Report of the Ninth (9th) Pacific Islands Conference on Nature Conservation and protected Areas (PIRT), Laucala Bay, Suva, Fiji. 2-6 December, 2013.

The Chair and host of the 8th Conference, Papua New Guinea, officially handed over the Chair to Fiji, the host of the 9th conference. The representative of Papua New Guinea, Mr Gunther Joku, noted that people benefit from conservation activities and stressed the importance of promoting conservation in support of government development initiatives such as roads, health and education. He also noted the importance of a whole of government approach in conservation and establishment of protected areas, including working with private sector and non government agencies. He raised the issue of resource mobilisation to support these initiatives including looking at the way donors are organised and how international funds are used to support conservation and protected areas establishment.