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Vanuatu is among the most vulnerable countries on earth to the increasing impacts of climate change, including climate-related natural disasters and the effects of slow-onset events such as sea-level rise and ocean acidification.
As the effects of global warming manifest and the hazards of climate change arise at accelerating rates, there is a need to shift the paradigm towards the standardised and mainstreamed use of science-based climate information, at multiple timescales, to support resilient development pathways.
The proposed project will support this paradigm shift through the strengthening and application of Climate Information Services (CIS) in five targeted development sectors: tourism; agriculture; infrastructure; water and fisheries.
More specifically, the project will build the technical capacity in Vanuatu to harness and manage climate data; develop and deliver practical CIS tools and resources; support enhanced coordination and dissemination of tailored information; enhance CIS information and technology infrastructure; and support the application of relevant CIS through real-time development processes, for more resilient outcomes.
The project has a focus on addressing information gaps and priority needs of target beneficiaries at national, provincial and local community levels across the five priority sectors.
The project will deliver enhanced:
capacity and capability of national development agents, to understand, access and apply CIS
CIS communications, knowledge products, tools, and resources for practical application to development processes.
reliability, functionality, utility and timeliness of underlying CIS delivery systems and data collection infrastructure.
scientific data, information and knowledge of past, present and future climate to facilitate innovated and resilient development.
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Starting Situation
Seagrass, mangroves and salt marshes sequester carbon at rates up to 66 times faster than terrestrial forests and store up to 5 times more carbon per hectare. Pacific Island Countries (PICs) possess significant Seagrass and Mangrove (SaM) resources, providing further ecosystem services related to shoreline protection, food security, tourism revenue and water quality. Habitat loss has been increasing rapidly, yet no adequate baselines exist to determine extent of habitats, rates of loss, or design of targeted management solutions. Methods for the assessment of carbon stocks and emissions in SaM areas exist since 2012, but have not been applied consistently to SaM areas in PICs. Policy makers and researchers note the urgent need to collect nationally relevant SaM data based on consistent methods, that ensure transparency and traceability to mitigate the loss of the world’s coastal carbon sinks and reduce the decline of coastal biodiversity.
Short Project Description
In close collaboration with national and regional partners (SPREP, SPC, USP, CSIRO, CIFOR) and the “Blue Planet” Initiative within the global Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the project will be mapping the SaM status in each of the 4 partner countries, and will assess related carbon storage capacity and ecosystem services. Resulting national inventories of SaM habitats, and associated blue carbon sinks and ecosystem service values will support government partners and policy makers in their efforts to strategically develop and implement conservation, management and rehabilitation efforts. Governments will be assisted to establish nationally appropriate incentives for sustainable management and rehabilitation efforts based on the quantification and documentation of SaM carbon stocks and the resulting emission reductions as part of NDCs and National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs).
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This is the meeting minutes for NAB Climate Finance Working Group meeting No.3 held on the 8th of September, 2023.
Discussion procured within this meeting minutes is based Four importent climate finance agendas. More details, please refere to the attached meeting minutes.
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News
: Climate change and rising sea levels and urbanization in low lying areas will increase the risk of coastal floods, erosion and salinization. Adaptation to reduce future environmental risks is inevitable, but it is unclear which coastal areas will be protected and in which regions residents will be forced to migrate. The EU-ERC COASTMOVE project aims assess how residents of low lying coastal areas can adapt and/or migrate to safer areas. For this, we aim to conduct surveys in 7 coastal areas such as Mozambique, Vietnam, Vanuatu, U.S.
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The “Committing to Sustainable Waste Actions in the Pacific” referred to hereafter as SWAP project aims to improve sanitation, environmental, social, and economic conditions in Pacific Island countries and territories through proper waste management.
To achieve this, the overall work focuses on three streams of wastes: used oil, marine debris, disaster wastes and an overarching issue on sustainable financing mechanisms.
Six countries and territories benefit from this overall project which include Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna.
Marine litter is one of the main issues that the SWAP project tries to address as Pacific islands are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of marine debris, due to the particular value and sensitivity of their coastal environments. A report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has revealed that there are now over 150 million tonnes of plastics in the oceans. That's about one tonne of plastics for every three tonnes of fish. If the trend continues, plastics will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050.
As behaviour change is a priority in order to address this problem of marine litter in a sustainable way, the SWAP project has produced a video to raise awareness of the problem of marine litter: ‘PLASTIC PARADISE’. This video is available in English and French as well as Fijian, Samoan, Pidgin, Tongan and Bislama.
This video is the intellectual property of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), and therefore may be used for educational or non-profit services without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. SPREP would appreciate receiving information on the use of the video: audience, purpose, etc. by completing this ‘SPREP/SWAP Marine Litter Awareness Video Use Request Form’.
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Van-KIRAP technical report on Marine Heat Waves - "Van-KIRAP technical report on Marine Heat Waves"
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IUCN Marine & Coastal Biodiversity in Pacific Islands Countries & Atolls Project (MACBIO) is supporting the Vanuatu Government achieve sustainable management of ecosystems and marine resources in country. Natural resources in marine and coastal areas are of high importance for Vanuatu and sustain the livelihoods of coastal communities. However, the need to use marine resources sustainably is not well reflected in national planning processes, due in part to insufficient information regarding their economic value and lack of concerted marine spatial planning.
MACBIO project 2013-2018 aims to help Vanuatu to meet their commitments under the CBD Strategic Plan 2011-2020 and the relevant Aichi targets, including the Programme of Work on Protected Areas (POWPA) and the Programme of Work on Island Biodiversity (POWIB) Specifically, the project aims to enhance ecosystem-based management and support more effectively managed marine resources which should lead to more resilient coastal and marine economies, more sustainable use of marine biodiversity, and will contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as securing and strengthening local livelihoods. Tried and tested concepts and instruments will be adopted in Vanuatu.
The MACBIO project is being implemented by GIZ with technical support from IUCN-Oceania in close collaboration with SPREP.
. The IUCN components of the project aim to achieve the following outcome and outputs:
Outputs (specific project goals):
An ocean-wide policy and spatial planning framework
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The Government of Vanuatu has decided to develop an oceans policy, which aligns with recommendations from theCommonwealth Secretariat.This report summarises the main findings1 of an analysis and assessment of 69 instruments of legislation andsubordinate policies and plans that are relevant to management and use of Vanuatu’s territorial waters and thereforerelevant to the development of the national oceans policy. The review of Vanuatu’s legislation, policies, strategies andplans relating to oceans management is part of the Marine and Coastal Biodiversity Management in Pacific IslandCountries (MACBIO) project.The approach to the review involved an analytical framework comprising three components:1. Individual analysis of legislation, policies, strategies and plans;2. Integration of individual analyses into an assessment table for comparative analysis and assessment; and3. A report which provides an assessment narrative based on the individual analyses and the information from theassessment table.
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Vanuatu Marine Ecosystem Service Valuation SUMMARY & Final report
This study,conducted in 2015, aimed to determine the economic value of seven marine and coastal ecosystem services in Vanuatu. The study forms part of the broader MACBIO project (Marine and Coastal Biodiversity Management in Pacific Island Countries and Atolls) that aims to strengthen the management of marine and coastal biodiversity in Pacific island countries.
The role that natural ecosystems, especially marine ecosystems, play in human wellbeing is often overlooked or taken for granted. The benefits humans receive from ecosystems, called ecosystem services, are often hidden because markets do not directly reveal their value – nature provides these benefits for free. Failure to recognize the role that marine ecosystems play in supporting livelihoods, economic activity, and human wellbeing has, in many instances, led to inequitable and unsustainable resource management decisions.
Coastal and marine resources provide Ni-Vanuatu businesses, households, and government many real and measurable benefits. The exclusive economic zone of Vanuatu, nearly 700,000 square kilometers of ocean, is more than 50 times larger than the country’s land area. This report, describes, quantifies and, where sufficient data is available, estimates the economic value of many of Vanuatu’s marine and coastal ecosystem services, in an effort to inform sustainable and equitable management decisions and support national marine spatial planning.
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Ecosystem and socio-economic resilience analysis and mapping (ESRAM) is the first phase of the Pacific Ecosystem-Based Adaptation to Climate Change project (PEBACC), a five-year initiative funded by the German Government and implemented by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). The intention of the project (2014 – 2019) is to promote ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) through the generation of new knowledge on local ecosystem services and its integration into development, climate change adaptation and natural resource management policy and planning processes in three Pacific island countries – Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
This technical summary document reports on the findings from the first phase ESRAM activity that was conducted in Greater Port Vila between January and June 2016. Whilst it was understood at the outset that both climate and non-climate drivers would be important influences on ecosystem quality (and the services they provide), local engagement - through household surveys and community workshops - also uncovered substantial detail on the range of contemporary issues facing these communities: urban development, pollution, access to water, overharvesting and poor management of resources, sand mining, and climate impacts (including ongoing recovery from Tropical Cyclone Pam, March 2015). It is clear that the ecosystem and socio-economic resilience challenges for these urban and peri-urban communities are already considerable but will be further amplified by continued urbanisation and future climate change in the years to come.
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The Climate Council is an independent, crowd-funded organisation providing quality information on climate change to the Australian public. This factsheet contains useful information about the influence of climate change on tropical cyclones, coastal flooding, storm surges, etc.
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There are about 30 species of mangroves in Solomon Islands, representing 40% of the world's mangrove species. They can be found on most islands ans it is estimated that mangroves here cover an area of about 50 000 hectares.
Mangroves are important resources for livelihoodof rural coastal communities. However there ias not an endleess supply.
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Climate change, resulting from both natural and anthropogenic factors, is expected to affect virtually every aspect of marine ecosystem structure and function from community composition and biogeochemical cycling, to the prevalence of diseases. Climate can affect all life-history stages through direct and indirect processes and the possible effects of climate change for marine populations include changes in population dynamics (body size, reproduction), community composition and geographical distributions. Climate change can be expected to affect populations, habitats, and ecosystems differently depending on their underlying characteristics (ICES 2011a, b). Although there are many uncertainties about the rates and spatial structure of future climate change, the probable and potential changes need to be considered in ecosystem management planning.
Ecosystems are complex, dynamic networks of interacting abiotic and biotic components, with a certain intrinsic capacity to adapt to perturbations such as climate change. Within ecosystems, it is individual organisms that perceive and respond to perturbations either directly through physical responses to abiotic factors or indirectly through interaction mechanisms such as predation and competition. When large numbers of individuals are affected, the response reverberates through higher levels of organization.
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The Pacific Islands region is experiencing climate change. Key indicators of the changingclimate include rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, rising air and sea temperatures,rising sea levels and upper-ocean heat content, changing ocean chemistry and increasingocean acidity, changing rainfall patterns, decreasing base flow in streams, changingwind and wave patterns, changing extremes, and changing habitats and species distributions.Currently, the most vulnerable areas include low islands (atoll islands and otherislands that rise only a few feet above present sea level), nearshore and coastal areas,and coral reefs. High-elevation (particularly alpine and subalpine) ecosystems are alsovulnerable. The climatic changes are affecting every aspect of life. Freshwater suppliesfor natural systems, as well as communities and businesses, are at risk. Food security isthreatened through impacts on both agriculture and fisheries. The built environment isalso at risk from coastal flooding and erosion as sea levels incrementally increase. Lossof habitat for endangered species such as monk seals, sea turtles, and Laysan ducks isexpected along with increased coral bleaching episodes, expansion of avian malaria tohigher elevations, and changes in the distribution and survival of the areas’ marine biodiversity.Over the coming decades, impacts are expected to become more widespreadand more severe.
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Suva, Fiji – A major new report, Reviving Melanesia’s Ocean Economy: The Case for Action, launched today, has revealed that the ocean is a much larger part of Melanesia’s economy and future prosperity than previously understood.
Melanesia is a large sub-region in the Pacific that extends from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region includes Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.
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The Ocean is a natural and dynamic bridge that connects continents to continents and oceanic islands to islands. It is also a bridge between the living and the dead and between people and the marine resources upon which they rely. It is the bridge of life.
Our ancestors used the sea as a passageway to move from their place of origin to where we are today. From their voyage in the sea they learned and believed that there exists a God of the sun, a God of the wind and a God of the Sea – our God. When they arrived safely to our shores they gave thanks and revered the sea as a sacred place. They built their livelihoods around it and finally established a culture of the ocean. A culture that protects and respects the God of the ocean.
In this Modern age, people have access to advanced technology and use it to explore and exploit the ocean and its resources more and more effectively and efficiently. The population of the modern age is also growing and the global and local demand to further explore and exploit the ocean resources is very high.
For the sake of humanity and all living things on land and in the sea, each atoll island, oceanic island and continent must play its part to ensure that our ocean bridge continues to function and the ocean continues to sustain life. Vanuatu is an ocean state and is geared to play its part in managing the oceanfor our people and contributing also to the planet’s future.
Vanuatu’s maritime jurisdiction comprises 98% of the nation and includes living and non-living marine resources that contribute significantly to the country’s economy, that are fundamental to the wellbeing of its citizens and are an integral part of our. While the economic potential of many of the resources in this area remains un-assessed and under-utilized, some are being overexploited ordamaged and there is an urgent need to resolve Vanuatu’s territorial disputes and maritime boundaries.
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Le changement climatique est l'un des sujets dont on parle le plus dans le monde parce qu'll affecte le quotidien de tous les habitants de la planete, y compris ceux qui vivent dans les iles du pacifique. Les scientifiques disent que lechangement climatique pourrait rendre les saisons chaudes plus longues et amener beacoup de pluies durant la saison humide.
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The Forty-Seventh Pacific Islands Forum was held in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia from 8 – 10 September 2016 and was attended by Heads of State and Government of Australia, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. The Solomon Islands was represented by their Deputy Prime Minister, the Republic of Fiji, Niue and the Republic of Palau by their Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Kiribati by a Special Envoy. The Forum Leaders’ Retreat was held at FSM Congress Chamber in Palikir on 10 September 2016.
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Ocean warming may well turn out to be the greatest hidden challenge of our generation. This report represents the most comprehensive review to date on ocean warming. To build up the report, leading scientists from around the world were invited to join with colleagues to contribute individual chapters. It contains many recommendations from the scientists on capability gaps and research issues that need to be resolved if we are to tackle the impacts of ocean warming with greater confidence in the future. The focus of the report is on gathering facts and knowledge and communicating this to show what is now happening in and to the ocean. There is purposefully much less focus on political ramifications. We hope that this report will help stimulate further debate and action on such issues.
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Climate Adaptation Methodology for Protected Areas (CAMPA) Coastal and Marine is designed to build the resilience of protected areas and associated ecosystems based on a thorough understanding of their vulnerability to climate change and a participatory agreement on the best ways to respond to these threats. With minor adjustments the methodology could be adapted to terrestrial and freshwater protected areas.
CAMPA does two main things:
• It provides practical and scientifically sound guidance to facilitate climate change vulnerability assessments of coastal and marine protected areas (CMPAs).
• Based on an understanding of that vulnerability, it then facilitates decisionmaking on the most appropriate adaptation actions.
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This animation is a tool to raise awareness of the science and impacts of El Niño and La Niña and encourage Pacific Islanders to take early action in preparing for these extreme events. The film stars a comical and highly resilient crab and follows her escapades across the Pacific.
The animation is available in two sizes (55MB and 10MB) and comes with a toolkit to help facilitators link the information in the film with smart decision-making and action on the ground. The toolkit contains the Climate Crab Action Handbook (PDF) and Climate Crab slideshow (PPT).
You can view or download the animation and the toolkit via the Pacific Climage Change Science website:
www.pacificclimatechangescience.org/animations/climatecrab/
The animation is also available on YouTube.
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Climate Change in the Pacific is a rigorously researched, peer-reviewed scientific assessment of the climate of the western Pacific region. Building on the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, this two volume publication represents a comprehensive resource on the climate of the Pacific.
VOLUME 1: REGIONAL OVERVIEW
Volume 1 presents an overview of the region: analysis of large-scale climate phenomena such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, seasonal variability and past climate trends and further develops regional climate change projections. Download the report from the links below.
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT: VOLUME 1
Climate Change in the Pacific. Scientific Assessment and New Research, Volume 1. Regional Overview [PDF, 20.1MB]
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