SPC Geoscience Division

The risk of dying in a flood or tropical cyclone in the Pacific region is today only a third of what it was in 1990 says a United Nations report titled Revealing Risk, Redefining Development. This 2011 edition of the Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR11) will be launched in Auckland (New Zealand) on 3 August at the Third Session of the Pacific Platform for Disaster Risk Management.

The Pacific Platform is the region’s foremost gathering of over 200 national and regional disaster risk management stakeholders. Officials from 22 Pacific island countries and territories will meet with experts to address concerns relating to reducing the risks of disasters and the impact of climate change affecting regional development.

In one of the most important regional meetings of the year, top officials from 22 Pacific island countries and territories will meet with experts from around the world to address growing concerns relating to reducing the risks of disasters and the impacts of climate change that are affecting development in the Pacific Region.

The meeting, the 3rd Session of the Pacific Platform for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) will be held in New Zealand at the Auckland Airport Holiday Inn from August 1 thur 5.

Mr. Mosese Sikivou, Deputy Director of the SPC/SOPAC Disaster Reduction Programme, said “essentially the meeting is to provide Pacific island countries and territories with a way forward in terms of developing an integrated regional strategy for DRM and Climate Change by 2015.

Tuesday, July 26, Rarotonga, Cook Islands -  Delegates from Pacific Islands countries gathered in Rarotonga, the Cook Islands today for a week long meeting to discuss the region’s water and sanitation issues. They were reminded that finding solutions to pressing water and sanitation problems was urgent and vital to the future development and health of the Pacific’s people and environment.

“The work we are here to discuss, and plan a way forward for, represents one of the region’s most critical struggles, the struggle to protect the rights of men, women, boys and girls to safe water and sanitation,” said Dr Russell Howorth Director of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC).

THE International Seabed Authority's Council has approved applications for seabed exploration work plans from Nauru, Tonga, China and Russia.

A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation stated that the applications were recommended for the council's approval by the Legal and Technical Commission of the authority.

"Fiji and Pacific Island countries are represented on this commission by Dr. Russell Howorth, the director of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community's Suva-based Applied Geoscience and Technology Division - SOPAC," the statement said.