[Home]Darwin Project - South Pacific


The small island developing states (SIDS) of the Pacific have high levels of endemic biodiversity and many unique and specialised species of importance for human use - for example in agriculture, fisheries, forestry and tourism. Importantly, most of the biodiversity in the Pacific is owned by local communities, which are overwhelmingly reliant on natural resources for survival. However, with rapid population increase and rising material expectations there has been a disproportionate amount of habitat and species loss in the region.

" The biodiversity of the Pacific region is recognised to be of global significance, yet the threats to its conservation are among the highest anywhere in the world."
(Asian Development Bank Pacific Region Environmental Strategy 2005-2009)

In 1999, ICPL received funding from the UK Government's Darwin Initiative to work in partnership with the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Fiji. Through this project, the partnership established a successful and ongoing short-course training scheme for community-based conservation management in the South Pacific. The programme now offers regular training workshops for community conservation professionals, many of whom become trainers in the field themselves.


In association with this project, ICPL also compiled a two-volume training manual entitled: Community-Based Conservation Training for the Pacific Island States: A Manual for Trainers and Facilitators.

"The natural wealth of Pacific SIDS underpins their formal and subsistence economies ... ... It is vital to the well-being of the Pacific people that their biological resources be sustainably managed."
(Asian Development Bank Pacific Region Environmental Strategy 2005-2009)

In 2006, ICPL has again received funding from the Darwin Initiative to work with USP to develop a postgraduate diploma programme in biodiversity conservation, environmental management and sustainable development for the Pacific region, supported by a Distance and Flexible Learning (DFL) infrastructure and sophisticated satellite communications network recently set up by USP ("USPNet"). In addition to its application in the South Pacific, it is intended that the programme will act as a model for the biodiversity conservation and environmental management DFL scheme envisaged by the Consortium of Universities of Small Island Developing States (as proposed at a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica), thereby achieving global impact.

Coral Coast Fiji

The project supports the commitments of member countries of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and is in line with other multi-lateral environmental agreements including the Barbados Program of Action, Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, and Mauritius Strategy - all of which emphasise biodiversity conservation, environmental management and sustainable development in island nations with limited natural resources and skills bases. It is also congruent with the priorities of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas "Task Force on Island Conservation and Protected Areas" (TAFICOPA).

The project addresses priority areas of institutional capacity building, training and environmental education, and will contribute to benefit-sharing and poverty-alleviation through sustainable livelihoods outreach work in island communities that are dependent on biodiversity resources.

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