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NESSC Quarterly Meeting No. 5, Thursday 25 August, 2016

Final report for Samoa's 2015 national water and sanitation baseline survey, on methods, results and outcomes.

Before you leave Samoa, stop and think... Could you be breaking wildlife laws? Souvenirs and handicrafts can sometimes include plant and animal products that are protected under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Before you leave Samoa, stop and think... Could you be breaking wildlife laws? Souvenirs and handicrafts can sometimes include plant and animal products that are protected under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Samoa is home to many threatened species including corals, marine turtles, whales, dolphins and more. The survival of these species is further endangered by the global trade in plants, animals and products that may be made from them.

The UK has sovereignty over 16 Overseas Territories, which hold some of the world's great seabird colonies and collectively support more endemic and globally threatened bird species than the whole of mainland Europe. Invasive alien mammalian predators have spread throughout most of the Territories, primarily since European expansion in the 16th century. Here we review and synthesize the scale of their impacts, historical and current, actions to reduce and reverse these impacts, and priorities for conservation. Mammalian predators have caused a catastrophic wave of extinctions and reductions in seabird colony size that mark the UKOTs as a major centre of global extinction. Mammal-induced declines of threatened endemics and seabird colonies continue, with four Critically Endangered endemics on Gough Island (Tristan da Cunha), St Helena and Montserrat directly threatened by invasive alien House Mice Mus musculus, Feral Cats Felis catus and rats Rattus spp. Action to reduce these threats and restore islands has been modest in comparison with other developed countries, although some notable successes have occurred and a large number of ambitious eradication and conservation plans are in preparation. Priority islands for cosnervation action against mammalian predators include Gough (which according to one published prioritization scheme is the highest-ranked island in the world for mammal eradication), St Helena and Montserrat, but also on Tristan da Cunha, Pitcairn and the Falkland Island. Technical, financial and political will is required to push forward and fund the eradication of invasive mammalian predators on these islands, which would significantly reduce extinction risk for a number of globally threatened species.

Samoa's National Environmental Capacity Strategy (NECS) is drawn on the assessment and analysis of priority thematic and cross-cutting capacity needs. These needs have identified priority actions for capacity development and opportunities to promote synergies across the 3 Conventions which are highlighted as project profiles in the NECS. Strategies to implement these project profiles including means of monitoring and evaluation of outcomes are also highlighted in the NECS.

Protecting a species is an aspect of conservation which many organizations and individuals have put effort into so that the balance within the ecosystem can be maintained. Protection implement when factors of threats have been identify. Factors of pressure or predatory that may lead to competition and results in extinction. These are the sequence our world works since the beginning

The community based conservation (CBC)paradigm predicts that sustainable biodiversity can only be achieved if local people perceive benefits from conservation. Through interviews, the situation in Samoa portrays that the CBC of mangroves was received with apprehension because the mangrove biodiversity was more significant than sustaining the livelihood of the local communities. In contrast, Iriomote Island residents were able to achieve maximum socio-economic benefits but to the extent that they were over commercializing the mangrove ecosystem. More research is imperative to find out how biodiversity conservation can be married with sustainable development objectives to sustain the local communities' livelihood.