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Marine Resources provides a potpouri of documents and links to information on marine species, deep sea mining, coral reefs, fisheries, seamounts, wetlands and more. It is not exhaustive and other marine related resources can be found under Partnerships and Planning.
The aim of the present report is to provide a comparative assessment of commonly used pelagic sampling methods. We do this by undertaking a qualitative, yet comprehensive, review of the published literature to identify their potential advantages, limitations, and their relevance to monitoring efforts. A ‘silver-bullet’ approach to pelagic monitoring likely does not exist, nor is necessarily feasible. Instead, this comparative assessment provides a blueprint for guiding sampling activities in the context of pelagic monitoring efforts. Such information is essential to promoting transparency, repeatability, and standardisation across studies and institutions, so that method selection aligns with study objectives, with a clear understanding of benefits and limitations.
Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Based on our analysis, our overall conclusion is that there remains a long way to go in reaching national and international targets to protect at least 10% of the ocean estate in North American countries. Overall, less than 1% of continental* North America’s ocean estate is protected and only 0.04% is in fully protected areas that scientists say offer the best hope to protect ocean ecosystems for the long term.
Our rapidly warming climate is threatening coral reefs as thermal anomalies trigger mass coral bleaching events. Deep (or “mesophotic”) coral reefs are hypothesised to act as major ecological refuges from mass bleaching, but empirical assessments are limited. We evaluated the potential of mesophotic reefs within the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and adjacent Coral Sea to act as thermal refuges by characterising long-term temperature conditions and assessing impacts during the 2016 mass bleaching event. We found that summer upwelling initially provided thermal relief at upper mesophotic depths (40 m), but then subsided resulting in anomalously warm temperatures even at depth.
Developing a framework for the efficient design and management of large scale marine protected areas
This study identifies the importance of: acquiring robust baseline data, being fully protected (no-take), using ecosystembased management, community inclusion, and of adopting an ecologically connected network approach. These features are needed for large marine reserves to maximize achieving both ecological and socioeconomic goals, with particular attention to engagement of local communities. This study opens the possibility of refining and adapting the criteria developed through the PIMR case study as starting point for other Large- Scale MPAs, as their global expansion could benefit from comparative analysis. It also acknowledges the importance of having comparative design and management guides, contributing towards globally recognized standards for large-scale MPAs.
Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) Special places in the world’s oceans (Western South Pacific)
Ecologically or Biologically Significant Marine Areas (EBSAs) and Commercial ActivitiesDeep Sea Mining contract areas in ABNJ Purse seiner pollution observer incidents across region Regional fishing vessel density Purse seiner pollution observer incidents and purse seiner vessel density
Field Note - Discovery of a recovering climax Acropora community in Kanton Lagoon in the remote Phoenix Islands Protected Area
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) is in a naturally ironpoor region in the equatorial central Pacific. The main introduction of iron to this environment is from maritime debris, especially shipwrecks and anchor gear, and is linked to proliferation of turf algae and benthic bacterial communities, and the formation of degraded ‘black reefs’...
Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations
Global Biodiversity Outlook 4: A mid-term assessment of progress towards the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020
How is Your MPA Doing? A Guidebook of Natural and Social Indicators for Evaluating Marine Protected Area Management Effectiveness
Pomeroy, R.S., Parks, J.E., Watson, L. M. 2004. How is Your MPA Doing? A Guidebook of Natural and Social Indicators for Evaluating Marine Protected Area Management Effectiveness. IUCN Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK
This comprehensive guidebook was developed to assist MPA managers in assessing the performance of their MPA. It contains step-by-step instructions on how to carry out effective monitoring including on selecting indicators, planning and conducting the evaluation and communicating the results for adaptive management.
In 2017, following growing public concerns about saltwater crocodile attacks on people, the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology (MECDM), the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) and WorldFish conducted a nationwide survey to collect detailed information on the extent and characteristics of human-crocodile conflicts. This report summarizes the main findings of the survey. The following sections provide information on the ecology of the species and its cultural significance in Solomon Islands, details on the survey methods, and the main results. In the conclusion, several practical recommendations have been listed for the national government.
Identifying and mitigating potential impacts of seabed mining on whale, dolphins and other marine megafauna
Communities dependent on natural resources for food and livelihoods are extremely vulnerable to climate change and its impacts. Tropical cyclones are a frequent occurrence in the Pacific and can have devastating impacts on coastal communities, particularly in remote or isolated areas. However, most post-cyclone studies focus on damages and losses to infrastructure and services, and do not quantify the impact on fishers or community fisheries. We conducted a study to assess the social and economic effects of Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Winston on mud crab fishers in Bua Province, Fiji. The study methodology was one-on-one surveys with mud crab fishers, mostly women, in 16 villages who had previously participated in a 2015 value chain analysis survey.
Low energy expenditure and resting behaviour of humpback whale mother-calf pairs highlights conservation importance of sheltered breeding areas
Understanding the behaviour of humpback whale mother-calf pairs and the acoustic environment on their breeding grounds is fundamental to assessing the biological and ecological requirements needed to ensure a successful migration and survival of calves. Therefore, on a breeding/resting ground, Exmouth Gulf, Western Australia, we used animal-borne DTAGs to quantify the fne-scale behaviour and energetic expenditure of humpback whale mothers and calves, while sound recorders measured the acoustic environment.
Making Protected Areas Relevant: A guide to integrating protected areas into wider landscapes, seascapes and sectoral plans and strategies
In this article, I explore the knowledge and values that allowed the people of Oceania to develop sustainable use of their marine resources, followed by the demise of these systems after western colonization and the breakdown of traditional societies. The current renaissance of customary stewardship has resulted in not only more effective management, but also a cultural reawakening in many of these island nations. The integration of customary and contemporary management regimes holds great promise for reducing reliance on foreign goods and services, while also improving social cohesion.
A major new report, Reviving Melanesia’s Ocean Economy: The Case for Action, launched today, has revealed that the ocean is a much larger part of Melanesia’s economy and future prosperity than previously understood.
Melanesia is a large sub-region in the Pacific that extends from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region includes Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.
Underwater Acoustic Thresholds for Onset of Permanent and Temporary Threshold Shifts
Observations of a rapid decline in invasive macroalgal cover linked to green turtle grazing in a Hawaiian marine reserve*
The persistent, non-native invasive alga Gracilaria salicornia has dominated the protected waters surrounding Moku o Loʻe, Kāneʻohe Bay since its introduction in 1978; however, a sudden decline in abundance (75%) occurred within a 30-day survey period. The consisent environmental conditions during the survey period, dominance of G. salicornia despite the presence of abundant herbivorous fish populations, and multiple observations of physical grazing by the green turtle, Chelonia mydas, on G. salicornia support our conclusion that C. mydas was the primary driver of the rapid decline of a persistent invasive macroalgae within a Hawaiian marine reserve.
The Pacific Islands Marine Portal project is a collaborative project between the Pacific Islands Marine Resources Information System (PIMRIS) and the UNESCO IOC IODE Project Office (Oostende, Belgium) to improve access to Pacific marine information for the Pacific Islands community.
Different perspectives to best manage the Pacific Ocean in the interests of all who live there.
Hilborn, R. (2016). Marine biodiversity needs more than protection. Nature, 535(7611), 224-226. http://www.nature.com/news/policy-marine-biodiversity-needs-more-than-protection-1.20229
Charles et al. (2016). Fishing livelihoods as key to marine protected areas: insights from the World Parks Congress. Aquatic Conservation. 26, S2. 165-184 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.2648/full
During the planning phase the efficacy of different strategies to manage marine resources should ultimately be assessed by their potential impact, or ability to make a difference to ecological and social outcomes. While community-based and systematic approaches to establishing marine protected areas have their strengths and weaknesses, comparisons of their effectiveness often fail to explicitly address potential impact. Here, we predict conservation impact to compare recently implemented community-based marine reserves in Tonga to a systematic configuration specifically aimed at maximizing impact. Boosted regression tree outputs indicated that fishing pressure accounted for ∼24% of variation in target species biomass.
Report On The 2016 Funafuti Community-Based Ridge-To-Reef (R2R) - Rapid Biodiversity Assessment of the Conservation Status of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (BES) In Tuvalu
This report presents the results of the 2016 Funafuti Community-Based Ridge-to-Reef (R2R) Rapid Biodiversity Assessment (BIORAP) of biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES), hereafter referred to as the BIORAP. In this context the Tuvaluan translation for BES is “meaola mo vaega mea aoga kia tatou i te fenua mo te tai” (literally “living things and those things that are useful to us from our land and sea. This reflects the central theme of the Tuvalu R2R Project of “Connecting People & Ecosystems to Sustain Livelihoods” and reflects the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) (2005) definition of: “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems (MEA 2005).
This report examines the marine biogeography of the Samoan Archipelago (~14º S latitude along the international date-line) with a focus on regional ocean climate, connectivity among islands due to larval transport, distributions of reef fish and coral communities, and the extent of existing marine protected areas. Management decisions and prior assessments in the archipelago have typically been split along the international political boundary between the islands of Samoa and those of American Samoa despite their close proximity and shared resources.
This booklet is part of a series of compilations assembling PANORAMA solution case studies on a defined topic. “Solutions in Focus” zooms in on a topic of interest covered by PANORAMA, allowing to explore common elements and shared learnings across success stories. It is a snapshot of the PANORAMA portfolio at a given time, rather than a representative assembly of selected “best practices” on the issue at hand.
Status and Potential of Locally-Managed Marine Areas in the South Pacific: Meeting nature conservation and sustainable livelihood targets through wide-spread implementation of LMMAs
This report of 220 pages written by nearly 90 authors clearly presents the summation of an enormous amount of data and information on 19 of the 23 nations and states of the Pacific and outlines both the problems and stresses on these thousands of reefs, and the potential that these reefs will prove to be the reservoir of coral reefs for the world in the immediate future with the largest threat being global climate change. Although the following chapters illustrate that coral reefs in the wider Pacific are facing many threats and have shown significant losses of coral reef structure, this report clearly demonstrates that Pacific reefs without much doubt contain the best coral reefs systems in the world and should remain in that position for the immediate decades to come.
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