Latest news with #SPREP
Scoop
14 hours ago
- Science
- Scoop
Action Urgent For Pacific Region To Survive And Thrive
Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland lends its voice to Pacific Climate Change Roundtable The Pacific Climate Change Roundtable is currently underway in Sāmoa. The event's theme for 2025 of '1.5 to Stay Alive and Thrive' reflects the region's focus on avoiding the global average temperature going beyond 1.5C, to ensure the region's survival. Organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) the University's Pacific Business Development Director, Willem (Pedro) Van Der Ent, and Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Pacific Jemaima Tiatia-Siau are attending the three-day event in Apia, 13 – 15 August. Van Der Ent says the roundtable is an invaluable opportunity for countries to come together and share their issues and success stories. He says it's important for the University to play a role, given the new methods and innovations required to bring about interventions to help Pacific peoples and communities thrive. 'We're here to work collaboratively to exchange knowledge and ideas on potential approaches to address both national and regional priorities around the areas of vulnerability our Pacific communities face from the impacts of climate change,' Van Der Ent says. The University hosted SPREP's inaugural Oceania Seabird Symposium earlier this year and Van Der Ent says the climate roundtable is another opportunity to build on the relationship. 'As a Pacific region we face unique issues and challenges, however we have the leadership, knowledge and the benefit of lived experience to come up with solutions, to mitigate the impact of climate change, and ensure the survival of our Pacific peoples.' Tiatia-Siau emphasised the importance of supporting the region and fostering relationships to ensure collaborative approaches could be effective. 'We're here to show our support, to meaningfully and purposefully engage, and to give the benefit of our knowledge, and vice versa, to ensuring the region can thrive. 'It is a critical opportunity for us to identify gaps where our university researchers and students may work in collaboration with SPREP to help grow Pacific research capacity and capability and breathing life into our inaugural Pacific strategy – Ala o le Moana; fundamentally activating the reciprocal nature of what it is to be Pacific and our ways of knowing, doing and being,' says Tiatia-Siau. SPREP Director General Sefanaia Nawadra highlights the need for genuine dialogue, through more open and informal discussions. He says it is crucial to break down silos and take a multifaceted approach across a range of sectors to effectively address climate change. The inaugural Pacific Youth Dialogue on Loss and Damage preceded the roundtable. Youth Dialogue representative and Miss Pacific Litara Ieremia Allan gave voice to the first generation to be raised during the climate crisis. Allan says youth warn that any delays to taking action will deepen losses already being felt – including disappearing shorelines, displacement, loss of income, and cultural erosion. She says her peers are the rising tide of Pacific nations - unshaken by fear, strengthened by hope and united to protect their homelands. The roundtable is attended by Pacific governments, youth, academia, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector. Interactive activities encourage those attending to share experiences, bolster networks and initiate new partnership opportunities.
RNZ News
2 days ago
- Business
- RNZ News
Pacific SIDs meet as UN plastics meeting continues in Geneva
Photo: artisteer / Getty Images/ iStockphoto Finance has been debated at a UN meeting on formulating a plastics treaty. Multiple meetings are continuing at the second part of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee , which aims to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. The session will run until 14 August. Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are scheduled for a regional meeting on Tuesday in Geneva. The Secretariat of Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) reported that decisions over finance, to support the goals of the treaty and its implementation, have made minimal progress. It said the debate over who pays and who receives still remains unresolved. Fiji's permanent secretary for environment and climate change Dr Sivendra Michael said the financial mechanism is the heartbeat of the entire treaty. "In negotiating this, it is very important to make sure it is pumping the right amount of blood to all parts of the treaty so we have enough resources to be able to tackle plastic pollution at every stage of its life cycle, and that those resources are appropriate to our special circumstances," he said. "We don't produce plastic, we import it. So it's vital that we address the source." Dr Michael said without accessible and predictable financial support, even a strong treaty would consist of empty promises. "While we are talking about new and additional finance, climate change and biodiversity loss already have their own dedicated funding streams; and the underlying question is really - where will this money come from? "We need countries that are most responsible for the plastics crisis and those with the capabilities to do so to contribute towards addressing it." The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee process was initiated following the adoption of UNEP Resolution 5/14 in March 2022, which called for the development of an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution. A study on plastic consumption published in 2024 warned that business as usual will result in nearly double the amount of plastic pollution .
Scoop
13-06-2025
- Science
- Scoop
Saipan Environment Forum Hears Caution On Pacific Garbage Patch Cleanup
, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent An expert says there is pushback from environmental groups when it comes to cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Bradley Nolan, waste management adviser at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), spoke at the 32nd Pacific Islands Environmental Training Symposium at the Crowne Plaza Resort Saipan. He was asked from the floor about efforts to address the massive plastic accumulation zone in the North Pacific - a swirling gyre of marine debris between California and Hawai'i, commonly known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Nolan, who presented on regional waste management resources, acknowledged the urgency and complexity of the issue, tying it to global negotiations under way for a plastics treaty. "Article nine of the plastics treaty currently under negotiation talks about legacy plastics and cleaning up the marine environment," he said. "There are a number of technologies trying to scrape up and clean the patch, and it makes sense to do that - but now we're seeing pushback from some environmental groups." According to Nolan, a growing number of scientists and green groups have raised concerns that clean-up efforts could destroy an unintended but now-established ocean ecosystem. "Because that garbage patch has existed so long, it's created a new marine habitat - a floating ecosystem that didn't exist before," Nolan said. "Efforts to clean it up could cause massive bycatch and harm species that have come to depend on it." While the "patch" isn't a solid island of trash, it is a dense concentration of microplastics and floating debris, which accumulate due to oceanic gyres. Roughly 80 per cent of that material comes from land-based sources, not ships, he said. Calling the garbage patch "a significant problem with no simple solution", Nolan said the issue touches on marine biodiversity, waste transboundary movement, and the production of harmful micro- and nano-plastics. "This is a complex issue - and complex issues rarely come with easy fixes," he said. In 2023, the Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit environmental engineering organization, removed about 25,000 pounds of trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch remains a symbol of the global plastics crisis. While innovation in clean-up continues, experts like Nolan stress that prevention - especially at the land-source level - must be prioritised across the Pacific. The four-day symposium features workshops on hazardous waste, climate adaptation, and the PFAS (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) contamination crisis facing islands such as Saipan and Guam. It concludes on Friday.
