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Conservation is a positive endeavour including “… the preservation, maintenance, sustainable use, restoration, and enhancement of the natural environment”. (1) Protected area is “...a clearly defi ned geographical space, recognised, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values”. (6) This IUCN defi nition applies equally to land, inland waters and coastal and marine territories and areas and is widely considered to be equivalent to the CBD defi nition.

Powerpoint presentation on priorities emerging from the IUCN World Parks Congress 2014

A Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded project is currently being implemented in Kiribati titled the "Prevention, Control and Management of Invasive Alien Species in the Pacific Islands". This is a multicountry project and includes the Niue, Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Palau Tonga and Samoa. Activities within the framework of this project include the conservation of priority species and ecosystems and the management of invasive alien species. Please see Table 1 below for list of key deliverables identified by the Government of Kiribati.

In response to the increasing impact of climate change, countries in the Pacific have implemented a number of climate change adaptation measures over the last two decades. These range from activities that focus on mainstreaming climate change into national and sectoral level policies, plans and strategies to actual on the ground projects. This range of work implemented also includes a number of climate and weather related disaster risk management (DRM) initiatives and projects that may not explicitly been categorised as CCA (Figure 1).

The goal of the Children’s Perception of the Environment Toolkit is to help children living in coastal and island environments in Asia to become responsible stewards of the environment through a better understanding of coastal and marine ecosystems. The Toolkit also seeks to improve understanding of how coastal and marine ecosystems can be managed in order to create a more sustainable human economy. The Toolkit supports the efforts of teachers to do this through the provision of up-to-date information on important coastal and marine ecosystems as well as by suggesting practical hands-on activities that allow students to explore and understand their local ecosystems and the issues affecting them. The teachers are provided with a framework for teaching local history and ecology in a way that complements science and social studies in line with the national school syllabus.

The main objective of this work is to provide an introduction and sense of direction (i.e. a “Gateway”) into the complicated world of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). It by no means intends to serve as a comprehensive overview of this vast field. It provides one entry point for engaging in PES, and was designed to fit into the broader Livelihoods and Landscapes (LLS) strategy, as developed by IUCN’s Forest Conservation Programme.

Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) integrates the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services into an overall strategy to help people adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. It includes the sustainable management, conservation and restoration of ecosystems to provide services that help people adapt to both current climate variability, and climate change1. Ecosystem-based Adaptation contributes to reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience to both climate and non-climate risks and provides multiple benefi ts to society and the environment.

The spread of marine species beyond their native environment is of increasing concern due to rapid growth in commercial shipping and recreational boating, activities that can help organisms ‘hitchhike’. Marine invasive species are currently recognized as one of the major direct causes of biodiversity loss and changes in ecosystem provisioning and supporting services.

The IUCN Environmental Law Programme (ELP) sends this book to print just weeks before Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will meet in Copenhagen for the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP) to finalize a new climate agreement to replace or supplement the Kyoto Protocol. Perhaps the best-developed of the new options expected in that agreement, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) poses a unique opportunity for the world to simultaneously ‘get things right’ for both climate and forests. In recent years, policy research has grown rapidly in the area of options for designing and implementing REDD regimes, while far less analysis of the legal ramifications of such options has occurred. This is particularly the case at the national level, where perhaps the greatest need for legal and policy understanding relating to REDD is felt already. It is this gap that the ELP aims to address with its latest publication.