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Fiji has been identified as one of the countries most vulnerable to declines in reef condition due to the high dependence on reef systems for key industries (tourism and fishing). Much of the waters of Fiji and adjacent international waters include highly prospective deposits of copper, gold, zinc, silver and chemical elements. Extracting these resources is only now becoming feasible due to technological advances in Deep Seabed Mining (DSM). A large area of Fiji’s waters is now subject to DSM exploration licenses. But very little is known of the risks DSM creates for key marine ecosystem services and the industries that reply on those services for both income and employment (e.g. tourism and fishing). This desktop study seeks to identify, scope and broadly estimate the potential costs to Fiji associated with DSM. Only once those costs are understood, can Fiji confidently make robust policy decision about the amount, location and management of DSM within its waters.

Until now, there has been only one source of data on global fishery catches: information reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations by member countries. An extensive, ten-year study conducted by The Sea Around Us Project of the University of British Columbia shows that this catch data is fundamentally misleading. Many countries underreport the amount of fish caught (some by as much as 500%), while others such as China significantly overreport their catches. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world’s foremost fisheries experts, and edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project. The Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. National reports describe the state of the country's fishery, by sector; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. While it has long been clear that the world’s oceans are in trouble, the lack of reliable data on fishery catches has obscured the scale, and nuances, of the crisis. The atlas shows that, globally, catches have declined rapidly since the 1980s, signaling an even more critical situation than previously understood. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries provides a comprehensive picture of our current predicament and steps that can be taken to ease it. For researchers, students, fishery managers, professionals in the fishing industry, and all others concerned with the status of the world’s fisheries, the Atlas will be an indispensable resource.

Crisis has enveloped the more than 200,000 nationally and regionally protected natural and cultural heritage sites around the world. Heritage managers - those who manage natural sites such as national parks, wilderness areas, and biosphere reserves, as well as those who manage cultural sites including historic monuments, battlefields, heritage cities, and ancient rock art sites - face an urgent need to confront this crisis, and each day that they don't, more of our planet's common heritage disappears. Although heritage management and implementation suffer from a lack of money, time, personnel, information, and political will, The Future Has Other Plans argues that deeper causes to current problems lurk in the discipline itself. Drawing on decades of practical experience in global heritage management and case studies from around the world, Jon Kohl and Steve McCool provide an innovative solution for conserving these valuable protected areas. Merging interdisciplinary and evolving management paradigms, the authors introduce a new kind of holistic planning approach that integrates the practice of heritage management and conservation with operational realities.

This document provides a plan to protect and enhance the cloud forests of Rarotonga so that their indigenous ecosystems, habitats for endemic species, and water supply functions are preserved in perpetuity.

A patchwork of international bodies and treaties manage ocean resources and human activity in areas beyond any state’s national jurisdiction (see Table 1). However, these governance bodies vary greatly in terms of their mandate, which determines their geographic scope, their objective, the legally binding nature of decisions they adopt, and whether they regulate one or several activities. Their jurisdictions often overlap, but virtually no mechanisms exist to coordinate across geographic areas and sectors.1 Too often, this piecemeal governance approach leads to the degradation of the environment and its resources, and makes deploying management and conservation tools such as environmental impact assessments and marine protected areas (MPAs), including marine reserves, challenging both legally and logistically

The Asia Pacific region is exceptionally rich in biodiversity. The tropical forests of South East Asia, the reefs of the ‘coral triangle’, the temperate forests and the large river basins found in the region are among the most unique on Earth. However, biodiversity in the Asia Pacific region is in fast decline. For example, the region recorded the world’s highest number of threatened species in 2014 and extensive coastal development and unsustainable exploitation of marine resources have resulted in the disappearance of over 40 percent of coral reefs and mangroves, leading to declines in fish stocks.

The freshwater ichthyofauna of the Fiji islands remained poorly documented before the establishment of the Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect (PABITRA) network. The PABITRA approach assesses biodiversity along ocean-to-mountain transects and promotes sustainable land use on islands across the Pacific. Multiple surveys of freshwater fish species along the Viti Levu PABITRA transect have contributed six new occurrence records and one new species to the known freshwater fishes of Fiji since 2002. In total, 21 indigenous species of fish (9% endemic) from 10 families and no introduced fishes were found in the three PABITRA sites. Diversity was highest (16 species) at Savura forest reserve and decreased further inland into Sovi and Wabu. The assemblage found is dominated by highly migratory species (95%) that traverse the different aquatic habitats (marine, estuarine, lowland and upland streams) covered by the PABITRA transect. This high degree of connectivity highlights several growing issues affecting aquatic fauna on the high island of Viti Levu. The reduction in forest cover along the gateway transects, especially in the terminal reaches, and infrastructure development such as dams and weirs have deleterious effects on the migration routes of the Fijian ichthyofauna. Several species collected are important food sources and have cultural totemic importance to local inhabitants along the vertical transect. This paper documents the ichthyofauna of the Fiji gateway transect, ecological characteristics of this assemblage, IUCN Redlist conservation assessment status and highlights factors affecting the fragility and resilience of these communities, particularly focusing on the importance of life-history patterns and watershed conditions.

Recognizing the value of large marine ecosystems (LMEs) and other transboundary water systems (open ocean, groundwater aquifers, lakes and reservoirs, and river basins), their continued degradation, the fragmented approach to their management, and the need for better prioritization of interventions, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) embarked on the Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme (TWAP) from 2009 to 2015. TWAP objectives were to undertake global assessments of the five transboundary water systems to assist GEF and other international organizations set priorities for interventions; and develop formal institutional partnerships for periodic assessments of these systems.

Based on our analysis, our overall conclusion is that there remains a long way to go in reaching national and international targets to protect at least 10% of the ocean estate in North American countries. Overall, less than 1% of continental* North America’s ocean estate is protected and only 0.04% is in fully protected areas that scientists say offer the best hope to protect ocean ecosystems for the long term.

Pacific islands are long-settled by mankind, dating back several hundreds to thousands of years ago since discovery by islanders traveling by boat. Amongst these islands are atoll islands, which are small coral islands that lie at a low elevation and are usually part of a ring-like coral reef formation. Past and present islanders collect water from rainwater catchments and groundwater wells, with rainwater used primarily for drinking water and groundwater used as a supplement for wash water. Unfortunately, this region can experience severe drought, over-wash events during strong tropical storms, and typhoons, all of which threaten the freshwater supply for these islands. Due to rising concerns over climate change, there is interest in studying the water security of these especially vulnerable land forms. This thesis evaluates the reliability of the water supplies on four atoll islands in Yap, Micronesia by modeling the reliability of the two main sources. To first analyze rainwater catchment performance, Ifalik Island is evaluated using data collected on the island in 2015 by a collaborative research field team and a water balance model. Second, the results are used to develop design curves as a tool for rainwater catchment design and improvement. The fresh groundwater source is also modeled for each of the four islands to test the effects of varying climate conditions on the shallow, freshwater lens. Rainwater catchment systems on Ifalik Island are evaluated for their performance using a mass balance model that quantifies water storage through time. Performance is quantified primarily by reliability, which is a term to represent the percentage of days a rainwater catchment supplies sufficient water to the users. Based on the data from the Ifalik field survey, ii the average household rainwater catchment system on Ifalik uses a 16.5 square meter guttered roof with a 2,000 liter storage tank and serves seven individuals at 12 liters per capita per day. As a result of a rainwater catchment system sensitivity analyses based on the average rainwater catchment conditions, the most important factors in performance are effective roof area size, water demand, and gutter-downspout efficiency. Further analyses using the mass balance model found that the performance of each individual catchment is sufficient to provide water to the community during conditions similar to the severe drought year of 1997-1998, as well as projected rainfall conditions for the next 30 years. Therefore, analyses suggest Ifalik Island has sufficient rainwater catchment performance to provide water for the community. However, to introduce a conservative measure for water security, it is recommended that the catchment area be extended to the full size of the roof area. This would thereby increase the storage supply for the community by 25 cubic meters on the day of lowest supply under the 1997-1998 severe drought conditions.