Samoa has a Marine Resources Use Policy, and is working towards the delineation of its EEZ with the assistance of the Commonwealth Secretariat and the SOPAC.
Traditionally Samoans rely on marine resources for their well-being and daily required sustenance. Over 70% of villages are located on the coastal fringe of the islands, and subsistence fishing is a major activity of the inhabitants of such villages. Fisheries also play an extremely important role in the economy of Samoa as well as contributing significantly to the health and nutrition of the people. Fisheries are the major income-earner for the country. Offshore fisheries, in particular the tuna sector, have been recently developed and now are the most valuable among fisheries contributing significantly to Samoa’s economy. However, pressures arising as a result of overfishing, inshore environment degradation, ongoing coastal developments, pollution, and natural disasters have adversely affected the coastal resources and marine environment.
16 January 2013: The Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar Convention) has reported on an upcoming mangrove rehabilitation and replanting project in two of the Marshall Islands’ wetlands of international importance, Namdrik and Jaluit Atolls.
According to the Ramsar Secretariat, the project aims to: increase community resilience to climate change on both atolls through restoring some of the existing degraded...
December 2012: The December 2012 edition of “the greenline,” the newsletter of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), notes the successes of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) as an efficient tool to achieve the Aichi target 11 on the conservation of coastal and marine areas.
The Aichi targets were agreed by 193 parties in 2010 during the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Target 11 states that, by 2020, 10% of...
15 November 2012: The World Ocean Assessment (WOA) Workshop for the Wider Caribbean met to discuss the state of assessments of the marine environment in the Wider Caribbean, and provide regional input to the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment. The Assessment is slated for publication in December 2014.
The workshop took place from 13-15 November 2012, in Miami, Florida, US. Hosted by the US State Department in cooperation with US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),...
