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Pacific Community receives international recognition for geospatial innovation

Thursday, 04 August 2016 16:24 administrator
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The Pacific Community’s (SPC) Geoscience Division is being bestowed the Asia Geospatial Excellence Award for Disaster Management by Geosmart Asia, a leading conference and exhibition for the Asia-Pacific region showcasing the capabilities of geospatial technologies for national development and industry growth.

 

The award recognizes exemplary innovation and practices in geospatial information and technology in the Asia-Pacific region.

 

“The Pacific region is prone to the vagaries of nature and geospatial information has proven to play a significant role in preparedness and mitigating losses. In such a scenario, the vision and initiatives of SPC’s Geoscience Division to promote geospatial information for safeguarding the region are commendable,” Geosmart Asia Pacific Vice President, Prashant Joshi said, in announcing the accolade.

 

Last Updated on Thursday, 04 August 2016 16:45 Read more...
 

Advancing the Pacific development agenda with smarter maps

Thursday, 12 November 2015 10:29 administrator
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Suva, Fiji – Over 300 participants from about 30 countries will converge in Suva, Fiji next week to discuss advancements in Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing (GIS/RS) applications and their relevance to the management of resources in small Pacific Island countries and territories.

 

Bridging Information Gaps by Creating Smarter Maps’ is the theme of the conference jointly organised by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)

Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 April 2016 16:39 Read more...
 

Strategic Roadmap for Emergency Management in Niue

Friday, 30 October 2015 16:38 administrator
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The Strategic Roadmap for Emergency Management (SREM) in Niue is the result of extensive consultations, research and a stakeholder workshop to look at contemporary best practi ce within the Australasian region with the view to reform the emergency management arrangements in Niue.

The SREM process allowed us, for the fi rst ti me, to sit down as group and discuss the issues that face us collecti vely as a sector rather than as individual agencies like police, fi re and government departments. Our own experiences with signifi cant events like cyclone Heta and other overseas incidents show us clearly that successful emergency management can only occur when everyone knows what to do and can work together as a single interoperable unit.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 09 December 2015 15:25
 

SPC takes action on domestic violence by supporting staff

Friday, 24 July 2015 09:35 administrator
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media release

Domestic Violence Workshop

FWCC Coordinator, Shamima Ali addresses SPC staff on Domestic Violence

Suva, Fiji – In response to the death of an employee, Losana McGowan, earlier this year following an alleged domestic violence incident, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) is taking action to build more awareness within the workplace.

“At SPC, we’re moving to ensure that our staff are better informed and that there are proper systems in place to provide resources and adequate support to staff who are experiencing domestic violence,” the Director of SPC’s Geoscience Division, Professor Michael Petterson, said.

A workshop was held this week in Suva by the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC), as a pilot for SPC staff from the division that Losana had worked, to build on the healing process and awareness on the issues of domestic violence.

The workshop was led by FWCC Coordinator, Shamima Ali, following a request from SPC, and is part of the Centre’s ongoing outreach with many agencies and stakeholders.

Last Updated on Friday, 24 July 2015 10:34 Read more...
 

Solomon Islands media receives training in climate change and disaster reporting

Thursday, 09 July 2015 08:45
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Solomon Islands media training

25 June 2015, Honiara, Solomon Islands

Newsroom journalists received training in climate change and disaster reporting at the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) in Honiara this week.  Coordinated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in partnership with the Secretariat of Pacific Community (SPC), FFA, and the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Meteorology, the journalists received valuable training in understanding climate change, disaster risk management, and how these affect one of Solomon Islands’ biggest industries, tuna fishing.

More than ten journalists from local media attended the training, and as part of the workshop, presentations from the Climate Change Division, FFA, SPREP and SPC covered understanding climate change, eco-based adaptation to climate change, the effect of climate change on fisheries, climate change and gender, disaster risk management, and understanding national warning systems from the National Disaster Management Office.

Last Updated on Thursday, 09 July 2015 09:18 Read more...
 
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Newsflash

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.