Search the SPREP Catalogue

This guide helps communities understand the pressures people may place on beaches, and suggests how natural processes or "ecosystem based approaches" can be used to encourage sand to come back and stay put. Beaches have important values for local communities, such as for fishing, tourism, recreation, and low tide gathering and gleaning. Local communities are an essential part of keeping beaches healthy and can use low cost, natural ways to make beaches stronger

In 2010, under Kiribati’s Programme of Work for Protected Areas (PoWPA), a national ecological gap analysis (GA) was conducted. Its main purpose was to assess how effective the current Protected Areas (PA) network was at achieving Kiribati’s National Biodiversity Strategies Action Plan (NBSAP) conservation targets, and in particular to identify priority areas for the expansion of the PA network and priority actions for improved management of existing PAs. A complementary objective was to identify the key gaps in our knowledge of the country’s biodiversity. The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and Conservation International’s Pacific Islands Program (CI-PIP) provided technical support to the Kiribati Ministry of Environment, Lands and Agricultural Development (MELAD) to conduct a GA of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBA – areas of high biodiversity and conservation value) in Kiribati, and provided advisory support for its PA network design. The KBA approach was applied at the archipelago (Gilbert, Line and Phoenix Islands) level combining terrestrial, coastal and lagoon habitats. The KBA methodology applied here is based on an international standard methodology that focuses on worldwide threatened species. KBA sites – all designated at the island level - were identified based on the presence of globally threatened species. The KBA sites (Islands) were then prioritized based on three additional criteria including the frequency of species of local concern as identified by the NBSAP, Kiribati Adaptation Plan (KAP) II mangroves, and the PoWPA phase one consultations; areas of expert concern; and a habitat metric based on habitat diversity and numerical analysis of habitat types.

Between 1892 and 1930, 58 percent (30 taxa) of Hawaiian endemic forest birds either were greatly reduced or became extinct. The order in which the islands experienced major declines ofseveral forest birds is Oahu (ca. 1873-1887), Hawaii (1892-1900), Mo10kai (1893-1907), Maui (18941901), Kauai (after 1900), and Lanai (1926-1932). Loss of habitat, reduced food supply, introduced avian diseases, as well as predation by man, feral cats, mongooses, and Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) all appear to have reduced some species ofbirds, but none ofthese factors adequately explains the accelerated rates ofdecline offorest birds that occurred after 1892. Although it has been assumed that roofrats (Rattus rattus) reached Hawaii with the first European ships at the end of the 18th century, there is circumstantial evidence, independent of the bird decline data, that indicates that this rat did not arrive until after 1840, probably between 1870 and 1880. The hypothesis is advanced that after its establishment on Oahu in the 1870s, R. rattus spread to the remaining large islands in the group, resulting in a stepwise accelerated decline offorest birds on each island in turn. Hawaii thus parallels some other Pacific islands where major reductions of birds have followed the establishment of R. rattus. The need for precautions to prevent rats from reaching rat-free islands in the Hawaiian group is emphasized.