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Measuring the amount that a government allocates to the environment is challenging due to overlapping sector plans or integration of environmental management into a larger ministry without a corresponding public budget report that specifies ‘environmental’ spending. Some countries separate the management of fisheries and marine resources from that of other environmental and climate change response actions.

The number of multilateral environment agreements (MEAs) varies by country, with at least 20 MEAs for the Pacific islands region. Pacific leaders have adopted the Convention on Biological Diversity with its Aichi Targets (2011–2020), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and several other global, regional, and national commitments that rely on resourced environmental management.

The full range of wildlife use in the Pacific islands region is outside of the scope of the present indicator. Many wildlife species are used in modern Pacific societies, on land, at sea, and in coastal areas. Wildlife is used for subsistence, traditional ritual, and in a range of industries, including the aquarium and seashell trade, decorative arts, agrifood, tourism, pet trade, and more

Simplifying coral reef ecosystems to a single number for a country, or for a region, runs counter to our knowledge of the complexity and variability that characterise healthy reefs in a healthy ocean scape. The Pacific island region has very diverse corals and many types of reefs. Due to differences in the coral shapes and associated community of species, it is not possible to identify a single value as a health threshold for live coral cover. Instead, we can look for changes in live coral cover at a given reef, along with changes in species abundance and other factors that characterise a coral reef system.

Enterococci are used as an indicator for the microbiological quality of marine waters from the standpoint of human health. The same bacterial group is also commonly used as an indicator for safe consumption of shellfish. The safety thresholds differ by the type of use, such as swimming or consumption of seafood from the marine area.

Fishing is a complex topic with many species and ecosystem components as well as social, cultural, political, and economic components. Here, we focus on the defined indicator regarding tuna, considering the biomass of these pelagic fish as well as the ecosystems that support these fish. For information about coastal and nearshore fisheries, please see Regional Indicator: Coastal fish biomass.