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E
nvironment
:
air
,
water
,
oceans
,
climate
change
• Establishing jurisdictional rights and responsibilities
over maritime zones
• Setting policies and plans of action for promoting
sustainable management and developing our ocean
and its resources
• Putting policy into action in reclaiming stewardship
of the ocean as core to our island livelihoods in a
rapidly changing world
• Seeking ocean leadership based on further enriching
our culture and reinforcing our identities while
sharing and learning with others
• Building self-reliance through nationally cost-
effective solutions, while realizing the value of
regional and international partnership
• Seeking opportunities for adapting to and mitigating
the impacts of climate change, climate variability,
sea level rise, extreme events, and environmental
and economic change.
Leveraging potential
Working in cooperation to design and implement this
important initiative are 16 sovereign island governments,
six territories, all regional intergovernmental agencies and
the conservation community. In addition to fostering bold
and innovative action – such as the Cook Islands’ declara-
tion of more than half the nation’s EEZ as a marine park
– the Pacific Oceanscape provides a consolidating frame-
work for a number of ongoing regional and sub-regional
initiatives and agreements. These include the Micronesia
Challenge and Nauru Agreement to close encompassed
high seas to fishing, piloting Kiribati’s Phoenix Islands
Protected Area ‘reverse fishing license’ mechanism for creat-
ing large fish reserves without losing fishing access revenues
of critical importance to national economies, and efforts
towards improving fisheries management through Marine
StewardshipCouncil certification and International Seafood
Sustainability Foundation engagement.
to the growing Papua NewGuinea fleet).
3
Aquaculture, coastal commer-
cial fishing and subsistence fishing make up the remaining quarter.
5
Of
the multibillion dollar tuna fishing revenues, the Pacific Islands’ capture
contributes only six per cent, with fishing contributing $550million each
year to Pacific Island economies and coastal fishing – subsistence and
commercial – that account for half this total.
2
Why the region is a priority
In addition to the unparalleled importance of marine resources
for the economic growth and sustainability of the Pacific Island
nations along with global fish provision, the region boasts much of
the world’s remaining healthy reefs and associated biodiversity, but
it is also recognized as a unique and threatened ocean and island
ecosystem. Overall, the area’s marine biodiversity is thought to be
among the most intact, robust and pristine in the world, with almost
half the world’s hard coral reefs located in this region.
Threats
With fish stocks declining due to overfishing and illegal, unre-
ported and unregulated fishing, ocean acidification, rising sea
levels, warming ocean temperatures as a result of climate change
and pollution, the oceans are now changing rapidly in ways that
degrade the islanders’ lives and threaten their very existence. This
series of threats to ocean health and its resources results from a
piecemeal approach to ocean management, which is largely driven
by economic sectors such as fisheries or mining.
Opportunities
Addressing these threats requires taking concerted action on an
ocean-wide scale, which the Pacific Islands region is uniquely
prepared to do by using its unparalleled cooperative and collaborative
mechanisms, most notably the Pacific Island Leaders Forum, which
in 2011 unanimously endorsed the Pacific Oceanscape Framework
as the mechanism for “securing the future for Pacific island countries
and territories based on sustainable development, management and
conservation of our Ocean.” The Framework identifies the following
strategic priorities for the region:
6
Reclaiming ocean stewardships is important for livelihoods
Pacific Islanders depend on the ocean for daily food
Image: PIFS – Nauru
Image: PIFS – Kiribati