worldwide are providing support to local communities seeking to sustainably manage and use their local natural resources. However, there is little understanding of how different types of support provided by partner organizations influence local community governance of these resources.
Seagrass habitats support biodiversity, improve water quality, protect coastlines, and sequester carbon, among other essential ecosystem functions, yet they are declining worldwide due to human activity. Seagrass restoration and conservation can act as nature-based solutions for climate change, garnering growing interest from a diversity of stakeholders globally. Despite this interest, no seagrass projects have yet received carbon credits under international voluntary carbon standards.
Documentation of biodiversity and its geographical distribution is necessary to understand the processes and drivers of evolutionary diversification as well as to guide conservation and management initiatives. Among the most emblematic patterns of biodiversity in the world’s oceans is the Coral Triangle (Indo-Australian Archipelago), widely recognized to be the center of species richness for a variety of marine life forms.
Maninita, the southernmost island of the Vava'u group is an important seabird nesting site and a proposed national protected area as originally identified by the Government of Tonga's Ministry of Lands, Survey and Natural Resources. The Tonga NZODA Nature Tourism Programme has responded to this and the increasing interest in the island from Vava'u's tourism sector by including a Maninita initiative as a component of its overall programme.Available onlineCall Number: [EL]Physical Description: 29 p.
Islands are at the forefront of the global extinction crisis, with invasive vertebrates posing a significant threat to native flora and fauna. The removal of these invasive species is crucial for the restoration and protection of island ecosystems, helping to prevent extinctions and promote biodiversity!
Island Conservation hosts an invaluable dataset to help show the impact of this key environmental intervention: the Database of Island Invasive Species Eradications (DIISE).
We present an initial exploration of why and how participation in a case of community-based resource management (CBRM) in a Pacific context could be considered a deviation from gender norms.
In recent years, social prescribing—particularly green prescribing and nature prescriptions—has rapidly gained popularity as a holistic approach to improving health and well-being by connecting individuals with nature-based activities and community support. Due to the unique qualities of protected and conserved areas, they provide irreplaceable benefits to humans. This has prompted many to quickly identify, define, and measure their positive impacts on human health and well-being.
Based on original ethnographic and ethnobotanical research, we share how in the cosmology of Tanna, an island in Vanuatu’s southernmost province of Tafea, the Sun is viewed as a living, interactive being. Our initial interviews explored knowledge and beliefs concerning individual plant species, then subsequent follow-up interviews further explored topics that emerged therefrom. The results of these interviews are a series of oral narratives of the mytho-historical past involving the Sun, and the description of contemporary practices which are influenced by the Sun.
