SPC Geoscience Division

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GeoScience for Development Programme

Tuesday, 30 March 2010 10:47 administrator
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The GeoScience for Development Programme (G4D) provides vital applied ocean, island and coastal geoscience services to SPC member countries. These technical services are strategically deployed in response to member requests for assistance in the development, management and monitoring of natural resources and unique island environmental systems and processes.

We help members to better:

  • Govern and develop their natural resources;

  • Increase their resilience to natural hazards;

  • Access data-based approaches to adaptation.

Services

G4D is unique in the region. We maintain and deliver specialist skills, tools and services through flexible, integrated approaches designed to meet the needs of pacific island communities and environments. G4D is committed to bringing these services to members in an effective and timely manner. We continually strive to build "hands-on" capacity in the countries where we work, in all sectors of ocean and island applied geosciences.

Some of these services include:

  • Ocean and coastal resource characterisation, resource use solutions, monitoring and development;

  • Provision of science-based ocean and coastal policy and governance support and advice;

  • Provision of strategic communication and advocacy for coastal and ocean resource policy;

  • Strategic alliances with regional and international parters in technical, research and development assistance;

  • Capacity building via specific initiatives or through "hands-on" joint implementation of works;

  • Science-based vulnerability assessments particularly in shoreline and coastal zones;

  • Science-based adaptation responses;

  • Continued secure investment in instrumentation, tools and support services as the only regional technological facility in geoscience.

Critical Issues

In addition to the above, the following five critical issues are embedded throughout the G4D's work program:

  1. Coastal development, Urbanisation and Vulnerability
  2. Maritime Boundaries
  3. Climate Change and Adaptation
  4. Natural Resource Development
  5. Information Management and Analysis

The strong applied geoscience capacity of G4D also provides support for scientific and research interaction with other regional and international technical entities. We maintain a number of unique research and development partnerships, acting as a conduit for improved understanding of pacific island research needs to development partners and the international arena. G4D will continue to create, maintain and disseminate geoscience knowledge to provide technical advice to pacific island governments and to support policy development and decision making.

Last Updated on Thursday, 19 March 2015 12:13  

Newsflash

Under Pressure is a short video that examines the perspectives of different stakeholders involved with deep sea mineral resources in the Pacific.

Several Pacific Island nations are eagerly eyeing up the potential economic benefits from valuable deep sea mineral resources that have been discovered within their extensive maritime territories. Rising global demand for metals, combined with advances in mining technology, have spurred a rush of commercial interest in the potential profits to be gleaned from the depths of the ocean floor.  

These Pacific Island countries have now become the centre of an international debate over whether the sustainable economic benefits for Pacific Islanders will outweigh the environmental risks of harvesting these precious metals from the bottom of the sea. This short film examines the deep sea mining issue from a number of perspectives including anti-deep sea mining NGO’s, politicians, government agencies, deep sea mining companies, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Under Pressure is the first of a series of three films supported by the SPC-EU funded Pacific Deep Sea Minerals Project. The next two films will explore the current state of scientific knowledge about deep sea minerals in the Pacific and the current situation in Papua New Guinea, the Pacific Island country that has been at the centre of the deep sea mining debate.

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