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More than 20 cetacean species are known to exist in the Pacific Islands Region, which encompasses the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ (waters out to 370 km from shore) around the entire Hawaiian Archipelago. Johnston Atoll. Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll. Baker and Howland Islands. Jarvis Island. American Samoa. Wake Island, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, totaling some 5.8 million km2 of ocean. Many of the species present are poorly studied throughout their range and virtually unstudied in large portions of the Pacific Islands Region. NOAA Fisheries (National Marine Fisheries Service. NMFS). a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has lead-agency responsibility for cetaceans under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Heretofore, the agency's Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC) in La Jolla. California, and the NMFS regional office in Long Beach. California, were responsible for conducting management-related research and providing cetacean stock assessments throughout all U.S. waters of the temperate and tropical Pacific Ocean. Establishment of the Pacific Islands Region within NMFS in April 2003 initiated the devolution of those responsibilities within the region to the Pacific Islands Regional Office (PIRO) and Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) in Honolulu. Hawaii. It was expected that the transition of the research component from SWFSC to PIFSC would be gradual and that collaborative work between the two centers would continue for a considerable time into the future.

Poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation are basic social goals and part of the policy agenda of postcolonial states and international agencies. It is not surprising therefore that a large number of programmatic interventions have aimed to achieve the two goals at the same time. These interventions are funded by governments, conservation NGOs, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, and private sector organizations. In this paper, we first examine the conceptual discussion around poverty and biodiversity, and then analyze three such interventions: community-based wildlife management, extractive reserves, and ecotourism. Our discussion shows that the literature on these programmatic interventions depends on relatively simplified understandings of poverty and biodiversity in stark contrast to the theoretical literature on the two concepts. Further, writings on programmatic interventions tend to operationalize poverty and biodiversity in distinct and quite different ways.

While development of natural non living resources such as minerals and water can better the lives of Pacific islanders, it needs to be managed to ensure a safe and healthy environment. And as any resource manager today knows, to manage resources we need to manage the people who use them. A number of projects in the Pacific have recently turned to economic tools to help manage the way people use non living natural resources. In this paper selected case studies will be used to: ? demonstrate the different ways that economic tools are helping to improve the governance of a variety of non living natural resources in the Pacific: and ? consider the prospects for using these tools more generally in the Pacific in the future. To highlight the ways in which economic tools can improve the governance of non living natural resources, a simple project cycle is used. A number of case studies including the following are used to show how economic tools are improving management of non living natural resources in different sectors including water, disasters, oceans., minerals and energy. Details of case sftidies are provided in the paper accompanying the presentation. Following discussion of the case studies, the implications for using economic analysis to support the management of 11011 living resources in the Pacific is discussed.

The Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 and its tragic and devastating consequences were a wake-up call for the global community, dramatically drawing attention to the vulnerability of tropical coastal ecosystems and the dangers of undermining the services they provide to humankind. This was further emphasized by the catastrophic hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005 when Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma caused much publicized and extensive damage to coastal areas. The numerous other tropical storms that affected coastal communities and ecosystems in other parts of the world in the same year received much less attention, but were also notable.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is in the process of conducting an Eco-regional assessment of the Bisniarck Sea, to use as the basis for expandmg its conservation efforts in this important area. The goal is to develop a network of coral reef Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) for the Bismarck Sea with Kimbe Bay as a platform site. Physical oceanographic data can be used more effectively in the design of MP As. This is often difficult to achieve in many remote regions that yield few actual direct observations.

Research findings of the past decade have led to mounting concern that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations will cause changes in the ocean’s carbonate chemistry system, and that those changes will affect some of the most fundamental biological and geochemical processes of the sea. Thanks to the efforts of large-scale physical and biogeochemical ocean programs such as WOCE, JGOFS, and OACES, ocean-wide changes in the carbonate system are now well documented. Since 1980 ocean uptake of the excess CO2 released by anthropogenic activities is significant; about a third has been stored in the oceans. The rate of atmospheric CO2 increase, however, far exceeds the rate at which natural feedbacks can restore the system to normal conditions. Oceanic uptake of CO2 drives the carbonate system to lower pH and lower saturation states of the carbonate minerals calcite, aragonite, and high-magnesium calcite, the materials used to form supporting skeletal structures in many major groups of marine organisms.

Held exploratory discussions regarding RS/GIS/GPS surveys and training by the Project to provide a database of all properties and associated roof catchments to accurately identify the condition of rainwater harvesting infrastructure assets such as roofing materials, guttering, down-pipes and storage tanks. An asset condition survey of this nature would allow production of engineering specifications and associated bill of quantities to identify the infrastructure refurbishment and replacement opportunities under the EU B-Envelope funding. Subsequent provision and installation of sufficient domestic & community rainwater storage facilities will contribute directly to reducing Nauru's population vulnerability to drought risks.

Fisheries in the Solomon Islands comprise two distinct sectors: the industrial sector which is predominantly off-shore and depends on the abundant tuna resources found in the country's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and the subsistence-artisanal sector which is based on inshore resources found in the coastal regions. Although the off-shore Fisheries contribute more to the national economy in terms of foreign exchange earning (Gillett and Lightfoot 2002), the subsistence-artisanal sector is by far the most important to the bulk of the population with annual production estimated at SI$60 million (Kile 2000) and US$9,963 million (Gillett and Lightfoot 2002). This sector provides food, income and employment for many inhabitants of coastal communities throughout the country, and will become increasing important as the population of the Solomon Islands increases.

This is the first extensive survey of seagrass resources in the Solomon Islands. Other impacts were similarly localised, and included soil erosion related to coastal agriculture (coconut plantations), sewage discharge (human and agriculture), industrial pollution, port/village infrastructure/dwellings and overfishing. Most of these impacts can be managed with appropriate environmental guidelines. Future recommendations include: establishing more protected areas, promoting seagrass and mangrove conservation through development of education resource materials, and establishing a Pacific Island monitoring program of seagrass and mangrove ecosystem health