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Sustainability achieved only when there is full reconciliation between (1) economic development (2) meeting, on and equitable basis growing and changing human needs and aspirations and (3) conserving the limited natural resources and the capacity of the environment to absorb the multiples stresses that are a consequence of human activities

While island societies can do little to control carbon emissions from developed nations, they can manage their local resources to enhance the ecosystem services that coastal habitats, including reefs provide for people.

Wildlife watching activities play a significant and growing part in the tourism industry, and create direct and indirect economic benefits for many countries and communities - especially amongst developing countries. This form of tourism can certainly make important contributions to conservation by raising awareness of the animals observed and their habitats, by creating revenues for conservation and by creating jobs for local communities.

Population centres in low atoll islands have water supply problems that are amongst the most critical in the world. Fresh groundwater, the major source of water in many atolls, is extremely vulnerable to natural processes and human activities

he Western Pacific Regional Fisheries management council 1 (WPRFmc) currently funds several leatherback turtle recovery projects in the Western Pacific, whereby participating communities are paid to monitor beaches as opposed to harvesting eggs or turtles.

4 page Fact sheet provides general information to background history, description of Cane Toad in different life stages, why they are invasive pest, and control actvities

French brochure on Pacific sea turtles and conservation

A decade after the cessation of atomic weapons testing by the French in the South Pacific, controversy still exists about the environmental impact and long-term consequences of this program. Current concerns range from the delayed effects the testing program had on the health of the Polynesians who worked on the testing program to the continued presence of radiation at the test sites and other atolls and islands in French Polynesia. To further clarify the possible remaining contamination of neighboring, non-test site atolls, the Medical Foundation collected samples from atolls north/northwest of the test sites to survey for residual radioactive contamination. Background: In 1966, the French Government moved its atomic testing to Moruroa and Fangataufa, two uninhabited atolls, in the Tuamotu Archipelago, after Algeria’s independence from France in 1962 made further testing in the Sahara desert untenable. (1,2) This decision to use these atolls was made despite the objections of the local parliament. (3) These two atolls are approximately 41 kilometers apart and are located in the southeastern part of the Tuamotu chain.

The likelihood (i.e. probability) components of c limate-related risks in Samoa are evaluated for both present day and future conditions. Changes over time reflect the influence of global warming. The risks evaluated are extreme rainfall events (both six-hourly and daily), drought, high sea levels, extreme winds and extreme high air and water temperatures. Projections of future climate-related risk are based on the output of global climate models, for given emission scenarios. All the likelihood co mponents of the climate-related risks show increases as a result of global warming, though for some the increases are small relative to the uncertainties. Best estimates of long term, systematic changes in the average climate for Samoa indicate that by 2050 sea level is likely to have increas ed by 36 cm, rainfall by 1.2%, extreme wind gusts by 7% and maximum temperatures by 0.7 C.

Western Samoa possesses a considerable wealth of natural and cultural resources from which many generations of Samoans have been able to derive benefit. However, appre- ciable areas of natural vegetation are being lost annually to agricultural, housing and communication development, or modified by logging and life styles and cultural values of the Samoan people are changing in response to mounting pressures imposed by a rapidly increasing human population and aspirations for higher living standards. In the foreseeable future, exponential increase in these pressures and consequent speed of change seem inevitable. In recog- nition of these circumstances the Government of Western Samoa sees the creation of a system of National Parks and Reserves as a means of conserving representative samples of Western Samoa's natural and cultural heritage in perpetuity.