Meet Josefa Bau from Nataleira who runs a dolphin watching business with tours to Moon Reef, a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in Fiji. Nurturing and protecting natural resources is not a new or foreign concept for i-Taukei (indigenous Fijians) like Josefa - ocean conservation is more than just environmental protection - it is an intrinsic part of their identity passed on for generations.
This Management Plan was prepared by the representatives of the Padezaka Tribe in partnership with the Natural Resources Development Foundation (NRDF), Integrated Forest Management Program (IFMP) and Ecological Solutions Solomon Islands (ESSI) in Choiseul. Members of the Padezaka tribe for their cooperation and patience through the process. The Padezaka Protected Area Management Committee acknowledged that the Padezaka Tribal Rain Forest Conservation Area is in the customary land of Padezaka tribe.
Experiences from the Kiribati Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development regarding their medium grant under the EU-ACP BIOPAMA Action Component focusing on management interventions for the Kiritimati Island Conservation Protected Area.
East Rennell (part of the island of Rennell, in Solomon Islands) was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1998. Its listing was a milestone in the development of the World Heritage Convention regime. It was the first listed World Heritage site in the independent Pacific Island States, and the first place anywhere in the world to be inscribed based on its natural heritage values and its protection under customary law.
In an age of dramatic environmental and ecological challenges, the dynamics of sovereignty associated with the conservation of natural resources in Oceania are in flux. This article draws on the transformative work of Tongan anthropologist and political philosopher Epeli Hau‘ofa to articulate characteristics of an Oceanian Sovereignty that illuminate ongoing conceptual shifts around conservation in this region.
Resource sustainability requires recognising and developing pathways to integrate local and Indigenous knowledges alongside conservation and sustainability sciences within management practices and governance. However, knowledge never occurs in a vacuum, and is always mediated by the beliefs, values, or stances towards its possession or use within particular contexts.
Fiji is committed to, and is embarking upon, a process to significantly increase the number and coverage of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) within the country. To help deliver on this commitment, the Marine Working Group of the Fiji national Protected Area Committee (PAC), established under the Environmental Management Act 2005, requested a review of previous efforts to describe marine priority sites for Fiji.
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.
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The impacts of human-induced environmental change that characterize the Anthropocene are not felt equally across the globe. In the tropics, the potential for the sudden collapse of ecosystems in response to multiple interacting pressures has been of increasing concern in ecological and conservation research. The tropical ecosystems of Papua New Guinea are areas of diverse rainforest flora and fauna, inhabited by human populations that are equally diverse, both culturally and linguistically.
