Many of the Pacific entities have begun efforts to develop and implement programs to ensure the biodiversity of their marine ecosystems.
Many of the Pacific entities have elected to identify and designate areas within their marine jurisdictions as Marine Protected Areas.An MPA is defined by the World Conservation Union as “any area of the intertidal or subtidal terrain, together with its underlying water and associated flora, fauna, historical, and cultural features, which has been reserved by law or other effective means to protect part or all of the enclosed environment.”Representatives of Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu the Cook Islands, American Samoa, Samoa, Palau, Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tahiti, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Fiji convened at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji to attend an MPA capacity building training on Sept. 8-13. The representatives, though representing differing entities, share a unique passion — to save their countries from losing their marine resources and to promote the future welfare of all the Pacific peoples.All of the training revolve around MPA management planning — inclusive of steps and processes critical to the identification and designation of MPAs and strategies essential to ensure that the Pacific marine resources are saved from further degradation.All of the entities represented have identified and designated MPA sites. However, most of the MPA sites lack adequate or have dysfunctional management plans that have served little or no purpose in the protection and promotion of the areas. It is hoped that at the conclusion of the training, the representatives will return to their home countries with essential information and skills to develop purposeful management plans — or improve on existing plans — to protect their MPAs, and to add on to the global movement to protect, conserve, and preserve the health and quality of the world’s marine environments.
