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Climate change is often referred to as the defining challenge of our time, and it is well known that Pacific Island States are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Indeed, these adverse effects are already very tangible for most communities across the region. Coastal features are visibly changing, with rising sea-levels, higher king tides and storm surges, saltwater intrusion and changing weather patterns posing an increasing threat to the livelihoods of Pacific Island communities. The threats are amplified by extreme weather events becoming more intense and more damaging as a result of climate change, with Cyclone Pam recently causing loss of human life and catastrophic damage in Vanuatu, and to a lesser extent in the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati. 2 While communities and governments—assisted by regional, international and nongovernmental organizations—are proactively building resilience and adapting to climate change, there is a real risk of much more severe and damaging impacts materializing in the coming decades.3 The threats are so severe that most, if not all, Pacific Island States face the threat of losing some or all of their habitable territory as a result of climate change, with related risks of the loss of traditional livelihoods and large-scale involuntary displacement

Newsletter on Pacific Libraries

2008 Annual Report for the University of the South Pacific.

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.

Traditionally, Pacific Island people have lived a subsistence lifestyle with taboos and practices that ensured sustainability of resource use. However, modernization with all its implications has reduced the quality of life with problems affecting the very pillars of sustainable development. There are many disadvantages that derive from small size, a narrow range of resources, excessive dependence on international trade, high population density, over use of natural resources, relatively small watersheds, costly infrastructure, fragile ecosystems and high levels of endemism.

Traditionally, Pacific Island people have lived a subsistence lifestyle with taboos and practices that ensured sustainability of resource use. However, modernization with all its implications has reduced the quality of life with problems affecting the very pillars of sustainable development. There are many disadvantages that derive from small size, a narrow range of resources, excessive dependence on international trade, high population density, over use of natural resources, relatively small watersheds, costly infrastructure, fragile ecosystems and high levels of endemism.

This report presents data from the most comprehensive assessment undertaken on differing levels of ecological survey effort employed in Fiji. The four methods examined in order of increasing taxonomic complexity (number of variables or species observed) were FLMMA community monitoring, Reef Check, Akuila Cakacaka's Masters thesis method* and that used by Coral Cay Conservation in Fiji. All of these methods utilise a belt transect underwater visual census methodology with differing lengths of transects though for standardisation, all were set at 20m long by 5m wide by 5m high in this investigation. All methods employed a target species list. Of these target species lists, only the FLMMA methodology observed individuals from all of its target taxa; the other methodologies observed only 67, 70 and 59% of the species included on the target species List for the 'Reef Check method', 'Akuila's method' and the 'Coral Cay method' respectively.