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Environment strategies in Pacific islands - implementation of sustainable policy

Awareness and capacity building are pre-requisites for action. In the past twenty years there have been significant gains in governmental and community awareness of environmental issues and a vast increase in basic information. National Environment Management Strategies prepared by the Pacific Island governments and the considerable body of literature and information gathered provides an important foundation for future action.

Although dedicated environmental funding and action have been notably absent from the Pacific island nations, there have been significant environmental successes. Most of these have been reactive - such as saying no to allowing countries to use Oceania as a dumping ground for hazardous wastes and saying no to long drift nets for open ocean fishing. When clear threats were made to the environment, the island governments rallied quickly to protect their islands and marine areas. When the threats were not clear, governments generally acted slowly or not at all.

Between 1989 and 1993, the governments of Pacific island countries, in concert with the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, produced National Environmental Management Strategies, Legislative Reviews and State of the Environment Reports. These reflect what needs to be done to achieve sustainable development, but tend to avoid the deeper issues of why these actions were not done before. The people of the Pacific islands have known the environmental problems existed for a long time. Despite more than two decades of talking and reporting, few conservation projects have made it out of the conference rooms. Although the studies are a critical first step, few countries have taken any second steps.

The multitude of workshops and seminars and conferences each generated a common concern about the sustainability of the island ecosystems. Everyone recognised land tenure problems must be resolved. Everyone agreed Environmental Impact Assessments are a terrific idea. Everyone thought environmental laws were too confusing and that there needed to be strong, unified legislation. Everyone was emphatic that laws must be enforced. That settled, the meetings were adjourned and the whole thing turned over to the environmental section and then forgotten.

Completed National Environmental Management Strategies

(source: synthesis paper on modalities for environmental assessment in Pacific islands, unpublished)