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Opinion - In the Pacific, our relationship with nature is a natural one. Nature is us, we are nature. We use nature to meet our basic needs, food, water, clothing and shelter. We communicate through nature, we use it for medicine, transportation, music and entertainment. Generations have used those natural signs, which in today's world we refer to as traditional knowledge, to plan for the future.

We present the first objective quantitative assessment if the threats to all 359 species of sea birds, identify the main challenges facing them and outline priority actions for their conservation.

MPAs enhance some of the ecosystem services (ES) provided by coral reefs and clear, robust valuations of these impacts may help to improve stakeholder support and better inform decision-makers.

MET-related articles with climate change articles from the SamoaObserver form August 209-August 2020

Concentrations of particulate air pollution in Suva, Fiji, have been largely unknown and consequently, current strategies to reduce health risk from air pollution in Suva are not targeted effectively.

Most forests in Fiji are on native land owned by communities with tenure rights that are held largely with clans.

Small-scale fisheries are learning contexts of importance for generating, transferring, and updating ecological knowledge of natural environments through everyday work practices. The rich knowledge fishers have of local ecosystems is the result of the intimate relationship fishing communities have had with their natural environments across generations (see e.g. Urquhart and Acott 2013). This relationship develops strong emotional bonds to the physical and social place. For fishing communities and fishers – who depend directly on local ecosystems to maintain their livelihoods – fishing environments are natural places for living, working and defining themselves. Previous research on fishers’ ecological knowledge has mainly been descriptive, i.e., has focused on aspects such as reproduction, nutrition and spatial-temporal distribution and population dynamics, from a traditional view of knowledge that only recognises scientific knowledge as the true knowledge. By doing this, fishers’ ecological knowledge has been investigated separately from the learning contexts in which it is generated, ignoring the influence of social, cultural and historical aspects that characterise fishing communities, and the complex relationships between fishers and the natural environments they live and work in. This thesis investigates ecological knowledge among small-scale fishers living and working in the ecosystems of Lake Vättern and the Blekinge Archipelago (Baltic Sea) in Sweden and explores how ecological knowledge is generated with particular regard to the influences of work and nature on fishers’ knowledge of ecosystems. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of informal learning processes of ecosystem complexity among small-scale fishers. This knowledge further contributes to the research field of ecological knowledge and sustainable use and management of natural resources. It addresses the particular research questions of what ecological knowledge fishers generate, and how its generation is influenced by their fishing work practices and relationships to nature. The thesis consists of three articles. Article I focuses on the need to address the significant lack of theoretical and methodological frameworks for the investigation of the cognitive aspects involved in the generation of ecological knowledge. Article II deals with the need to develop theoretical, methodological and empirical frameworks that avoid romanticising and idealising users’ ecological knowledge in local (LEK), indigenous (IEK) and traditional (TEK) ecological knowledge research, by rethinking it as being generated through work practices. Article III addresses the lack of studies that explicitly explore theories linking complex relations and knowledge that humans form within and of ecosystems. It also addressed the lack of attention from environmental education researchers to theory and empirical studies of ‘sense of place’ research, with a particular focus on environmental learning. Research into the question of what ecological knowledge fishers generate shows differences in their ways of knowing ecosystem complexity. These differences are explained in terms of the influences of the species being fished, and the sociocultural contexts distinguishing fishers’ connection to the fishing profession (i.e., familial tradition or entrepreneurship) (Article I), but also by the fishing strategies used (Article II). Results answering the research question of how work practices influence fishers’ knowledge of ecosystem complexity show a way of rethinking their ecological knowledge as generated in a continuous process of work (Article II), thus, far from romantic views of knowledge. Results answering the research question of how fishers’ relationships to nature influence their knowledge of ecosystem complexity demonstrate the complex interconnections between psychological processes such as identity construction, proximity maintenance and attachment to natural environments (Article III). Finally, more similarities than differences between fishers’ knowledge were found, despite the variation in cases chosen, with regards to landscape, target species, regulations systems and management strategies, fishing environments scales, as well as cultural and social contexts.

Sustainability and gender have been prominent on the development agenda since the 1980s, but there h as been little systematic study of the links between the two. This review draws on ecofeminist theory, feminist political ecology, intrahousehold literature, and natural resource management case studies and reviews to examine how gender shapes the motives, means, and opportunities for men and women to contribute to sustainability. Particular attention is given to evidence on closeness to nature, focus on conservation, rights to resources, opportunities to exploit resources, and constraints to adoption of sustainable practices. Despite early claims that women are naturally more conserving of resources, the empirical literature, in particular, gives a more mixed and nuanced picture. Conservation is in uenced not only by gender but also by a host of tangible and intangible factors, including local ecology, context, and culture, that affect incentives and the ability to adopt sustainable extraction and provision practices.

Where conservation status of island non-marine molluscs is known, snails tend to be one of the most threatened faunal groups. However, published information regarding island gastropod conservation status, diversity and endemism is frequently unavailable despite the importance of this information for the formulation of biodiversity action plans and conservation strategy. Fiji, for example, has a diverse native land snail fauna (.240 species) with an endemism level of ,80%, but only within the last few years has any information about any of these species been available to the national biodiversity reporting repository. For one lineage in particular, members of the tree snail family Partulidae, with four endemic Fiji Island species, the conservation status of the group has never been assessed. However, based on the alarming extinction rates documented in partulid snail species on other Pacific Islands, information about the occurrence and status of these taxa is urgently needed for Fiji’s biodiversity action plan. To redress this information void, we formulated the Fijian Partulid Tree Snail Project, consisting of five components: (1) raising awareness; (2) locating populations and monitoring population trends; (3) elucidating patterns of genetic diversity; (4) creating action partnerships; and (5) conducting disturbance gradient analyses. The overall goal was to characterise mechanisms leading to persistence of partulids in the face of increasing anthropogenic disturbance. In the initial stages of this project, existing information on Fiji’s partulids was collated and two small, remote islands in the Fiji archipelago were surveyed to investigate whether tree snails persisted there. Living populations of Partula lanceolata and empty shells of Partula leefei were found on Cicia Island in Lau, and on Rotuma Island in the Rotuma Group, respectively. DNA analyses confirm a sister relationship between the two Partula species in north-eastern Lau, P. lirata and P. lanceolata, with both sharing a sister relationship with a member of the same genus in Vanuatu – P. auraniana Hartman, 1888. Prioritisation and further sampling of additional islands, and residual native habitat on less accessible islands and islets, is needed to fully assess the conservation status of all four Fijian species via the IUCN Red List process. Moreover, the basic descriptive information and associated studies reported here will serve to raise awareness of Fiji’s endemic tree snails particularly in communities that had no prior knowledge of their special conservation status; and also at a wider national, regional and global level. Community awareness is particularly vital as the willing support of land owners in the relevant small island communities is critical to implementing any future conservation action plans.