Minerals are non-renewable resources (at least within human timeframes) but mining them is now apparently a sustainable enterprise, not a one-way street of exploitation. ISA provides an international and transparent forum to regulate and manage all mineral resources related activities and ensure protection of the marine environment in the “Area”, the deep seabed and subsoil beyond national jurisdiction, for the benefit of all humanity.
The Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11 consists of estimates of human population density (number of persons per square kilometer) based on counts consistent with national censuses and population registers, for the years 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020. A proportional allocation gridding algorithm, utilizing approximately 13.5 million national and sub-national administrative units, was used to assign population counts to 30 arc-second grid cells.
Bio-ORACLE is a set of GIS rasters providing geophysical, biotic and environmental data for surface and benthic marine realms. The data are available for global-scale applications at a spatial resolution of 5 arcmin (approximately 9.2 km at the equator).
Linking biodiversity occurrence data to the physical and biotic environment provides a framework to formulate hypotheses about the ecological processes governing spatial and temporal patterns in biodiversity, which can be useful for marine ecosystem management and conservation.
GEBCO's aim is to provide the most authoritative publicly-available bathymetry of the world's oceans. It operates under the joint auspices of the International Hydrographic Organization(IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) (of UNESCO).
GEBCO produces and makes available a range of bathymetric data sets and products. This includes a global bathymetric grid; gazetteer of undersea feature names, a Web Map Service and printable maps of ocean bathymetry.
Conservation International, GRID-Arendal and Geoscience Australia recently collaborated to produce a map of the global distribution of seafloor geomorphic features. The global seafloor geomorphic features map represents an important contribution towards the understanding of the distribution of blue habitats. Certain geomorphic feature are known to be good surrogates for biodiversity. For example, seamounts support a different suite of species to abyssal plains.
This dataset shows the global distribution of seamounts and knolls identified using global bathymetric data at 30 arc-sec resolution. A total of 33,452 seamounts and 138,412 knolls were identified, representing the largest global set of identified seamounts and knolls to date. Seamount habitat was found to constitute approximately 4.7% of the ocean floor, whilst knolls covered 16.3%.
The research leading to these results received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme, and from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program (GVP) is housed in the Department of Mineral Sciences, National Museum of Natural History, in Washington D.C. We are devoted to a better understanding of Earth's active volcanoes and their eruptions during the last 10,000 years.
The Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) is a collaboration between Aberystwyth University (U.K.), solo Earth Observation (soloEO; Japan), Wetlands International the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Reefs at Risk Revisited is a high-resolution update of the original global analysis, Reefs at Risk: A Map-Based Indicator of Threats to the World’s Coral Reefs. Reefs at Risk Revisited uses a global map of coral reefs at 500-m resolution, which is 64 times more detailed than the 4-km resolution map used in the 1998 analysis, and benefits from improvements in many global data sets used to evaluate threats to reefs (most threat data are at 1 km resolution, which is 16 times more detailed than those used in the 1998 analysis).
The InterRidge Vents Database is a global database of submarine hydrothermal vent fields. The InterRidge Vents Database is supported by the InterRidge program for international cooperation in ridge-crest studies (www.interridge.org).
One of the greatest challanges we face in protecting our islands biodiversity is how to balance the needs of the people that use it, and the future of the environment. There are many reasons why the Pacific islands way of life is endangered, it is
necessary to address these threats, all of them. Understand ing their causes will help to stop them, if it is possible or to change or adapt our way of life. It is necessary to focus on long term sustainability strategies, but in the mean time develop and carry out short term projects to address the immediate needs of our islands.
Although ornithological observations have not been the main object of any pliase of our work on the Northern Marshall Islands, numerous notes on birds have accumulated which are here placed on record, The birds were identified by use of Ernst Mayr's "Birds of the Southwest Pacific!' and the names used here are mostly those accepted by Mayr in that work. UnIortunately it was impractical to document these records with specin?ens. The sight observations presented should therefore be acceprcd with some reservations.
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Call Number: [EL]
Nukutipipi atoll (5 km2), of volcanic origin 16-17 million years old on the Pitcairn (hot spot) Hereheretue line, presents a land flora and fauna of low diversity but with a Pisonia forest and hundreds of resident red-tailed tropic birds. Nukutipipi suffered from the 1983 hurricanes : destruction of vegetation and motu as well as sand lagoon mollusc populations. The north and south rims present original geomorphological structures.
Available online
Call Number: 333.7 UNI [EL]
Physical Description: 56 p.
For Pacific SIDS, the need for adaptation to climate change has become increasingly urgent. Long-term climate changes, including the increasing frequency and severity of extreme events such as high rainfall, droughts, tropical cyclones, and storm surges are affecting the lives and livelihoods of people in PICs. Coupled with non-climate drivers, such as inappropriate land use, overexploitation of resources, increasing urbanization and population increase, development in the region is increasingly undermined.
Kwajalein is a crescent-shaped atoll that lies between 09°25' and 08°40'N and between 166°50' and 167°45'E, near the center o£ the western (Ralik) chain of the Marshall Islands (Figure 1). Composed of more than 90 islets, largely uninhabited, Kwajalein Atoll extends about 75 miles from southeast to northwest. It has a land area of about 6 square miles (3,854 acres) (Global Associates 1987), an increase of about 263 acres over the original area that was brought about by filling of land on Kwajalein, Roi-Namur, and Meek Islands.
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All over the world Indigenous Peoples are affected by the impacts of climate change. They often live close to the land and depend on its physical resources and richness for their livelihoods and well-being. Their environments are increasingly threatened by, for example, desertification, sea level rise, extreme weather events, and changes in wildlife health, migration patterns and abundance. At the same time, there is evidence that some current attempts to tackle climate change may also have disastrous effects on indigenous groups and communities.
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Stranding of a cetacean (whales & dolphins) refers to an animal that has run aground or left in a helpless position on shore. Stranding can include: Live animal(s) that have run aground and are unable to return unassisted to and in the water or to its natural habitat Dead animal(s) that have been washed up on the beach, shore or is still floating in the water.
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Call Number: [EL]
Physical Description: 1 Page
Reef coral collections from American Samoa are in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, W. Germany. The author has a collection of 790 coral specimens for a total of 1547 items known to be from American Samoa.
A total of 177 species (including 3 species of non-scleractinian corals) belonging to 48 genera and subgenera (including the genera Millepora and Heliopora) known to date are listed with data as of frequency of occurrence and habitat.
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Sustainable development projects that were supposed to insure the future of the earth's biological inheritance are currently being criticized for compromising biodiversity. Drawing on sixteen months of fieldwork with one of Papua New Guinea's most remote societies, this paper argues that more productive conservation policies will emerge when indigenous activities
are viewed as disturbance and not as vehicles for establishing equilibrium with the environment. This research demonstrates that although the Hewa play a significant role in shaping