Fiji calls for sea-bed mining moratorium as Nautilus restructures

By Nic Maclellan in Funafuti, Tuvalu Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has again called for a 10-year moratorium on sea-bed mining, at a time that many Pacific island nations are preparing for new frontiers of

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Traditional knowledge needs to be at the heart of the Ocean Decade

Harnessing traditional knowledge of the oceans in a way that isn’t exploitative or tokenistic is emerging as a strong theme at a regional ocean meeting currently underway in Noumea. Scientists, policy makers and

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‘Failing but not yet failed’: we need to improve ocean health

“We are failing, but we have not yet failed. There is still time in the next ten years to turn things around. It’s our last chance. And our survival as a species depends on the health of the oceans.”  This is

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World Oceans Day – What it means for the Pacific

from the Acting Director General of SPREP, Mr Stuart Chape World Oceans Day has been celebrated each year since 1992.  We have witnessed increasing world attention on our oceans, particularly in the face of extreme

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Know our ocean

An Opinion-Editorial by Meg Taylor, DBE, Secretary General, Pacific Islands Forum and Pacific Ocean Commissioner This week we are all encouraged to know our ocean as the world marks World Ocean Day on the 8th June.

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The world pledges to save our home

READING through the world’s pledges for the protection of our oceans during the first-ever Oceans Conference that Fiji and Sweden co-chaired at the United Nations headquarters in New York in June, one could easily be

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Whales – starvation or not?

WHALES are likely starving and entering dangerously shallow water in a desperate search for food. Whales are not immune to starvation. The 650-plus pilot whales beached at Farewell Spit, New Zealand, provide ‘canary

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Code Blue for our reefs: Using the regional tuna MCS to nab the reef robbers

Reef pillaging by Vietnamese Blue Boats seeking lucrative returns from beche de mer harvesting is being picked up under oceanic fisheries surveillance networks. As FFA’s Director James Movick told Pacific

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Whales

Surviving in a changing ocean THE humpback whale was hunted almost to the point of extinction last century, with around 200 of a population that was once around 10,000, remaining across the entire region when the

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What integration means for ocean management

Message from the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) OUR Ocean is an inherent part of who we are as a Pacific people, and in June our Pacific voices will amplify our tribute and respect of

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State of our ocean

Change the narrative, says Pacific expert JUST under a month from the first-ever United Nations conference on the oceans, a leading Pacific Island expert has called for a dramatic change in the narrative about ocean

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