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The process by which individuals, groups, organisations, institutions and societies increase their abilities to: Perform core functions, solve problems, define and achieve objectives Understand and deal with their development needs in a broad context and in a sustainable manner.

The initiative supports environment and health actors working together to address issues of common concern. Traditionally, health and environment sectors have acted independently of one another, each in defined domains. While much can and has been achieved, HELI aims to add a further dimension by focusing specifically on the large and important range of decisions which cannot be taken by one sector alone – and require a coordinated approach.

Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have committed themselves to considering the special needs and concerns of developing countries resulting from the adverse effects of climate change in the area of insurance. The needs of small island states have been are highlighted for attention, due to their unique geographic features and exposure, and thus unique vulnerability.1

As early as 1990 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change might be on human migration—with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption.3 Since then, successive reports have argued that environmental degradation, and in particular climate change, is poised to become a major driver of population displacement—a crisis in the making.

Over the past decade since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio, there has been only modest progress in the Asia-Pacific Region towards sustainable development. Since 1992, environmental quality in the Region has deteriorated. In advance of the September, 2002, World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), a number of agencies active in the Asia-Pacific Region, including ADB, ESCAP, UNDP, and UNEP, agreed to co-ordinate a series of subregional and regional preparatory meetings. The inter-agency Task Force undertook consultations with representatives of government and civil society organizations to formulate action plans for sustainable development in the five subregions of Asia-Pacific: Central Asia, Northeast Asia, South Asia, South Pacific, and Southeast Asia. This synthesis report summarizes the process adopted and the substantive results from the five subregional consultations and two subregional roundtables. The report is a companion document to the Asia-Pacific Regional Platform paper that will be discussed at the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in Cambodia, Nov. 27-29, 2001, and at the WSSD in September, 2002. Future implementation of the subregional action plans is necessary to arrest widespread environmental degradation in the Region. In order to achieve sustainable development, additional efforts and practical solutions are required for major socio-economic problems, including the widespread poverty and the distributional inequalities that pervade the Asia-Pacific Region.

While development of natural non living resources such as minerals and water can better the lives of Pacific islanders, it needs to be managed to ensure a safe and healthy environment. And as any resource manager today knows, to manage resources we need to manage the people who use them. A number of projects in the Pacific have recently turned to economic tools to help manage the way people use non living natural resources. In this paper selected case studies will be used to: ? demonstrate the different ways that economic tools are helping to improve the governance of a variety of non living natural resources in the Pacific: and ? consider the prospects for using these tools more generally in the Pacific in the future. To highlight the ways in which economic tools can improve the governance of non living natural resources, a simple project cycle is used. A number of case studies including the following are used to show how economic tools are improving management of non living natural resources in different sectors including water, disasters, oceans., minerals and energy. Details of case sftidies are provided in the paper accompanying the presentation. Following discussion of the case studies, the implications for using economic analysis to support the management of 11011 living resources in the Pacific is discussed.

The overall growth performance in the Pacific improved in 2007 with annual growth increasing to around 3 per cent compared to an average of about 2.2 per cent for the 2002-2005 period (Table 1). Vanuatu, Palau, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea grew at above average rates in 2007. Economic growth picked up in Fiji in 2006 but declined in 2007 following the coup in early December 2006. The Cook Islands, Marshall Islands and Samoa also experienced a pick up in growth. For the region as a whole the strong performers in 2007 and 2008 are Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Palau, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The strong recovery in Timor-Leste in 2007 reflects the restoration of civil order following the civil unrest in 2006, a sharp increase in government expenditure and the re-establishment of a UN Integrated Mission to support recovery and improved governance.

The Secretariat for Pacific Regional Environment Programme (‘SPREP’) have commissioned Cardno (Qld) Pty Ltd (‘Cardno’) to undertake a comprehensive review of integrated environmental assessment approaches and procedures in Pacific Island Countries (‘PICs’), and to provide advice on regional priorities for capacity building requirements in this regard.

We found coral diversity to be relatively high, especially at both tips of the island. Here we estimated the hard coral coverage to be about 30-40% and soft coral coverage about 25%. However, dead Pocillopora and Acropora colonies, already overgrown by algae, were scattered throughout the reef. On the northwest windward side of the island we encountered vast areas of bare rock with nibble filling the crevasses. Even in deeper zones live hard coral coverage was estimated to be only about 10%, dead coral coverage about 40% and the rest of the area was comprised of old coral rock and sand. Dead corals were overgrown by algae, and some live coral colonies were smothered by filamentous algae mats, causing the colonies to decrease in size.

United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) (1993) United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) (1993) Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer (1994) Vienna Convention for the protection of the ozone layer (1994) Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora (CITES) (1989) Convention on the Prohibition of Fishing with Long Drift Nets (1991) United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)(1982) Rio Declaration on Environment and development and AGENDA 21 (1992) Barbados Plan of Action (1994) Protocol of 1978 Relating to the International Convention for the Protection of Pollution from ships (1989) International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for compensation for Oil Pollution Damage (1989) International Convention for the prevention of Pollution of the sea by Oil (1983) International Convention on the Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage