The Pacific Island region consists of fourteen independent countries and eight territories located in the western and central Pacific Ocean. In this area there are about 200 high islands and some 2 500 low islands and atolls.
This document updates and expands an earlier review by FAO of the marine fishery resources of the Pacific Islands (Gillett, 2005a). The Pacific Islands region consists of 14 independent countries and 8 territories located in the western and central Pacific Ocean. In this area, there are about 200 high islands and some 2 500 low islands and atolls.
The small-scale fisheries of Papua New Guinea (PNG) reflect the diversity of the country’s coastal environments. Along the mainland and high island coasts and in the smaller island communities fishing activities include the harvesting of the reef flats, spear fishing, shallow-water hand-lining from dugout canoes, netting, and trapping in the freshwater reaches of large rivers. In the swampy lowland areas net fisheries for barramundi, catfish, and sharks occur, while in the Gulf of Papua and parts of the Northern Islands Region there are also village-based lobster fisheries.
The decision to develop a Regional Plan of Action on Sharks (PI-RPOA Sharks) for Pacific island countries and territories (PICTs)1 was a response to:
· the requirement for management of sharks2 in their national waters to be compatible with measures adopted by them as members/participating territories of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC);
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one of the largest countries in the Western Central Pacific region and is now the third largest producer of bêche-de-mer in the world, supplying around 10 percent of the global market. Species of commercial importance recognized by the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) include Actinopyga echinites, A. lecanora, A. mauritiana, A. miliaris, Bohadschia argus, B. similis, B. vitiensis, Holothuria atra, H. coluber, H. edulis, H. fuscogilva, H. fuscopunctata, H. scabra, H. scabra var. versicolor, H. whitmaei, Pearsonothuria graeffei, Stichopus chloronotus, S.
The purpose of fisheries management is to control the mortality rates of exploited populations within sustainable, or otherwise acceptable, limits. Proper fishery management thus requires that the mortality due to fishing activities be accurately estimated and taken into account in population status assessments and management measures. Mortality due to fishing activities has long been synonymous with catch but there is a growing recognition that catch statistics, particularly those representing landed catch, may greatly under-represent the actual number of fish removed from
Socio-economic surveys were carried out in pilot sites in Papua New Guinea (Gulf of Papua Prawn Fishery), the Philippines (Samar Sea), Thailand (Trat and Chumphon) and Viet Nam (Kien Giang) as part of the Strategies for Trawl Fisheries Bycatch Management Project (REBYC-II CTI), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and executed by FAO. No study was conducted in Indonesia as a result of the ban on trawl fisheries which began in January 2015.
We reconstruct marine fisheries catches for Papua New Guinea (PNG) from 1950-2010 to account for catches missing from official statistics. Annual national landings statistics are dominated by tuna catches, which have been relatively well documented since 2000. Nonetheless, PNG’s national fisheries statistics are still considered to be incomplete and underreported due to the omission of small-scale sector catches. This reconstruction thus focuses on quantifying PNG’s small-scale fisheries by accounting for unreported catches.
This Tuna Fishery Report Card provides high-level advice on the current status of Pacific tuna fisheries in relation to the goals, indicators and strategies adopted by Forum Leaders in 2015 in the Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Pacific Fisheries. The report card takes into account the work of the Taskforce on Increasing Economic Returns from Fisheries, which was established by the Forum Leaders to develop a programme that will deliver real results within 5 years. Economic indicators now reflect Taskforce-agreed targets.
Significant international climate finance opportunities are imminent. Pending final policy design, new international climate finance frameworks (e.g. the New Market Mechanisms under the UNFCCC, and Carbon Offset Reduction Scheme for International Aviation - CORSIA) will present substantial opportunities for Papua New Guinea (PNG) to tap into and support sustainable resource management projects in its forestry, agriculture (and fishery) sectors – providing jobs and economic growth, boosting food security, and helping meet international and domestic climate change commitments e.g.
Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) forests are under pressure from several land uses such as small-scale agriculture and commercial agriculture, among others. These activities result in deforestation with diverse dynamics at the province level. It is therefore necessary to understand how drivers of deforestation influence the deforestation process and to predict what would be their future dynamics to identify where and when deforestation will take place. It is under this framework that UNDP, in close collaboration with PNGFA, decided to develop an agricultural mapping assessment in PNG.
Changing temperature and precipitation pattern and increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 are likely to drive significant modifications in natural and modified forests. Our review is focused on recent publications that discuss the changes in commercial forestry, excluding the ecosystem functions of forests and nontimber forest products. We concentrate on potential direct and indirect impacts of climate change on forest industry, the projections of future trends in commercial forestry, the possible role of biofuels, and changes in supply and demand.
There is growing evidence that global climate change is significantly altering forest ecosystems, and will continue to do so in the future. Changes in mean climate and climate extremes such as drought, storms, cyclones and wildfires can fundamentally alter species distribution, composition, phenology, and forest structure. This study reviewed the available evidence of climate change impacts on tropical forests. We selected 85 studies based on two selection criterias and recorded the impacts of climate change on different areas of tropicalforests.
Australia has a highly diverse and variable climate and its forests evolved under a relatively high level of climatic variation. However, human-induced changes in climate are likely to exceed historical ranges of variability and rates of change, and have effects on forests well beyond the experience of forest managers. These conditions will require implementation of management practices appropriate to a changing climate.
Nearly 4 % of the world’s forests are plantations, established to provide a variety of ecosystem services, principally timber and other wood products. In addition to such services, plantation forests provide direct and indirect benefits to biodiversity via the provision of forest habitat for a wide range of species, and by reducing negative impacts on natural forests by offsetting the need to extract resources. There is compelling evidence that climate change is directly affecting biodiversity in forests throughout the world.
Forest plantations are a possible way of increasing forest productivity in temperate and tropical forests, and therefore also increasing above- and belowground carbon pools. In the context of climate change, monospecific plantations might become an alternative to mitigate global warming; however, their contribution to the structural complexity, complementarity, and biodiversity of forests has not been addressed.
Tropical reforestation (TR) has been highlighted as an important intervention for climate change mitigation because of its carbon storage potential. TR can also play other frequently overlooked, but significant, roles in helping society and ecosystems adapt to climate variability and change. For example, reforestation can ameliorate climate-associated impacts of altered hydrological cycles in watersheds, protect coastal areas from increased storms, and provide habitat to reduce the probability of species’ extinctions under a changing climate.
We present a review and analysis of the conservation status and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat categories of all 360 currently recognized species of extant and recently extinct turtles and tortoises (Order Testudines). Our analysis is based on the 2018 IUCN Red List status of 251 listed species, augmented by provisional Red List assessments by the IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group (TFTSG) of 109 currently unlisted species of tortoises and freshwater turtles, as well as re-assessments of several outdated IUCN Red
This is our 8th edition of an annotated checklist of all recognized and named taxa of the world’s modern chelonian fauna, documenting recent changes and controversies in nomenclature through early 2017, and including all primary synonyms, updated from 7 previous checklists (Turtle Taxonomy Working Group 2007b, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014; Rhodin et al. 2008). We provide an updated comprehensive listing of taxonomy, names, and conservation status of all turtles and tortoises of the world, including detailed distribution maps.