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The plastic demijohn Origin: streets, streams, beaches and boats. Behaviour: can cause serious, even fatal intestinal blockages in marine animals if swallowed. Average lifespan: 400 to 600 years. The battery Origin: streets, streams and boats. Behaviour: discharges liquids that are highly toxic for marine animals and plants. Average lifespan: more than 1000 years. The plastic bottle Origin: streets, streams, beaches and boats. Behaviour: can cause fatal intestinal blockages in marine animals that swallow it. Average lifespan: 300 to 500 years.

Satawal is a small flat coral island in the west central Caroline Islands about 1050 km east-south-east of Yap Island, at latitude 7'21' N, longitude 147'02' E. Although its surface is locally somewhat irregular, its greatest height is not more than about 4 meters above mean low water. Its long axis is about east-west and its area is 1.3 square km. It is surrounded by a fringing reef upward of 100 meters wide. It has no lagoon, so would be classified according to Tayama's scheme as a table reef. From the viewpoint of land ecology it is an atoll. The substratum varies from sandy to boulders, with some peat very locally. The beaches are sandy around the western half, of pebbles and cobbles around the eastern half.

Fais (Tromelin) is an elevated coral island, surrounded by interrupted cliffs 15-20 meters high, lying some 140 miles east of Yap Island, at latitude 9'46' N, longitude 140'31' E in the western Caroline Islands. It has an area of 2.8 square km, and has a population of about 300 people, Micronesians, speaking a dialect of the Ulithi-Woleai tongue. As with many such raised coral islands, valuable calcium phosphate deposits occur on Fais, the greater portion of which was removed and exported during the period of Japanese rule (1914-1945).

Although ornithological observations have not been the main object of any pliase of our work on the Northern Marshall Islands, numerous notes on birds have accumulated which are here placed on record, The birds were identified by use of Ernst Mayr's "Birds of the Southwest Pacific!' and the names used here are mostly those accepted by Mayr in that work. UnIortunately it was impractical to document these records with specin?ens. The sight observations presented should therefore be acceprcd with some reservations.

As of 1969, the scientific community had no general information on the natural history of Namoluk Atoll in the Eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia. The only significant published source for the atoll was an ethnographic and linguistic account provided by the German physician. Max Girschner (1912, 1913), that contained a few brief passages on the biology and physical environment of the atoll. With this lack of basic descriptive environmental information in mind, I resolved to make observations and collections of specimens of use to other atoll scholars ancillary to an anthropological research project which I undertook on Namoluk from 1969-1971.

This paper is a somewhat revised and updated version of a report, written in 1973 after our 9-day visit, at the request of Mr. Marlon Brando, proprietor of Tetiaroa Atoll, and published here with his accord. The original version was based on that visit to the atoll, as explained in the introduction. It was supplemented by a few observations called from herbarium specimens and field notes of Dr. Gerrit Wilder, who visited the island briefly on March 12, 1925 and August 30, 1929, and of E. H. Quayle, of the Whitney Expedition, who stopped there on November 19-21, 1921.

Interpretation of SEASAT geoid anomaly data and improved seafloor mapping of the south-central Pacific suggest a complex tectonic history for the islands of the Pitcairn group. While Oeno atoll formed at ~ 16m.y.BP at a 'hotspot' now south of the Easter micro- plate, subsequent progressive island development at Henderson (13m.y.), Ducie (8m.y.) and Crough seamount (4m.y.) resulted from the lateral leakage of magma from the Oeno lineation along an old fracture zone, itself originating during the Tertiary reorientation of the Pacific plate. At all four islands cessation of volcanism was followed by subsidence, and the development of a carbonate cap. By comparison, Pitcairn has been the product of recent (clm.y.) volcanic activity along an independent, subparallel hotspot lineation. Nevertheless, this activity has interacted with the older island chain by transforming Henderson Island, through the process of lithospheric flexure, into an uplifted atoll with - 30m of relief.

The 7th Conference of the Pacific Community and 41st Meeting of the Committee of Representatives of Governments and Administrations (CRGA) took place at SPC headquarters in Noumea from 1 to 8 November. The Conference of the Pacific Community — SPC's governing body - is held every two years and is immediately preceded by the meeting of CRGA, which makes recommendations to the Conference.

The Pacific Regional Framework comprising this Background Note. Model Law and Explanatory Memorandum, has been developed to assist Pacific Island countries and territories wishing to legally protect its Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of Culture. The framework is developed in response to calls from the region, in the face of increasing exploitation and inappropriate commercialization of their traditional knowledge and expressions of culture.

This Strategic Plan for the Regional Maritime Programme (RMP) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) follows on from RMP's Three year strategic plan 2003 to 2005. It builds on achievements of the previous plan period and sets out the direction of the Programme over the next five years (2006 to 2010).