Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are about to launch into a new programmatic approach to development with the Global Environment Facility's (GEF) injection of $USD100 million by April 2008.
GEF has over $USD3 billion to invest in environmental protection and restoration, but calls for a specific Pacific Regional approach to sustainability.
PICs have prepared their National Country Priorities, and now the GEF Pacific Alliance of Sustainability (PAS), including 15 PICs, are to focus on climate change impacts and adaptations, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution from pesticides and other poisons, energy supply issues, land degradation, management of international waters, coastal/marine management, invasive species control and eradication, and protection of drinking water supplies.
Ideally, had the PICs protected their environments (a) better in the past (i.e. too many overseas interests and too many non-sustainable markets), (b) better in the present (i.e. too many global environmental impacts from pollution and climate change, non-sustainable foreign investments, too few Environmental Impact Assessments or EIAs being performed, non-sustainable harvesting of natural resources by foreigners and local Pacific Islanders [PIs], etc.), and (c) better in the future (i.e. by legislating in a more proactive manner to help bring about sustainability and good governance - mind you, this would require tighter environmental management legislation in all PICs and their trading partners), then this $USD100 million GEF-PAS investment could be better spent on more protection and less restoration.
Pacific villages need to develop sustainably, and this draft operations manual is needed to advise us all of what we all need to do to get a better outcome for all PIs and the world at large.
Peruse http://gef-passamoa.blogspot.com and see what your country can do to assist Samoa whilst jointly improving our global environmental management.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment