SPC Geoscience Division

Thursday 22 October 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji - Kennels at the Fiji Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Suva received a recent makeover, thanks to the fundraising and volunteer efforts of The Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s Applied Geoscience (SOPAC) Division social club.

The SOPAC social club organized an employee work-a-thon to put a fresh coat of paint on the SPCA pens and, at the same time, raise money for this good cause.

At an employee assembly on October 2nd, the SOPAC division presented a charitable donation of FJ$1000 raised by staff to the SPCA.

SPCA’s Public Relations Officer and Kennel Manager, Irava Raki, expressed her gratitude for the donation and the work carried out by the SOPAC team. ‘It was so great to brighten the dog cages with bright colours. It makes a big difference to the animals,’ she said. ‘Some people think animals don’t have feelings or notice their environment, but they really do!’

Tuesday 15 October 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Rarotonga, Cook Islands - The Office of the Prime Minister in Cook Islands called a special meeting of the National Platform for Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management on Friday 4 October, 2013. The purpose of the meeting was to facilitate stakeholder input in Cook Islands for the proposed new regional strategy for disaster and climate resilient development in the Pacific (SRDP).

The development of the SRDP, referred to as 'the roadmap process’, is led by Pacific Island countries and territories. Stakeholder engagement is being sought throughout the Pacific region in a variety of forums. During the Cook Islands meeting participants had the opportunity to learn about the roadmap process and provide their suggestions concerning its development.

Teina Mackenzie is an Executive Board Member for the Te Ipukarea Society, an environmental NGO in Cook Islands. She says, ‘The most encouraging aspect of the recent meeting is that it seeks true engagement of stakeholders and the community at the outset of the proposed strategy.’

Tuesday, 24 September 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji – Regional experts in land and marine survey and management commended the work of the AusAID-funded Pacific Sea Level Monitoring (PSLM) Project at the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) Symposium in Suva last week.

Among them was Professor John Hannah of the University of Otago, who chairs the FIG Climate Change Task Force. Addressing the conference, Professor Hannah said, ‘Monitoring is crucial. We need reference systems and data sets that allow us to monitor change accurately.’

‘I congratulate our colleagues in the Pacific Sea Level Monitoring Project ─ thanks to that initiative, many small islands have a reliable continuous data set.  We need to see more of this in the region.’

The project has been collecting data from 14 sites across the Pacific since 1991. Over-water monitoring stations in Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Pohnpei, Kiribati, Cook Islands, Palau, Tuvalu, and Nauru provide a continuous stream of high-quality data on sea level, tides, water and air temperature, barometric pressure, and windspeed and direction. In addition, land-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) stations in each country measure seismic movements and provide geodetic benchmarks for the sea-level stations.

All of this data is necessary for scientists to calculate sea-level change relative to land elevation. The data has many other uses, however. It is publically accessible and is frequently referenced for coastal development projects, urban planning, tidal predictions, formulation of maritime boundaries, wave modelling and for navigational purposes.

Delegations from Pacific governments, along with international donors and prominent scientific organisations will meet in the Cook Islands during the second week of October to investigate and discuss aspects of mineral resources development in the Pacific region.

This will be during the Third meeting of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community's (SPC) Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC), whose running theme will be 'Opportunities and challenges of developing natural resources in large ocean states'.

The meeting will be held in conjunction with the 2013 Circum-Pacific Council (CPC) meeting, along with 2013 STAR* (Science, Technology and Resources Network) Session.

Professor Michael Petterson, SOPAC Division Director, expressed his gratitude to the Cook Islands Government for hosting the meetings, and further added that 'As a new Director attending my first Divisional meeting, I am very excited to be able to meet and discuss one of the key aspects of development for the Pacific: sustainably and inclusively developing mineral resources. The advent of Deep Sea Minerals could bring many changes to the Pacific and we all need to prepare and be informed. I will also be presenting my new vision for where I would like to take SOPAC Division during my tenureship. Let us also not forget STAR and the very last year of it's chair, Professor John Collen who has, again, produced a very exciting programme for us to learn from and contribute to. I look forward to seeing everybody and extend a very warm welcome.'

Circum-Pacific Council is an association of earth scientists, engineers, and oceanographers in the Pacific region, while STAR was founded in 1985 to facilitate the continuing provision of advice to SOPAC by the international geoscience community.

The main theme of the STAR Conference is 'Large ocean states: challenges, opportunities and risks in developing non-living marine and onland natural resources', and papers on renewable energy and deep sea minerals will be presented.

For further information, please go to: http://www.sopac.org/index.php/sopac-3