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Restoring island resilience: managing invasive species for a resilient Pacific Wednesday, December 7, 16:00 - 17:00 ET Addressing invasive species can increase the climate resilience of Pacific Island ecosystems and communities. The GEF supported the development of the Pacific Regional Invasive Species Management Support Service as a regional mechanism to scale up support and help countries to mainstream invasive species management. This event will discuss the wide-ranging impacts of invasive species management for biodiversity, SDGs, and beyond. Atelaite Lupe Matoto - Director of Environment, Tonga Stuart Chape - Director, Island and Ocean Ecosystems, Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme Richard Griffiths - Island Conservation Sarah Wyatt - Biodiversity Specialist, SIDS regional team, GEF

The objective of this report is to provide an overview of current knowledge related to the water sector 1 across Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Pacific region.

This report represents the World Bank's experience in climate and disaster resilient development, and contends that such development is essential to eliminating extreme poverty and achieving shared prosperity by 2030. The report recognizes however, that such development requires additional start-up costs, which pay off in the long run if done correctly. Given this, the report argues for closer collaboration between the climate resilience and disaster management communities, and the incorporation of climate and disaster resilience into broader development processes. Selected case studies are used throughout this report to illustrate promising approaches, lessons learned and remaining challenges.

Proceedings from the joint workshop co-organized by: the World Bank, the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and the World Meteorological Organization - March 12, 2012

Thirty years ago, half the developing world lived in extreme poverty—today, a quarter. Now, a much smaller share of children are malnourished and at risk of early death. And access to modern infrastructure is much more widespread. Critical to the progress: rapid economic growth driven by technological innovation and institutional reform, particularly in today’s middle- income countries, where per capita incomes have doubled. Yet the needs remain enormous, with the number of hungry people having passed the billion mark this year for the first time in history. With so many still in poverty and hunger, growth and poverty alleviation remain the overarching priority for developing countries. Climate change only makes the challenge more complicated. First, the impacts of a changing climate are already being felt, with more droughts, more floods, more strong storms, and more heat waves—taxing individuals, firms, and governments, drawing resources away from development. Second, continuing climate change, at current rates, will pose increasingly severe challenges to development. By century’s end, it could lead to warming of 5°C or more compared with preindustrial times and to a vastly different world from today, with more extreme weather events, many fewer species, and whole island nations submerged. Even our best efforts are unlikely to stabilize temperatures at anything less than 2°C above preindustrial temperatures, warming that will require substantial adaptation.

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.

THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND DEVELOPMENTAL consequences of climate change have received increasing recognition worldwide. The Stern Review (2006) notes that climate change is a serious and urgent problem, global in its cause and consequences. Current actions are not enough if we are to stabilize greenhouse gases (GHGs) at any acceptable level. The economic challenges are complex and will require a long-term international collaboration to tackle them. The recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also categorically states that the impacts of climate change will vary regionally, but aggregated and discounted to the present, they are very likely to impose net annual costs that will increase over time as global temperatures increase (IPCC 2007). The Kyoto Protocol remains the key international mechanism under which the industrial countries have committed to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.