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Seacology is important to the local community of the Pacific islands because it helps the peole to protect their environment and culture

The Pacific Islands region is currently experiencing an intensification of interest in culture of an enabler, rather than an inhibitor of development.

Indicators for tracking conservation efforts at a global scale are rare but important tools for understanding trends and measuring progress towards global conservation targets. Eradication of invasive species from islands is an increasingly used conservation intervention in countries and territories around the world. With a goal of collating these efforts, the Database of Islands and Invasive Species Eradications (DIISE) holds records of the location, target species, year and outcome of invasive mammal and bird eradications on islands from around the world. The database is publicly available in Spanish and English, at , and represents a partnership between the University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Auckland, IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group, Landcare Research and Island Conservation. The database holds records for more than 1,200 eradication attempts. This database will continue to be added to and evolve as new opportunities for its application arise; thus, we expect these numbers to change over time as new events are added and knowledge about existing events improves.

The ocean on which Earth depends for relatively predictable weather, temperature and provisioning of goods and services is now changing more rapidly than it has for millions of years.

As part of the Isles of Scilly Seabird Recovery Project, and directed by Wildlife Management International Ltd, the eradication of brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) from the inhabited islands of St Agnes & Gugh, Isles of Scilly was completed between October 2013 and April 2014 with the assistance of volunteers, and staff from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust and Natural England. Bait stations with cereal-based wax blocks containing bromadiolone at 0.005% w/w were established on a 40–50 metre grid over the island. With the presence of 85 residents on the 142 ha islands, this is the largest community-based brown rat eradication globally to date. Given the fact that a community is based on these islands, community engagement and advocacy was a vital and fundamental part of the eradication. Consultation for eradication began three years prior to the operation to explain the requirements for the proposed project and to assess support, but this built on many years of wider community engagement with seabird conservation. All of the residents supported the eradication of rats and vision of the project. The consultation and inclusion of the community in decision-making and management of the Isles of Scilly Seabird Recovery Project was a critical part of the operation and key to the success of the eradication. The community took ownership of the project and has committed to the on-going biosecurity requirements following the eradication of rats. The removal of brown rats from St Agnes and Gugh was a major achievement and provided the opportunity to restore the islands' communities of seabirds and other native species. This project provided an example of the effectiveness of ground-based rodent eradication techniques on an inhabited island and the lessons learnt during this operation can be used to help proposed eradications on other islands with communities and with terrain suitable for ground-based techniques.

Eradication techniques using ground-based devices were developed in New Zealand in the early 1970s to target invasive rodents. Since then, different bait station designs, monitoring tools and rodenticide baits have been developed, and changes in field techniques have improved and streamlined these operations. The use of these techniques has been taken around the world to eradicate rodents from islands. Eradication technology has moved rapidly from ground-based bait station operations to aerial application of rodenticides. However, regulations, presence of and attitudes of island-communities and presence of a variety of non-target species precludes the aerial application of rodenticides on islands in many countries. As such, ground-based operations are the only option available to many agencies for the eradication of invasive rodents from islands. It is important to recognise that the use of ground-based operations should be a valid option during the assessment phase of any eradication proposal even in countries that can legally apply bait from the air; in many instances the use of ground-based techniques can be as economic and rapid. The use of ground-based operations can also facilitate opportunities for in-depth monitoring of both target and non-target species. Using examples of the techniques and developments used in five ground-based rat eradication operations from the UK demonstrates how these methods can be used safely and successfully around the world, even on islands in the order of hundreds of hectares and those with communities.

Green Climate Fund B.07/04: Recommended action of the Board, a. Takes note of the information presented in document GCF/B.07/05 Initial Results Management Framework of the Fund; and b. Adopts the draft decision presented in Annex 1 to this document

Assessing species' vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of climate change vulnerability assessment (CCVA) and describe key concepts, terms, steps and considerations. We stress the importance of identifying the full range of pressures, impacts and their associated mechanisms that species face and using this as a basis for selecting the appropriate assessment approaches for quantifying vulnerability. We outline four CCVA assessment approaches, namely trait?based, correlative, mechanistic and combined approaches and discuss their use. Since any assessment can deliver unreliable or even misleading results when incorrect data and parameters are applied, we discuss finding, selecting, and applying input data and provide examples of open?access resources. Because rare, small?range, and declining?range species are often of particular conservation concern while also posing significant challenges for CCVA, we describe alternative ways to assess them. We also describe how CCVAs can be used to inform IUCN Red List assessments of extinction risk. Finally, we suggest future directions in this field and propose areas where research efforts may be particularly valuable.

The papers in this volume were, with a few exceptions, presented at the third Island Invasives conference, held in Dundee, Scotland in July 2017. The papers demonstrate up-scaling in several aspects of eradication operations – not least in ambition, land area, operational size, global reach and of course financial cost. In the space of a few decades, the size of islands treated for invasive species has increased by five orders of magnitude – from a few hectares to over 100,000 ha or 1,000 km2. Meanwhile, the diversity of species being tackled has increased, as has the range of countries now actively carrying out island restoration work. Inspired by pioneers from New Zealand and Australia, principally, today the movement has spread to islands in all oceans and off all continents. This expansion has been informed by, and has in turn produced, growing experience in all aspects of this field, from non-target impacts to ecological responses to factors affecting eradication success. A major aim of publishing these Proceedings is to inform people who are, or will in the future be, planning new projects to free islands of invasive species. Regardless of its location or the target species involved, each successive operation builds on the experience of those who have gone before, and the papers in this volume represent an invaluable wealth of such experience.

With the establishment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the Human Development Forum at Tudor Rose has expanded its publishing operation with the creation of a series of volumes entitled A Better World, each dedicated to one or more of the 17 SDGs.