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A new report has found that more than 53.6 million tonnes of e-waste was dumped or burned globally last year, which is the equivalent of 350 cruise ships, and up more than 20 per cent in just five years. The UN's Global E-waste Monitor 2020 also ranked Oceania as the second highest region, per capita, of e-waste, with each person generating 16.1 kilograms on average, it said. Common e-waste items include old mobile phones, batteries, TVs, computers and tablets. But Australia and New Zealand are the leading producers of that e-waste, with people in Pacific countries like Samoa and Tonga estimated to produce 3.1 kilograms per person, and in Fiji and PNG, the figure was just 1.5 kilograms. It's a problematic issue across the globe but in the Pacific, where in many countries there isn't the space for all this dumped technology, problems are looming. The region's peak environment body, SPREP, is working on several projects to tackle the issue. Bradley Nolan, the Project Manager for PacWastePlus, which is funded by the European Union, told Pacific Beat "disposable societies and large incomes" in countries like Australia and New Zealand explain why residents in those countries produce such large quantities of e-waste. And he suggested that Australia and other donor partners may in fact contribute to some of the e-waste in Pacific nations, with equipment such as computers donated when they had reached their end-of-life there. "There have been some incidents where some of the metropolitan countries [ie Australia, New Zealand] when some of their products are at the end of their useful life, say in a government department, has gifted those to countries to help out. "But of course they have less life, so they become an instant e-waste problem when they hit the islands...so aid and the work that people are attempting to do, with great intentions, creates some significant problems at the other end," he said.

Breeding success of 5 Cory’s shearwater Calonectris diomedea sub-colonies of Lavezzu Island (Lavezzi Archipelago, Corsica) was checked annually for 25 consecutive years from 1979 to 2004. Between 1989 and 1994, 4 ship rat Rattus rattus controls were performed in several subcolonies. In November 2000, rats were eradicated from Lavezzu Island and its 16 peripheral islets (85 ha) using traps then toxic baits. We compare cost (number of person-hours required in the field) and benefit (Cory’s shearwater breeding success) of control and eradication. The average breeding success doubled when rats were controlled or eradicated (0.82) compared to the situation without rat management (0.45). Moreover, the average breeding success after eradication (0.86) was significantly (11%) higher than after rat controls (0.75). Furthermore, the great variation in breeding success recorded among sub-colonies both with and without rat control declined dramatically after eradication, suggesting that rats had a major impact on breeding success. The estimated effort needed to perform eradication and checking of the permanent bait-station system during the year following eradication was 1360 person-hours. In contrast, rat control was estimated to require 240 or 1440 person-hours per year when implemented by trained and untrained staff, respectively. Within 6 yr, eradication cost is lower than control cost performed by untrained staff and confers several ecological advantages on more ecosystem components than Cory’s shearwater alone. Improved eradication tools such as hand or aerial broadcasting of toxic baits instead of the fairly labour-intensive eradication strategy we used would dramatically increase the economic advantage of eradication vs. control. Therefore, when feasible, we recommend eradication rather than control of non-native rat populations. Nevertheless, control remains a useful management tool when eradication is not practicable.