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Sea level in July was higher than normal fro most of countries in the region with positive anomalies situated around western Palau and Solomon Islands. Parts of PNG, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Tonga, Cook Islands and French Polynesia experienced below normal sea level.

National Education and Awareness Plans or NEAP are an easy to understand yet effective plans designed to coordinate the development and implementation of targeted and empowering education and awareness activities at a national level and are focused on encouraging the adoption of good practices and positive behaviour change in terms of sustainable waste management.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly spread around the world with extensive social and economic effects. This editorial focuses specifically on the implications of the pandemic for small-scale fisheries, including marketing and processing aspects of the sectors, and coastal fishing communities, drawing from news and reports from around the world.

Vanuatu is once again the recipient of a training/workshop aimed to further develop the capacity of the country to manage disaster wastes, built around the pilot training conducted in November 2019 with SPREP and University of Newcastle, the training/workshop held at Ramada Resort from the 2nd to the 6th of March 2020 involved representatives from different cities, municipalities and provinces around the country.

This study provides the first detailed investigation of the catches of the shark longline fishery in Papua New Guinea. Fisheries observes collected data on shark catches from a total of 318 longline sets between May and June 2014, before it s closure in July 2014. In all, 14694 sharks were recorded with a total estimated biomass of 439 tonnes (Mg). Eighteen species of sharks were recorded in the observer data, with the most dominant species being Carcharhinus falciformis which constituted more than 90% of the total catches by both weight and number of individuals.

As greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, climate change are becoming more acute and frequent, driving the need to ensure climate resilience in infrastructure investments across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

Coral reefs worldwide are suffering mass mortalities from marine heat waves. With the aim of enhancing coral bleaching tolerance, we evolved 10 clonal strains of common coral microalgal endosymbiont at elevated temperatures (31 degree celsius) for 4 years in the laboratory. Coral populations globally have deteriorated over the past two to three decades due to climate change related marine heat waves.

Deep sea mining (DSM) in the Pacific is of growing interest to frontier investors, mining companies and some island economies. To date no commercial operations have been established but much seabed mineral exploration is occurring. The focus is on poly-metallic nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the north-eastern equatorial Pacific, and in the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several nations.

Positive relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) highlight the importance of conserving biodiversity to maintain key ecosystem functions and associated services. Although natural systems are rapidly losing biodiversity due to numerous of human-caused stressors, our understanding of how multiple stressors influence the BEF relationships comes largely from small experimental studies.

SPREP's vision is guided by its organisational values and code of conduct. A detailed article explaining each of the values and code of conduct that staff adheres to.