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Papers discussed different topics related to renewable energy, energy storage systems and some environmental issues related to transportation. This editorial will give a short relation between circular economy and renewable energy, then it will be followed by addressing the accepted papers in this special issue.

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.

The general altitudinal differentiation of the world's tropical climates and consequently of the major vegetation zones which they determine appears to be long established. In many ways the Montane forests of Papua New Guinea is very unique.

The PaCIS is sponsoring a sereis of discussions with climate experts, resource and disaster risk managers, community planners and other decision makers, as well as representatives of government ministries and other program managers and policy makers about product and services.

Big South Cape Island (Taukihepa) is a 1040 ha island, 1.5 km from the southwest coast of Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand. This island was rat-free until the incursion of ship rats (Rattus rattus) in, or shortly before, 1963, suspected to have been accidentally introduced via local fishing boats that moored at the island with ropes to the shore, and were used to transport the mutton birders to the island. This incursion was reported by the muttonbirders – local Iwi who harvest the young of titi (sooty shearwater, Puffinus riseus) – to the then New Zealand Wildlife Service (via the New Zealand Department of Lands and Survey). Investigation into the reports found ship rats had reached the island and had decimated the local land bird populations. Brian Bell and Don Merton attempted some of the first translocations of South Island saddleback (Philesturnus c. carunculatus), Stewart Island snipe (Coenocorypha aucklandica iredalei) and Stead’s bush wren (Xenicus longipes variabilis) with only the saddleback being successful. Extinctions of the snipe, wren and greater short-tailed bat (Mystacina robusta) were recorded. This was the first time rats were definitively recognised as the cause of extinction of native land birds and directed further debate into the impacts of rats and how to deal with them.

Pacific Islander (PI) communities are underrepresented in US higher education, and hold bachelor's degrees at rates lower than the national rate (US Census 2012). Empowering Pacific Island Communities (EPIC and Asian Americans Advancing Justice 2014) reported that Guamanians (13%), Samoans (11%), Tongas (11%), Fijians (10%), and Micronesians (4%) all hold bachelor's degrees at less than half the rate of the national population of the United States (285).

Papua New Guinea under the O'Neill Government: Has There Been a Shift in Political Style? In SSGM Discussion Paper 2017/6