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French Polynesia is a veritable oasis of life, thousands of kilometers from the closest continent. The marine biodiversity is not itself exceptional, but the isolation of the Polynesia archipelagos has contributed to protecting resources and maintaining an abundant marine life. The clarity of the water contributes to the approachability of marine species. Observation of cetaceans by tourist operations began in the 1990s, and has now become a major commercial activity in French Polynesia.

French Polynesia is a veritable oasis of life, thousands of kilometers from the closest continent. The marine biodiversity is not itself exceptional, but the isolation of the Polynesia archipelagos has contributed to protecting resources and maintaining an abundant marine life. The clarity of the water contributes to the approachability of marine species. Observation of cetaceans by tourist operations began in the 1990s, and has now become a major commercial activity in French Polynesia.

French Polynesia is a veritable oasis of life, thousands of kilometers from the closest continent. The marine biodiversity is not itself exceptional, but the isolation of the Polynesia archipelagos has contributed to protecting resources and maintaining an abundant marine life. The clarity of the water contributes to the approachability of marine species. Observation of cetaceans by tourist operations began in the 1990s, and has now become a major commercial activity in French Polynesia.

French Polynesia is a veritable oasis of life, thousands of kilometers from the closest continent. The marine biodiversity is not itself exceptional, but the isolation of the Polynesia archipelagos has contributed to protecting resources and maintaining an abundant marine life. The clarity of the water contributes to the approachability of marine species. Observation of cetaceans by tourist operations began in the 1990s, and has now become a major commercial activity in French Polynesia.

French Polynesia is a veritable oasis of life, thousands of kilometers from the closest continent. The marine biodiversity is not itself exceptional, but the isolation of the Polynesia archipelagos has contributed to protecting resources and maintaining an abundant marine life. The clarity of the water contributes to the approachability of marine species. Observation of cetaceans by tourist operations began in the 1990s, and has now become a major commercial activity in French Polynesia.

The 16th Pacific Islands Roundtable for Nature Conservation Annual Meeting was convened in Suva, Fiji from 13th to 14th August and the meeting as an extraordinary annual meeting to specifically prepare for the upcoming 9th Pacific Islands Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areasto discuss and make decisions on PIRT support to the conference. Provide PIRT members and partners an update of the conference update in relation to conference agenda, support by the Fijian Government on conference logistics, special events such as environmental awards and high level meeting. PIRT members and partners to make decisions on the following PIRT related agendas; (i) selection process of new chair, (ii) hosting of PIRT secretariat, (iii) annual membership sponsorship, (iv) PIRT annual meetings and (iv) role of PIRT in the next conference.

As biodiversity becomes rarer and increasingly precious, protected areas— the jewel ecosystems, species, genetic diversity and associated values that societies agree to conserve— are becoming an ever more important focus of interest and concern, delight and conflict. In parallel, we have discovered “governance of protected areas”, a concept that was barely recognised until a decade or so ago. Some early, innovative ways of making sense of it emerged on the eve of the Vth IUCN World Parks Congress (Durban, 2003)3 where, for the first time, an entire stream of events was dedicated to the topic.4 Since then, concepts and practices have evolved and consolidated into a new, rapidly expanding and developing field of enquiry. Building on these pioneer efforts, this volume 20 in the IUCN Best Practice Protected Area Guidelines series argues that governance that is both appropriate to the context and “good” is crucial for effective and equitable conservation. This applies to all kinds of protected areas and other conserved areas, in terrestrial, inland waters, coastal and marine environments.

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.