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Preparation of the Samoa Shadow Report On The Millennium Development Goals was outsourced to the O Le Siosiomaga Society Incorporated (OLSSI) by the Samoa Umbrella Non Governmental Organisation (SUNGO) in a collaboration project with the Office of the UN Resident Coordinator and the Government of Samoa. The Shadow Report itself culminates weeks of advocacy work by Non Governmental Organisations that are members of SUNGO in association with relevant government ministries. These activities included information “spots” on local television, panel discussions over the radio, and two national workshops that included participants from communities throughout the country

To’atuga Reef is located between 6.5-7.4 km (3.5-4.0 nautical miles) north or seaward of Apia Harbour (middle) on the north coast of Upolo Island, Samoa. It is an elongate ridge of reef extending in a NW–SE axis, with a broad reef top which ranges between 15-22m descending on a slope of 300 450 with vertical sections to a sand and rubble bottom at 35-40m. The reef top is characterised by a low topographic relief with the undulating contours of small ridges and depressions. This report provides a baseline description of the major habitat types and dominant fauna present on the reef. A basic inventory and description of the To’atuga marine environment is undertaken. Transects were used to detail the occurrence primarily of fish, coral, algae, mobile invertebrates and physical substrate types. Preliminary species inventories were compiled for hard coral and fish, with records of other benthos. General features of the habitat such as the surge environment, current, depth, bathymetric profile, community type and dynamics are described. Bathymetric assessment was aided by the profiling of the reef by South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) which provided a framework for site position and general reef assessment. Impacts of storms, coral bleaching, disease and the human impacts of recreational diving, fishing and anchoring are discussed and management recommendations made.

In late 2002. the open dump for Samoa's main island of Upolo. was a smelly, smoking mess like many similar open dumps in the Pacific. With the assistance of the Japan International Co-operation Agency ( JICA) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), a major up-grade was begun to a sanitary landfill using the Fukuoka semi aerobic method. The basic engineering saw the access road up-graded to allow all weather access to stop roadside dumping.

This paper seeks to find a relationship between the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability and crop production. Precipitation and mean temperature were examined first to establish an ENSO relationship while primary sector macroeconomic and crops data were analyzed to note any significant variations in output linked to ENSO impacts of significant occurrence. Institutional strengthening and improved access to markets, both local and regional, and sector development programmes however have made this assessment difficult. Subsistence agriculture (and fisheries), said to the backbone and economic mainstay of Samoa’s primary sector, ideally the best source of ENSO impacts unfortunately remains the data poor sector.

Coral reef monitoring lias been an on-going activity in Samoa since 1997. In 1998. a pilot Village Level Coral Reef Monitoring Project (VLCRMP) was initiated in collaboration between The Fisheries Division, the Division of Environment & Conservation and the International Ocean Institute – Pacific Islands. The pilot project provided monitoring equipment and assisted in training the trainers that, in nuns trained 46 villagers from six villages selected from around the country ( Mulipola 2001 ). As a result of the project, several communities have members that are now equipped with the monitoring techniques and they are collaborate with staff of the FD implementing the monitoring of coral reefs in the established community-owned fish reserves.

This document serves as the framework programme for implementing Samoa's National Adaptation Programme of Action activities. The framework institutes the management of the adaptation programme of actions to ensure an increased and strengthened adaptive capacity of the communities, civil society and government to adapt to the impacts of climate change, climate variability including extreme events. Objectives and policies directed by ten project-based profiles and their respective implementation strategies will set to help communities, civil society and government to formulate and strengthen their immediate and urgent needs to impacts of climate change, climate variability including extreme events.

Merremia peltata, disturbance ecology, tropical cyclones and Samoa. The biology and ecology of Merremia peltata are not well understood. While some regard the species as an exotic invader of Pacific Island ecosystems (Meyer. 2000). others identify the plant as a native species likely to be harmful to native ecosystems (Whistler, 1995a. 2002) or as either native or ancient Polynesian introduction behaving invasively (Space and Flynn.(2002). In Samoa, this species occurs up to an elevation of around 300 meters (Whistler 1995a). and thus only affects lowland ecosystems. This species increases its distribution and abundance in two ways, either vegetatively. by sprawling into neighboring areas and rooting from its nodes or by seeds, although early research in the Solomons observed a low seed viability rate, and creeping may thus be its primary means of reproduction (Bacon. 1982). M. peltata has apparently been in the Pacific for hundreds of years (Whistler, pers. com.) but has only become invasive in the years following tropical cyclones Ofa (1990) and Val (1991) according to comments from local government officials. Disturbance thus appears to be an ecological contributing factor to this invasion.