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The earth works like a greenhouse. Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and other naturally occurring greenhouse gases (GHGs), as well as human-made industrial gases trap heat from escaping into space. This keeps the earth’s temperature within a life-sustaining range. Without the greenhouse effect, Earth would be much colder—an average temperature of –19° Celsius (C). Human reliance on fossil fuels for energy has increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Biogenic emissions of GHG from land use have magnified the greenhouse effect. Deforestation and poor land use, which have reduced the absorptive capacity of plants, forests, and soils for CO2, have made things worse.

Farmers cultivate steep hillside plantations of taro and bananas. Fishing communities pull tuna and marlin from the blue depths of the Pacific Ocean. Households tend mile after mile of neatly trimmed roadside gardens. Samoa’s beautiful natural environment also offers a striking setting for a rich and complex culture. Communities headed by traditional leaders, the matai, meet regularly in fale, the open-sided houses, to reach communal decisions. And on Sundays the roads are flooded with families dressed in dazzling white clothes flocking to hundreds of churches.

On the 14-15 October 2010, 14 Pacific Island countries met to discuss the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience. This meeting was attended by representatives from Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. At the meeting there were also representatives from international, regional and national organizations, development partners and non-government organisations. The meeting was jointly hosted by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.

Th e Vanuatu Economic Report 2009 outlines the state of economy and social development in the country and presents a road map for addressing key development challenges. It identifies the principal binding development constraints and opportunities in public sector performance, private sector and social development, and governance.

There is a long traditional history of giant clam use in the Pacific, where they are an important source of food. They have also found much wider utility as a raw material for tools, containers and ornaments. During the 1960-1980s, there was a sharp increase in the illegal entry of foreign fishers, mostly Taiwanese fishing vessels. This activity reached its peak in the mid-1970s and then subsided in the face of strong international pressures over depleted stocks, and improved surveillance of reef areas. Giant clams are used commercially as aquarium specimens, seafood, including sashimi, shells and shell craft (especially the genus Hippopus). The majority of international trade is in giant clam adductor muscle and shells. The adductor muscle tissue is highly prized by Chinese gastronomes for its purported aphrodisiac properties.

The trade in Hawksbill Turtles Eretmochelys imbricata, medium-sized cheloniids with a pan-tropical distribution, has been recognized as a key threat to their conservation in the wild, and has greatly contributed to the species being listed as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List (Milliken and Tokunaga, 1987; Groombridge and Luxmoore, 1989; Meylan and Donnelly, 1999; van Dijk and Shepherd, 2004; TRAFFIC Southeast Asia Indo china, 2004; Bräutigam and Eckert, 2006; Mortimer and Donnelly, 2007; IUCN, 2009). Sought after for its thick keratinous shell plates (often referred to as bekko or tortoiseshell), eggs, and sometimes meat, unsustainable harvest levels have endangered the Hawksbill Turtle throughout its distribution. Declines in populations in the Pacific have been widely reported (Hirth, 1971; Witzell and Banner, 1980; Pritchard, 1982; Balazs, 1983; Witzell, 1983; Johannes, 1986; Groombridge and Luxmoore, 1989; Miller, 1994; NMFS and USFWS, 1998; Meylan and Donnelly, 1999; Mortimer and Donnelly, 2007). Hawksbill Turtles and their eggs are widely used in Papua New Guinea for a variety of purposes, including subsistence, sale, barter (Spring, 1980, 1981, 1982a,b,c; Pernetta and Hill, 1981; Wright and Richards, 1983; Kinch, 1999, 2002, 2003a; Koczberski et al., 2006) and for celebrations at Christmas and the end of the school year, which coincide with the peak turtle nesting period in the austral summer months (Kwan, 1994; Kinch, 1999, 2002, 2003a). In many areas of Papua New Guinea, Hawksbill Turtles are also opportunistically taken as ‘by-catch’ by fishers out on the reefs targeting lobsters, shellfish and sea cucumbers.

This Climate Change Implementation Plan (CCIP) for the Pacific Regional Department (PARD) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) describes the areas of focus for PARD's operations and identifies key gaps between country and ADB actions, as well as opportunities for scaling up ADB's assistance related to mitigation, adaptation and associated cross-cutting needs. This gap analysis points to recommended interventions in regional and country programs for additional technical assistance (TA) and financial assistance, including access to new climate funds and adoption of new financing mechanisms. These include multi-donor Climate Investment Funds (Clean Technology Fund and Strategic Climate Fund), ADB's Future Carbon Fund, and possibly a new Sustainable Fuel Credits mechanism to promote reduced petroleum consumption. The CCIP will evolve through periodic updates in order to effectively guide ongoing and future programs and TA and project design. Going forward, specific climate change interventions will continue to be incorporated into the Country Partnership Strategy (CPS) and Country Operations Business Plan (COBP) for each Pacific Developing Member Country (PDMC) and into the Regional Operations Business Plan (ROBP) for the Pacific region as a whole. TA and investment projects will be designed, taking into consideration regional and country variations in governance, institutional capacity, and geographic and local environmental conditions.

The Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council (WPRFMC) has been funding several leatherback turtle recovery projects in Melanesia for a number of years. The major contribution by the WPRFMC in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the ongoing support of the Huon Coast Leatherback Turtle Conservation Project (HCLTCP) in the Morobe Province

The task given to the Evaluator was to review and assess the Initiative’s relevance, design,efficiency,effectiveness, impact and sustainability, as provided by the EC’s evaluation protocol used in the Mid-term Review (MTR). As a suitable level of funding was not available to conduct the evaluation appropriately, the evaluation was centred on a regional sharing and evaluation workshop held at Maravaghi Resort in the Solomon Islands from the 21st 24th February in which key NGOs, community representatives and government partners were brought together from participating countries.