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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.

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.

The Chair and host of the 8th Conference, Papua New Guinea, officially handed over the Chair to Fiji, the host of the 9th conference. The representative of Papua New Guinea, Mr Gunther Joku, noted that people benefit from conservation activities and stressed the importance of promoting conservation in support of government development initiatives such as roads, health and education. He also noted the importance of a whole of government approach in conservation and establishment of protected areas, including working with private sector and non government agencies. He raised the issue of resource mobilisation to support these initiatives including looking at the way donors are organised and how international funds are used to support conservation and protected areas establishment.

This book aims to help people manage coral reefs and other coastal ecosystems; especially to solve problems that flow from nearby catchment (watershed) areas. Such catchment areas may be adjacent to the coral reef, or include areas a long way away and outside the jurisdiction and control of the coastal manager. This book introduces ways to reduce some of that damage through cooperation with people and industries upstream, based on the experiences of many coastal managers around the world. A catchment area is defined as all the land that channels rainwater and groundwater into a river or stream, that then delivers water to coastal areas, in this case areas that contain coral reefs. The term catchment is often interchangeable with watershed, which is particularly used in the USA and nearby countries. However, watershed is also used to describe the boundary line between two catchment areas i.e. a line drawn across the tops of hills or mountains.

Research for this study was carried out under a two-year project to support the implementation of Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) at two catchment-to-reef sites on Vanua Levu, Fiji. While the original scope of the study was to draw on lessons from community monitoring of infringements within their marine protected area (MPA) networks, efforts to assist communities to keep regular records of non-compliance met with numerous challenges. Because of the limited community monitoring data, the report has changed in scope to discuss some of the root causes of non-compliance with fisheries regulations within the traditional fishing grounds (qoliqoli) of Kubulau District and Macuata Province.

American Samoa is a tropical island located at approximately 14º South and 170º West in the South Pacific. American Samoa consists of five volcanic islands (Tutuila, Aunu'u, Ofu, Olosega and Ta'u), one coral atoll (Rose Atoll) and one low lying island (Swains Island). It is an unincorporated territory of the United States (U.S.) and is the only U.S. jurisdiction in the South Pacific. The most recent population estimate of 70,100 (U.S. DOC 2009) is approximately 13,000 more than the population in 2000 according to the U.S. Census. The islands are surrounded by steeply sloping coral reefs inhabited by over 250 species of coral and over 961 species of fish (Craig 2009). The majority of the population lives on the main island of Tutuila. Tutuila has a land area of 138 km2 and has steeply sloping terrain which provides very little cultivable land for the inhabitants.

As a component of the Fiji Ecosystem Based management project, this study examined seasonal patterns of variation in the ichthyofaunal communities in seven river systems in Macuata and Kubulau districts, Vanua Levu, Fiji. The study was designed to determine the abundance, diversity and biomass of fishes within different reaches of the systems during the wet and dry seasons. Catchment characteristics clearly distinguish the districts in terms of potential impacts on ecological integrity. Macuata catchments, on average, are much larger (25789 vs 3306 ha), possess much less natural forest cover (49.6 vs 76 %), have greater density of roads (1.7 vs 0.51/km2 ) and river crossings (1.4 vs 0/km2 ), and are heavily invaded by exotic species Oreochromis spp and Gambusia affinis. Rainfall patterns are similar during the wet season for the districts but Kubulau has on average twice the rainfall during the dry season. 1616 individual fishes were collected or observed from 32 families, 19 genera and 87 species both seasons. 12% more species were seen during the wet season (68 vs 58), however the two districts show conflicting patterns with higher numbers of species in the wet in Kubulau District and higher numbers of species in the dry in Macuata District. Over half of species were observed in only one season (55%), 19 (21%) species only in the dry, 29 (33%) only in the wet. Proportions of life history patterns remain relatively consistent across both seasons although there are 6 % more estuarine migrant species (particularly mud dwelling species) and 1 % more amphidromous species in the wet while there is a 4% increase in freshwater straggler species in the dry mainly driven by additional pipefish species. It is clear that Kubulau, despite its smaller average catchment sizes is significantly (p = 0.035) more diverse than Macuata. Examination of community structure across reach and season suggest that position in river reach is a greater determinant of what species are in a community than season. A conflicting pattern between the districts with regard to seasonal influence on species richness, diversity, abundance and biomass of fishes if taken in conjunction with the water quality information, suggests the wet season is having a net positive effect on habitable space for fishes in Kubulau District and having a net negative effect in Macuata District. This result suggests degraded catchments are losing ecological resilience and natural responses to cycles of seasonal change. Comparison of mean abundance and biomass in Vanua Levu to the pristine rivers of Tetepare Island, Solomon Islands suggest that the rivers of Vanua Levu are already severely ecologically compromised and in most cases adequate biomass for food utilization is only energetically worthwhile in lower reaches.

Following the tsunami of Sept. 29 2009, UNESCO International Tsunami Survey Team (ITST) was coordinated by the New South Wales University’s Australian Tsunami Research Centre (ATRC) and the University of the South Pacific arrived in Apia Samoa on October 12, 2009. They were joined by the Government personnel to form the Marine Environmental Assessment Team (MEAT). The team consisted of members from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Joyce Ah Leong, Mikaele Faamai); Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) (Juney Ward, Pulea Ifopo); Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP) (Lui Bell); The University of the South Pacific (Ed Lovell; Posa Skelton); Vassar College, USA (Prof. Brian McAdoo).