Supporting local and community-based fisheries management, especially practices based on traditional, indigenous and local knowledge.

Actively manage and reduce land-based impacts on coastal fisheries, such as those from logging and mining activities.  These are often not within the scope of communities to address and require coordinated action across multiple government agencies and other partners.

Continue to strengthen national and regional monitoring, control and surveillance systems and capacity, including in collaboration with local communities where applicable.

Strengthen catch monitoring, including through increased observer coverage, electronic and remote monitoring, and dockside compliance inspections.

Strengthen monitoring and regulation of transhipment activity, including utilising analytical identification and traceability techniques and enforcing stronger sanctions.

Address inshore IUU fishing in partnership with coastal communities, ensuring that programmes emphasise links to human rights, health, cultural and heritage values, and livelihoods.

Large size of Pacific EEZs and limited capacity for enforcement.

Unintentional harm to non-target species (bycatch).

Impacts of habitat loss, invasive species, and pollution on coastal fish stocks.

Direct and indirect effects of climate change and ocean acidification on coastal and pelagic fisheries.

Finding sustainable alternatives to depleted stocks, especially reef fishes, to allow for recovery.

Create and utilise learning exchanges and platforms for action to build regional capacity within, and linkages between, communities and programmes working on nature conservation, human health, and disaster and climate resilience.

Implement relevant agreements for climate change and disaster risk management, such as the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific, with priority given to ecosystem-based approaches and solutions.

Design synergistic linkages between programmes and projects to maximise the multiple benefits of ecosystem-based approaches for nature conservation, climate and disaster resilience, and human health.

Base pandemic and disaster preparedness and recovery planning on systems thinking that incorporates interactions between ecological, human, and animal health, within natural boundaries such as watersheds.

Lack of human and financial resources to support ecosystem-based approaches.

National legislation and planning, including that related to ecosystem-based approaches, sometimes does not sufficiently align with local livelihoods and customary law.

Poor-quality information about baseline conditions.

Economies heavily dependent on physical imports.

Establish and enforce requirements for rigorous and independent environmental and cultural impact assessments, and Strategic Environmental Assessments, of all elements of proposed industrial activities impacting deep-sea or seabed environments.

Uphold the rights of Pacific communities and civil society organisations to meaningfully participate in decisions about prospecting or mining in deep-sea environments, and ensure that these activities include robust processes for seeking free, prior and informed consent from communities.

Take a precautionary approach to deep-sea mining and prospecting activity, including ensuring that the environmental, social and economic risks are comprehensively understood, and not proceeding until it can be clearly demonstrated that impacts can be managed to ensure the effective protection of ocean ecosystems.

Information available on potential or known impacts of deep-sea mining or prospecting is limited.

Vast areas of the deep sea and seabed have not been explored and the biodiversity of these ecosystems is yet to be understood.

There is a lack of awareness of the potential impacts of deep-sea mining among decision makers and other stakeholders including communities.

Measure and monitor the presence and impacts of invasive species, with attention to filling knowledge gaps on social, cultural and economic impacts and the results of management actions.

Plan to prevent movement of invasive species into and among islands, domestically and regionally.

Enforce protection of priority sites and species through partnerships with biosecurity, land-use planning, and communities, drawing on traditional, indigenous, and local knowledge relating to priority sites and species.

Restore native species and habitats, with long-term monitoring of cascading impacts and benefits.

Partner for biosecurity, knowledge sharing of best practices, and regional resourcing of invasive species management and native habitat restoration.

Pacific Islands are amenable to a wide range of potentially invasive species, requiring constant vigilance, partnerships with host and destination countries, and resourcing of biosecurity measures.

Invasion risks are increasing with increased travel and movement of goods.

Environmental pressures reduce the capacity of native species to compete with invasive species.

Implement the Cleaner Pacific 2025 strategy and Pacific Regional Action Plan for Marine Litter.

Identify sources and trends of plastic waste using waste audits, citizen science, and landfill management tools such as weigh bridges.

Measure spending on plastic waste, including landfill management, cost of clean-ups, and habitat rehabilitation, and cost-savings due to plastic diversion from landfills.

Plan spending and actions for managing marine litter and its impacts, including preparedness such as disaster risk reduction and biosecurity.

Partner for reduced plastic pollution and more effective enforcement, across community organisations, development partners, commercial entities and government agencies.

Adopt policy and law frameworks prioritising prevention over waste management, with specific references to plastic pollution elimination within relevant policy frameworks.

Adopt importation and trade restrictions on problematic plastics and polymers, including single-use bioplastics.

Promote prevention, return, recycling, and traditional and innovative alternatives to plastic, with the engagement of local communities and businesses.  Ensure that traditional knowledge holders and craftspeople are fairly compensated and acknowledged through FPIC processes. 

Commit to engaging in a circular plastics economy and engage with proponents driving upstream changes at international, regional, national and local levels.

Advocate internationally for the elimination of plastic pollution, especially by Pacific Rim countries, and for a global treaty on plastic pollution.

High proportions of plastic in waste streams, as marine litter, and as microplastics present throughout Pacific marine ecosystems.

The transboundary nature of marine plastic pollution. Pacific ecosystems will continue to receive plastic waste independent of production rates, due to marine plastics circulating into the Pacific region, and plastics being regularly lost from landfills into the ocean.

A waste burden from fishing exists with the illegal dumping of non-biodegradable wastes at sea, in addition to abandoned, lost, or derelict fishing gear.

High costs hinder Pacific recycling either in-country or for transporting off-shore.

Development or expansion of routine monitoring and reporting, for example for waste, chemicals and pollution (WCP) management activities and the receiving environment.

Development or finalisation of national WCP strategies and action plans aligned with the Cleaner Pacific 2025 strategy.

Development and implementation of practical and enforceable WCP legislation.

implement integrated, cost-effective, technically appropriate and culturally acceptable practices and technologies that minimise and manage WCP from various sources.

Management of hazardous waste, including development of inventories.

Challenges ensuring effective enforcement of existing regulations.