First Meeting 2006

The first meeting at the end of May 2006 in Palau, by invitation only, involves representatives of the PILN Partners, representatives of the founding teams, and invasive species specialists.

The Honorable Elias Camsek Chin, Vice President of the Republic of Palau, officially launched the network on 22 May 2006 at the opening ceremony in Palau. His concluding remark, “Failure is not an option”, was adopted as a slogan for the meeting.

42 people from 11 countries participated in the first annual meeting: American Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Hawaii, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Pohnpei and Samoa. These consisted of members of the initial 6 PILN founding teams, CEPF grantees running demonstration projects, and PILN Partners.

Participants analyzed their collective experience to draft lessons learned in 4 key areas: public awareness, strategic planning, weed management and island restoration.

Each PILN founding team drafted an Action Plan for one of their priority projects and identified the next steps required:

• American Samoa: Eradicate Strawberry Guava from American Samoa by the end of 2008
  
• Guam: Control bud rot Phytophthora. palmivora on Betelnut in Guam.
  
• Niue: To contain the Wedelia affected sites within Niue to 0.7 hectares.
  
• Palau: By the end of 2008, no more trees of the forest margin along the compact road are covered with Kebeas
  
• Pohnpei: Eradicate 100% of the following: False Kava, Mile-a-Minute, ivy Gourd, and Chain of Love by 2008
  
• Samoa: To secure funding to carry out activities to manage and prevent invasive species in Samoa.

The American Samoa Invasive Species Team formally offered to host second annual meeting in August 2007.

Supplementary files (If you are unable to open these documents directly, right-click on the link and "save target as" a file on your computer first):

• Full meeting report (PDF: 685 KB)
• Annexes (PDF: 194 KB)
• Résumé français (PDF: 108 KB)
• Summary presentation (PPT: 908 KB)
• PILN meeting guide (PDF: 41 KB)
  

The meeting participants (Photo: Tavita Togia)

Joe, Lukes, Yalap and Joel of the Palau team.
(Photo: Tavita Togia)

Break-out groups formulated lessons learned in key technical areas.
(Photo: Jill Key)

Tavita, Eric, Ike and Siaifoi of the American Samoa team.
(Photo: Jill Key)