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.
This Policy on Protected Areas (the Policy) has been developed by the Government of Papua New Guinea to support the development and management of a National Protected Area Network in Papua New Guinea (PNG). It will guide communities, organizations and agencies to harmonise their efforts in a structured and logical approach to the sustainability of existing and the development of new protected areas. The Policy offers a blueprint based on
international and national obligations and international best practice – but tailored to the unique context of PNG.
The tax system is a critical enabler for Papua New Guinea (PNG) to achieve its long-term development goals as presented in the Medium Term Development Plan 2 (MTDP), PNG Development Strategic Plan (DSP) (2010-2030), the Vision 2050 and the Medium Term Fiscal Strategy 2018-22. PNG’s long-term vision is to bring about economic growth and social development that will benefit all its citizens, so that by 2050 PNG will rank among the top 50 countries in the world in the Human Development Index (HDI).
Given the economic and cultural dependence on the marine environment in Oceania and a rapidly expanding human population, many marine species populations are in decline and may be vulnerable to extinction from a number of local and regional threats.
This is an economic evaluation of the compensation to which Papua New Guinea’s customary landholders -
wrongly dispossessed through Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABL) - might be entitled if they successfully
sued the government. The evaluation involves the calculation of commercial loss but also, and probably more importantly, economic equivalent value loss. The framework identifies the relevant heads of value (not just priced
transactions) and demonstrates appropriate methods for valuation. It does not pretend to be a price calculator
On the 25th of January this year, Papua New Guinea’s Post Courier newspaper reported that the National Court had just overturned a decision made by a provincial land court magistrate in 2006. The decision in question was meant to
resolve a dispute between two members of a Huli clan about the ownership of land in the Moran petroleum development licence area, which is one of eight licence areas that now form part of the PNG Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project. But it seems that the magistrate ‘mistakenly’ granted one of the disputing parties.
In recent years, one of the oldest asset classes in investment – land – has become an issue of international concern and scrutiny. Land acquisitions are being announced at a breakneck pace1 as companies look to produce more food, wood fiber, minerals and energy.