The increased demand for high quality products in export markets, coupled with Pacific Island Countries (PICs) national desire to protect the environment, biodiversity and family farming structures, lead to assume that organic agriculture could offer good prospects for PICs development. Besides market opportunities, organic agriculture could increase PICs food self-reliance and thus, contribute to reducing the alarming trend of dependency on food imports, as well as improving nutrition.
Nauru is a small country of around 10,200 people located on a single island in the Pacifi c Ocean. Per capita gross domestic product was estimated to be A$11,540 (approximately $10,500) in 2012 (Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacifi c 2013).1 The country is divided into 14 districts with the seat of government in the Yaren district, which also functions as the country’s de facto capital. T
At the request of the Government of Nauru, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) through the European Union-supported Global Climate Change Alliance: Pacific Small Island States project, together with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) through the United Nations Development Programme – Global Environment Facility funded Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change project commissioned NRW Specialists Pty Ltd (Australia) in association with NRW Macallan (Fiji) Ltd to prepare the Nauru Water Supply and Sanitation Master Plan covering the planning horizon of
Nauru’s water resources are limited and under stress with an expected increase in prolonged dry periods due to climate variability. There are no fresh surface water sources and Nauru relies mostly on rainwater for its potable water needs. Desalinated water is currently supplying about 20% of the population water requirements but during period of prolonged drought, where rainwater is limited, the communities reliance on desalinated water can increase to more than 90%.
This document is a record of an in-country technical survey mission to Nauru, completed from 13th February to 23rd February 2007 by the following SOPAC staff:
• Mr Stephen Booth (EDF8/9 Senior Advisor – Water);
• Ms Elizabeth Lomani-Whippy (EDF8/9 Project Intern);
• Ms Arieta Navatoga-Sokota (SOPAC Project Officer – Water); and
• Ms Vilisi Tokalauvere (EDF8 Fiji Country Intern).
Nauru island, near the equator in the central Pacific Ocean, has been mined for phosphate since 1907 and over 80 million tonnes of phosphate have been exported to Australia, NZ, Britain and other overseas markets. Although superphosphate, prepared from the Nauru rock phosphate has considerable value as an agricultural nutrient, it also contains high concentrations of the toxic metal cadmium. Nauru phosphate deposits have a cadmium content between 100 and 1,000 times the average lithosphere concentration.
From time immemorial it has been the ambition of every Nauruan youth to excel in the snaring of the 'iti', or frigate bird. In the old, far-off days, before the coming of the white man, prowess in capture of the iti was one of the many strenuous tests which marked the transition from youth into manhood, and failure to acquit oneself creditably meant disgrace.
As of 1969, the scientific community had no general information on the natural history of Namoluk Atoll in the Eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia. The only significant published source for the atoll was an ethnographic and linguistic account provided by the German physician.
Climate change is real and Asia is already experiencing its adverse impacts. Projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that such impacts will become even more intense in the future. While the contribution of developing countries in Asia to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is increasing rapidly, per capita emissions are still low and developmental challenges remain significant.
Reefs at Risk Revisited is a high-resolution update of the original global analysis, Reefs at Risk: A Map-Based Indicator of Threats to the World’s Coral Reefs. Reefs at Risk Revisited uses a global map of coral reefs at 500-m resolution, which is 64 times more detailed than the 4-km resolution map used in the 1998 analysis, and benefits from improvements in many global data sets used to evaluate threats to reefs (most threat data are at 1 km resolution, which is 16 times more detailed than those used in the 1998 analysis).
Bio-ORACLE is a set of GIS rasters providing geophysical, biotic and environmental data for surface and benthic marine realms. The data are available for global-scale applications at a spatial resolution of 5 arcmin (approximately 9.2 km at the equator).
Linking biodiversity occurrence data to the physical and biotic environment provides a framework to formulate hypotheses about the ecological processes governing spatial and temporal patterns in biodiversity, which can be useful for marine ecosystem management and conservation.
The Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11 consists of estimates of human population density (number of persons per square kilometer) based on counts consistent with national censuses and population registers, for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. A proportional allocation gridding algorithm, utilizing approximately 13.5 million national and sub-national administrative units, was used to assign population counts to 30 arc-second grid cells.
FAO Agriculture and Fair Trade in Pacific Island Countries. This desk study has been prepared by Winnie Fay Bell and comments were kindly provided by the Pacific Regional Organic Task Force in May 2009
Report
This brochure demonstrates how measures and policies can be shaped to simultaneously address climate change, biodiversity loss and poverty. It identifies opportunities for synergies and mutual enhancement of the objectives of international agreements, particularly the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), as well as decisions taken by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly following the recommendations of the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF).
Available online|1 copy
This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive listing and analysis of Kiribati plant names, along with the corresponding Latin, English, and selected Pacific-island vernacular names for plant species with recognized Kiribati vernacular names. The study focuses on those species found on the 16 islands
Climate change has been recognized by Pacific Forum Leaders as one of the most serious threats to the region. The Pacific islands have already experienced, and will continue to experience the adverse effects of climate change and these are expected to worsen over the coming decades. For some low lying atoll countries, climate change may even threaten their very existence, as confirmed by the recently published Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, AR4.
Also available online|Also contain Cd-rom
Call Number: 338.9 PAC [EL]
The Secretariat for Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) have commissioned Cardno (Qld) Pty Ltd (Cardno) to undertake a comprehensive review of integrated environmental assessment approaches and procedures in Pacific Island Countries (PICs), and to provide advice on regional priorities for capacity building requirements in this regard.
Consultancy report for SPREP
Call Number: 333.714 YOU [EL]
Physical Description: 98 p.
The UN Development Assistance Framework for the Pacific Subregion (UNDAF) represents the first regionwide response to the UN operational reform process, and is a product of several partnerships in development, including between two UN Country Teams in Fiji and Samoa covering a total of 15 UN agencies, offices and programmes3, and between the UN and the governments of 14 Pacific island countries.