Parallel Session Title:BIOPAMA - Partnering up to target and optimise regional delivery

Convening Organisation(s):IUCN Oceania Regional Office

Conveners:Tony O'Keeffe; IUCN-ORO
Joint Research Facility of the European Commission (EC-JRC)
UNEP-WCMC

Venue:Communication Conference Room; Laucala Campus, USP

The BIOPAMA program recognizes well-managed protected areas as a key tool for in-situ conservation, for maintaining ecosystem services, and for facilitating adaptation to climate change. Two major components of the BIOPAMA program are: firstly, improving protected area planning and management by using the best available scientific and policy information, and secondly, assisting in the establishment of regional centres (also termed ‘observatories’) for protected areas and biodiversity and related capacity building programs.

The session will provide a platform to inform participants of the role of BIOPAMA in the Pacific and its key objectives. Presenters will showcase a number of data and information systems and tools under development including: Invasive Alien Species - spatially enabling and visualising the IBIS database; Digital Observatory of Protected Areas - analysis tools supporting BIOPAMA; Mapping and Visualising Ecosystem Services, and; Fire Monitoring. An overview of regional capacity building efforts and recommended approaches will also be provided, with feedback encouraged.

The presentations will stimulate discussion around tactical approaches to resolving delivery blockages and how the presented initiatives, and similar ones, could be tailored, refined and applied for best regional impact. The session will identify synergies between BIOPAMA and other projects and initiatives and where there are requirements for closer cross-institutional partnerships to optimize delivery.

 

Parallel Session Title:The Tree Kangaroo Conservation Programme

Convening Organisation(s):Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program (TKCP)

Conveners:Dr Mikal Nolan – TKCP
Dr Lisa Dabek – TKCP
Mr Karau Kuna - TKCP

Venue:tbc; Laucala Campus, USP

The proposed workshop will showcase the YUS Conservation Area and landscape in Papua New Guinea (PNG) as a model program for conservation outcomes at a protected area (PA) site in PNG. As a landscape PA with over 12,000 residents, achieving conservation outcomes across YUS is inextricably linked with addressing sustainable community development. As the site-based NGO managing the Conservation Area, the Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program – PNG (TKCP-PNG) has successfully linked biodiversity conservation and livelihoods, and has raised a US$2 million conservation endowment to provide financial support to the PA in perpetuity. Key highlights of the work include establishment of a local conservation ranger program, community-based ecological monitoring of hunted species, land-use planning, integrating YUS Landscape Plan with provincial and national government planning, conservation coffee project, and a permanent research transect or “living laboratory” for long term scientific studies in the YUS PA. Each of these areas will be discussed in this workshop by staff from TKCP-PNG.

 

Parallel Session Title:The Sub-Global Assessment (SGA) Network: The role of ecosystem assessments in supplying the evidence base for bridging the science-policy interface

Convening Organisation(s):The Sub-Global Assessment (SGA) Network

Conveners:Matthew Ling – UNEP-WCMC
Sefanaia Nawadra - SPREP

Venue:Japan Pacific ICT Centre; Laucala Campus, USP

Ecosystem assessments help to provide the evidence base to underpin processes such as National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plan (NBSAP) updating, by generating information and developing a better understanding of the issues at hand and the value of nature.

The incorporation of biodiversity and ecosystem values into NBSAPs has been called for under the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, and the corresponding Aichi Biodiversity Targets, adopted at the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the CBD (COP 10). It is expected that this will improve biodiversity mainstreaming, assist the achievement of specific national outcomes, and facilitate a concerted global effort to improve natural resource management, halt the loss of biodiversity, and ensure the provision of ecosystem services and sustained human well-being now, and in the future.

Ecosystem assessments can inform decision-making processes such as NBSAP updating, of the value of ecosystem services and biodiversity by highlighting the links between healthy ecosystems and the attainment of economic and social goals. In addition, ecosystem assessments can contribute to processes such as the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which seeks to strengthen capacity for the effective use of science in decision-making at all levels.

 

Parallel Session Title:The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity

Convening Organisation(s):IUCN Oceania Regional Office

Conveners:Sangeeta Mangubhai – IUCN
GIZ

Venue:AusAID Lecture Theatre 1; Laucala Campus, USP

Coastal and marine ecosystems are important to Pacific Island Countries and Territories in terms of the ecosystem services they provide and their economic values. However, the relationships between healthy ecosystems and the services they provide to society, culture and human well-being are poorly understood or under-valued, and therefore do not feature strongly in national planning, national policy or other decision-making processes. The incorporation of economic values of ecosystems into national budgetary and planning/policy processes has the potential to create greater market incentives for investing in effective protection, and the sustainable use of species and habitats. This session will explore these ideas, and will provide an overview of the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, methods used to undertake economic valuations and payment for ecosystem services. Speakers will present case studies on economic valuations carried out within and/or outside the Pacific, and provide examples of how data and information from these valuations have been used for policy or management. There will be facilitated group discussions that will allow participants to discuss the challenges integrating ecosystem services and valuations into decision-making processes in the Pacific Region, and provide concrete recommendations for addressing those challenges.

 

Parallel Session Title:Community-centred management and policy: learning from experience

Convening Organisation(s):LMMA Network

Conveners:Wendy Tan – LMMA Network
Institute for Applied Sciences, University of the South Pacific
Wildlife Conservation Society-Fiji
Conservation Society of Pohnpei
Papua New Guinea Centre for Locally Managed Areas
Belau Locally Managed Areas Network / Association of Palau Conservation Officers
Solomon Islands LMMA Network
Fiji LMMA Network

Venue:Communication Conference Room; Laucala Campus, USP

This workshop convenes community practitioners and partner organizations practising LMMA approaches to briefly present case studies examples and lessons learned to date, and to have focused discussions on some of the critical questions related to the LMMA Network's achievements over the past 10 years and how the lessons can be gathered from the Network to help scale up local fisheries management in the Pacific and elsewhere in the world. Key questions could include:

  1. What are the main factors associated with management success within LMMAs and how has this been documented?
  2. Why and when do LMMAs not work?
  3. What drives people to poach?
  4. Do LMMAs provide biodiversity, climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction benefits as well as benefit is for food security and livelihoods? What are the indicators of these benefits that we should be measuring?
  5. Why has the network expanded in some countries and not in others and what are the critical factors associated with this scaling?
  6. Should networks scale at the village level or provincial level? Responses from the focal group discussions will enable us to evaluate knowledge gaps and enable us to focus future investigations and donor funding toward filling these important gaps.

 

Parallel Session Title: ABS – an incentive for conservation and source of livelihood?

Convening Organisation(s):ABS (Access and Benefit Sharing) Capacity Development Initiative

Conveners:Dr. Andreas Drews – ABS Capacity Development Initiative
GEF Small Grants Programme
Natural Justice

Venue:New FBE Lecture Theatre; Laucala Campus, USP

In light of the 2010 adopted Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and a growing number of national ABS frameworks emerging in the Pacific region, a new set of biodiversity financing mechanisms for communities to benefit from their role as custodians of genetic resources and local ecosystems, and holders of traditional knowledge is likely to emerge. To take full advantage of these opportunities a number of challenges have to be addressed. These range from the need for capacity building at the local level to the implementation of national ABS regimes that are conducive to the particular governance structures of Pacific island states, build on national and local development objectives, while at the same time facilitate an engagement with outside parties including public and private research initiatives. To address and respond to these new opportunities and challenges this workshop will invite, next to a few key ABS experts and representatives of regional support structures, relevant government representatives, public and private research institutions as well as communities and their supporting organizations to discuss what is needed to ensure that ABS contributes to sustainable development and biodiversity conservation in the Pacific.

 

Parallel Session Title:Meeting of the Threatened Species Working group of the Pacific Islands Round Table for Nature Conservation

Convening Organisation(s):PIRT Species Working Group

Conveners:Helen Pippard - IUCN
Mark O’Brien – Birdlife International Pacific Programme

Venue:tbc; Laucala Campus, USP

At the inaugural Pacific Islands Species Forum held in Honiara in 2012, participants recommended a number of actions to progress species conservation work in the region. This session will aim to address some of these recommendations:

  1. The development of a 5-year Pacific Islands Species Conservation Strategy. This will be an opportunity for participants to reflect on the draft Action Strategy for Nature Conservation 2013-18, and discuss relevant inputs relating to Species Conservation in the Pacific. Participants at the conference shall be invited to discuss and make comments on this strategy, and other existing species-related policies and plans in the region.
  2. Preparation for the next Pacific Islands Species Forum, scheduled to take place in 2014. A sub-group is already established, and participants shall be invited to discuss themes that the Forum should address, as well as participation and proposed outcomes.
  3. Discussion on other potential activities for the group to be involved in over the next 5 year period. For example, increasing and maintaining the profile of species conservation.
  4. Next steps for the Threatened Species Working group. Participants shall discuss how to increase and maintain participation of the group, including the structure of the group, and the election of a Chair.

This session aims to reach agreement on the following issues:

  1. the proposed species inputs to the Action Strategy for Nature Conservation 2013-18, in preparation for the future development of a 5-year Pacific Islands Species Conservation Strategy in line with the overall strategy;
  2. ithe hosting of a second Pacific Islands Species Forum in 2014;
  3. raising the profile of species conservation in the region, at government and public levels.
  4. maintaining and improving the coordination of species activities in the region, through the PIRT Species Working Group.