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The Pacific Island nation of Niue was a leading voice at the recent COP28, calling for efforts to significantly scale up investment in the management of invasive species as a key action for increasing the climate resilience of vulnerable island nations.

The Pacific Island nations of Niue and Tonga are leading global efforts to expand the management of invasive species at a large-landscape scale and increase the resilience of their ecosystems and communities to the impacts of climate change. Niue’s Environment Minister, Hon. Mona Ainuu, recently made an ambitious pledge for the country to control four priority invasive species by 2030, including Taro Vine, rats, feral pigs, and the coral eating Drupella snail. This work will help to enhance Niue’s premium ecotourism brand and directly support the provision of green jobs. Tonga has also pledged to expand the management of priority invasive species at a large-landscape scale following the successful eradication of rats from Late Island, the largest eradication ever undertaken in the Pacific Islands region. Studies have shown that, once rats are removed, the nutrients from returning seabird populations restore the climate resilience of coral reefs and increase the productivity of fish stocks by up to 50%. Tonga’s plans to scale-up the management of priority invasive species will help expand its national park system, provide refugia for 95% of the country’s biodiversity, and directly increase the climate resilience of its ecosystems and communities.

Managing Invasive Species to Create a Great Green Line of Defense for the Pacific. Controlling invasive species is one of the most effective tool for restoring island resilience.

Invasive Alien Species (IAS) are a major threat to marine, freshwater and terrestrial biodiversity of the Pacific islands and to the people there that depend on biodiversity for their livelihoods. Invasive species are implicated in the decline of hundreds of species in the region. Participating Pacific states and the executing agency SPREP (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme) recognised the need to implement the regional IAS strategy, “Guidelines for Invasive Species Management in the Pacific. A Pacific strategy for managing pests, weeds and other invasive species” (hereafter, the Guidelines) and develop and implement national IAS plans and strategies. The Guidelines were originally identified as a product under this project, but were completed in 2009 prior to writing this proposal. As envisaged during the PIF process the proposed project contributes to the implementation of the Guidelines, each country’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan and helps each to meet its responsibilities under Article 8 (h) of the CBD and several other international agreements addressing IAS. The three main components (not including components related to project management) of the proposed project are designed to capture outcomes and outputs described in the Project Identification Form but they have been reorganized to follow the structure of the Guidelines.

Factsheet for the Invasive species programme management course

The PRISMSS is a regional mechanism, which facilitates the scaling up of invasive species management in the Pacific. It provides management support for on the groud invasive species actions

At its tenth meeting, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 10) requested the Executive Secretary to work with Parties and other Government as well as competent organisations and regional initiatives, such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAo), regional seas conventions and action plans, and where appropriate, regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs), with regards to fisheries management, to organise, including the setting of terms of reference, a series of regional workshop, with a primary objective to facilitate the description of ecologically or biologically significant marine areas through the application of scientific criteria in annex 1 to decision IX/20 as well as other relevant compatible and complementary nationally and intergovernmentally agreed scientific criteria, as well as the scientific guidance on the identification of marine areas beyond national jurisdiction, which meet the scientific criteria in annex 1 to decision IX/20.

Days 1 and 2 of the workshop course exposed participants to the theory behind rodent eradications (Fig 1). The nature and importance of undertaking a project feasibility assessment was explained and the key questions that need to be answered to determine if a project is feasible were discussed.  

The Prevention and Management of Invasive Species: Forging Cooperation throughout the Austral Pacific