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The harvest of coastal resources for the aquarium trade provides important economic opportunities for Pacific Island countries. Of particular relevance is the trade in hard corals, for which exports are controlled under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

This is the report of a two week study tour in three Pacific Island countries, designed to share experience in the innovative sustainable management of marine fish stocks. The study team included two community leaders each from Papua New Guinea (PNG), Vanuatu and Samoa, accompanied by one person from the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit (CPSU), University of London, a senior regional academic nominated by the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council (CHEC), and a Commonwealth Foundation consultant organiser.

The New Guinea mainland and surrounding islands possess an extra-ordinarily rich flora and a great diversity of vegetation types that parallel the diverse physiography of the lands and the resulting climates that prevail. A high proportion (some three-quarters) of the land area has a forest cover, most of it evergreen rain forest. Seasonally dry areas support distinctive and characteristic vegetations. The large rivers have extensive flood-plains that are inundated seasonally, and, where drainage is impeded for long periods, vast swamplands occur. Above the treeline on the highest mountains com- munities of dwarfed herbs extend to the wind-battered and occasionally snow-covered peaks.

Mongabay rainforest profiles: American Samoa, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu