SPC Geoscience Division

Inside

1. 40 years of Geoscience data packaged for Member countries and SPC.

2. Integrated Water resource Management Is the Key to solutions to Water Woes.

3. Ocean and Islands Programme continues to serve Member countries.

4. Disaster Reduction Programme continues to help Members.

5. SPC/SOPAC Division on the Inside.

Download Newsletter | Read Online

In common with many Pacific island countries, the Cook Islands face the effects of climate change and natural hazards and disasters such as tsunamis, droughts, fires and cyclones, all of which have the potential to cause set backs to economic, social and cultural development.

Two hundred delegates and experts, from 22 Pacific island countries and territories and around the world, met at the 3rd Session of the Pacific Platform for Disaster Risk Management to examine ways to mitigate the impact of disasters, including the impacts of climate change, on Pacific regional development.

As environmental concerns heat up amid growing interest in minerals exploration and mining of the Pacific ocean’s seabed, one scientist is advocating the search for more inactive hydrothermal vents as a way of safely mining the sea.

Dr Sven Peterson, a minerologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) in Germany, said inactive vents were less likely to host marine life, so mining them would pose lesser danger to the ocean’s ecosystems.

“At water depths of 500 to 5000 metres which the mining industry will be interested in, there is no light but we still see oases of life there. This, of course, is of concern among biologists who do not want mining to happen at these oases in the deep.

Two hundred delegates from 22 island countries and territories in the Pacific region met with experts from around the world at the 3rd Session Pacific Platform for Disaster Management to examine “a way forward” to reduce the risks of disasters including the impacts of climate change that are affecting development in the Pacific Region.

It was the largest gathering to have ever participated in the Pacific Platform, reflecting the growing concern within the region of the “constant reminders” of the vulnerability of the island countries following recent events citing cyclones, flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and droughts.