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O lenei ripoti ua faauluina ma le faaaloalo tele i le Malo o Samoa i Sisifo e i latou na tusiaina, e le East West Center ma le South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, faatasi ma le toatele o isi faalapotopotoga sa fesoasoani malosi mai i lenei taumafaiga. Ua faafiafiaina lava i matou ona o lenei avanoa sa matou faia ma faatinoina ai lenei galuega.

Management plan of the Palolo Deep Marine Reserve in Apia, Samoa

The Aleipata Marine Protected (MPA) Management Plan is a partnership between the Government of Samoa and all the villages of the District of Aleipata. Both partners have responsibility for the continuous implementation of this Plan which highlights a collaborative approach to the sustainable use and protection of the Marine resources and environment in the District.

Coral Reefs, Seagrass beds, mangroves, sand and mud shore and intertidal flats, Barrier dunes and their associated lagoons, deltaic floodplains and estuaries, rocky shorelines, reef walls and drop-off areas, sea mounts from the complex marine habitats of PNG. Marine organisms associated with this array of habitats are important components of the rich marine biodiversity of Papua New Guinea. Coral diversity is typically very high in Papua New Guinea's reefs and this is globally significant. In Kimbe Bay of West New Britain, a total of 345 species of coral were reported. This number compares favourably to that of other detailed surveys conducted in Australia, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere in Papua New Guinea and at the time was amongst the highest ever reported from such a small area. Two thirds of the coral reefs surveyed had high levels of live reef cover (greater than 50%), and many individual sites had extensive areas of very high coral cover (greater than 75%) indicating the near pristine state of the coral reefs at those locations.

The Government of the Fiji Islands has developed this National Marine Spill Contingency Plan (NATPLAN) as part of its commitment to protecting our valuable coastal and marine resources from the threat of marine pollution incidents. NATPLAN has been developed to reflect the essential steps necessary to initiate, conduct and terminate an emergency spill response on, or into the navigable waters of the Fiji Islands on the adjoining shorelines, the waters of the contiguous zone or into waters of the exclusive economic zone.

Marine pollution is widely recognised as one of the four major threats to the world’s oceans, along with climate change, habitat destruction and over-exploitation of living marine resources. Spills of oil and other chemicals into the marine environment, both from ships and land-based sources, is a significant source of pollution. In a region sometimes called ‘Oceania’, the health of the ocean is fundamental to the sustainability of all aspects of Pacific island life. The importance of coastal and marine environments to every aspect of the lives of Pacific islanders cannot be overstated, and the impacts of marine spills constitute a major concern for Pacific island peoples. Because of a lack of major land-barriers throughout the Pacific, combined with a complex pattern of trans-oceanic currents, the Pacific Ocean is perhaps the most highly connected and continuous ocean, in terms of water movement, on the planet. This compounds the seriousness of marine pollution for the region. Events in one area can have implications for other areas, as pollutants and contaminants are carried from their sources by ocean movements.

This book aims to help people manage coral reefs and other coastal ecosystems; especially to solve problems that flow from nearby catchment (watershed) areas. Such catchment areas may be adjacent to the coral reef, or include areas a long way away and outside the jurisdiction and control of the coastal manager. This book introduces ways to reduce some of that damage through cooperation with people and industries upstream, based on the experiences of many coastal managers around the world. A catchment area is defined as all the land that channels rainwater and groundwater into a river or stream, that then delivers water to coastal areas, in this case areas that contain coral reefs. The term catchment is often interchangeable with watershed, which is particularly used in the USA and nearby countries. However, watershed is also used to describe the boundary line between two catchment areas i.e. a line drawn across the tops of hills or mountains.

The overall objective of the community consultations is to gather basic key information on resource uses in Palau. One of the most direct means of collecting that information is to ask the resource users themselves. They are the people who have first-hand knowledge of the local uses and current state of many of the terrestrial and marine resources in the country.

"Community based involvement and planning of the fisheries allows each island community to shape the way that dugong and turtle hunting in that community is carried out. At the heart of community based management is the principle that those people affected by decisions should participate directly in the decision making process. Community based management means that all community members, including women, elders, youth and hunters have the opportunity to decide how the plans are made and how they will be carried out" (Havemann and Smith 2007).

The Action Strategy for Nature Conservation in the Pacific Islands Region for 2003-2007, arose out of the 7th Pacific Islands Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas which was held in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, in July 2002. It was then endorsed by the member country representatives of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) at the September 2003 SPREP Meeting and it was meant to represent a consensus on the priority concerns for conservation and ways in which these can be addressed.