What Should Be Done Next?

1. Develop IBA work programmes in those countries that currently do not have an IBA network – ie American Samoa, Cook Islands (underway), Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu (possible site identified), Tokelau, USMOLI.

2. Survey, thoroughly, the less well-known IBAs across the region and identify, and survey if necessary, potential additional sites across the region, but in particular in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

3. Establish monitoring programmes for all IBAs, involving relevant local stakeholders wherever possible, and develop and share effective monitoring protocols.

4. Ensure that IBAs are adequately incorporated in all local, national, regional and global planning, both within and outside the BirdLife Partnership.

5. Plan and carry out adequate management actions at all IBAs, and for those sites known to face immediate threats, develop and undertake appropriately-scaled interventions urgently.

6. Integrate appropriate IBA information into teaching materials and into the curricula of teacher-training institutions.

7. Maximise the use of information on IBAs in a wide range of public fora, including specific campaigns to promote the conservation of species, sites and habitats.

8. Ensure IBA information is available to all decision-makers and planners, particularly in those government departments and agencies responsible for the environment.

9. Establish and develop collaborations with and between as many other conservation and development stakeholders as necessary to pursue IBA conservation.

10. Build democratic structures through which people can pursue local, national, regional and global action for IBA conservation.

11. Develop National IBA Conservation Strategies for all countries, analyse gaps in coverage, review and amend the status of existing protected areas, and where possible, designate unprotected IBAs under relevant national and international laws.

12. Integrate IBA and other site-based conservation strategies into the full range of environmental policy-making at a regional level, particularly including regional political and financial institutions.

13. Integrate IBA information into a full range of cross-cutting policy arenas at a global level.

Immense pressures continue to be placed on the Pacific environment through unplanned developments in forestry, agricultural expansion and intensification, industry, tourism/recreation, urbanisation and the impacts of invasive species. This publication shows how IBAs form a key element in a conservation strategy for the Pacific, and how, through local and national NGO-government partnerships that involve capacity-building, advocacy and monitoring, innovative, locally appropriate approaches are being developed and adopted to safeguard such sites. This is summarised in the figure attached here.

IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS IN THE PACIFIC: A COMPENDIUM - Birdlife Pacific (2010)