The Pacific Island States
The Pacific Island states are affected by increasingly frequent extreme weather events and changes in the availability and quality of natural resources. Coastal and inshore resources are particularly important as a major source of animal protein across the region and as a source of income for the small-scale sector, particularly women. However traditional shallow water resources are under threat from over-exploitation, habitat degradation, pollution, natural disasters and climate change.
This rich agrobiodiversity heritage – including the indigenous and local knowledge on which its survival depends – is threatened by raising environmental and economic pressures coming from the farming sector. Increasing the pace of transition from traditional, biodiverse and integrated systems to more industrial paradigms of production.
ACP MEAs 3 regional level activities in the Pacific
ACP MEAs 3 gives support by promoting policy initiatives and ecosystem-based approaches to mainstream biodiversity into agriculture. The work is being achieved through strong collaboration with the Secretariat for the Pacific Community (SPC) and the Secretariat for the Pacific Environmental Programme (SPREP) in the Pacific and with funding from the European Union.
Countries
The ACP MEAs 3 focus country in the Pacific are the Solomon Islands, an archipelago of 997 islands spread over 1.34 million km2 of ocean.
ACP MEAs Actions
- Providing technical support to FAO Subregional Office for the Pacific Islands (SAP) in development of Pacific Biodiversity Action Plan for Food and Agriculture.
- Assisting the establishment and operationalization for the Regional Pesticide Registration Scheme.
- Promoting a Participatory Action Research on sustainable cocoa production.
- Creating on-farm research on soil health management practices.
- Rehabilitating in situ conservation sites and establishment of nurseries for indigenous fruit and nut tree species.
- Supporting the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology (MECDM) in the revision of the Solomon Islands National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP).
- Supporting the development of the Pacific Regional Pesticide Registration Scheme (PRPRS). Three countries signed the MoU (Cook Islands, Kiribati, Solomon Islands).
- Promoting a regional workshop to discuss the establishment and operationalization of the PRPRS held back-to-back with a tailor-made Pesticide Registration Toolkit training.