This volume examines environmental law and governance in the Pacific, focusing on the emerging challenges this region faces. The Pacific is home to some of the world’s most astonishing biological and cultural diversity. At the same time, Pacific Island nations are economically and technically under-resourced in the face of tremendous environmental challenges. Destructive weather events, ocean acidification, mining, logging, overfishing, and pollution increasingly degrade ecosystems and affect fishing, farming, and other cultural practices of Pacific Islanders. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to understand and analyse the role of law and governance in responding to these pressures in the Pacific. Drawing on academic and practitioner expertise from the Pacific region, as well as Europe and the United States, this unique collection navigates the major environmental law and governance challenges of the present and future of the Pacific. Environmental Law and Governance in the Pacific discusses 21 Pacific Island countries and territories, including Cook Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Samoa, and a broad range of themes, such as deep-sea mining, wetlands and mangroves, heritage, endangered species, human rights, and access to justice, are addressed, thus providing a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of environmental law and governance within specific jurisdictions as well as across the Pacific region as a whole. This volume will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in environmental law and governance in the Pacific region, as well as policy-makers, practitioners and NGOs involved in the development and implementation of environmental law and policy.

Marine Environmental Governance: From International Law to Local Practice considers the relationship between international environmental law and community-based management of marine areas. Focusing on small island states, in which indigenous populations have to a large extent continued to maintain traditional lifestyles, this book takes up the question of how indigenous customary law and state-based legislation can be reconciled in the implementation of international environmental law. Including a range of case studies, as well as detailed comparative analysis, it pursues an interdisciplinary approach to legal pluralism 'in practice' that will be of considerable interest to environmental lawyers, legal anthropologists, conservation biologists and those working in the area of community-based conservation.

Numerous issues face Pacific states trying to find their way in the early 21st century. Countries are striving to secure the benefits of modernisation. Governance, law and order are needed to reach such a goal, but development cannot be at the price of culture or the environment. The question of how to develop and maintain sound legal systems and legal rules whilst maintaining the unique cultural heritages within the Pacific is a challenge with no easy answer. This interdisciplinary collection locates issues of law and governance within the particular socio-political context of the Pacific island region, presenting sociological, anthropological and political insights alongside jurisprudential analysis. Key issues including corruption, the role of customary law in modern legal systems, the place of human rights in the Pacific, environmental issues and the structure of the state are explored from a variety of perspectives.

This report is primarily directed to analysing the legal aspects of ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change. It sketches the impacts of climate change in the Pacific Island countries, recognizing that climate change directly impacts ecosystems, which provide for the needs of people as well as for the maintenance of the natural environment. It takes as a given that ecosystem-based adaptation can provide cost-effective strategies for reducing vulnerability to climate change impacts and enhancing ecosystem resilience, thereby maintaining ecosystem services and sustainable livelihoods. The report is written in light of the research reports completed by SPREP and Conservation International for this project (SPREP and Conservation International 2011). An essential aspect of the legal analysis is an examination of the way in which environmental governance operates in Pacific Island countries. The analysis is directed both to current formal legal systems as well as to customary mechanisms at the community level, exploring both potential barriers as well as the possibilities in the national legislation for achieving the aims of ecosystembased adaptation strategies. The report includes six brief legal case studies of more or less representative Pacific Island countries. The case studies provide a snapshot of the relevant legal frameworks in the selected jurisdictions in order to assess the suitability of those frameworks for providing a legally robust basis for ecosystembased adaptation. The report shows that appropriate legal mechanisms developed at the national level can play a key role in promoting adaptation, especially through restoring and maintaining ecosystem resilience, to address the effects of climate change.

The purpose of this book is to assess the development of international environmental law in the Asia Pacific. Consideration is given to the impact upon the region of global, regional and subregional environmental law. An assessment is also undertaken of how certain states, and groups of states, have responded domestically and within their own subregions to these developments. For the purposes of this book the Asia Pacific is defined as essentially the states which comprise East and Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the island states of the Southwest Pacific. Occasional consideration is also given to the states of South Asia.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.

This thoughtful book provides an overview of the major developments in the theory and practice of Ôenvironmental justiceÕ. It illustrates the direction of the evolution of rights of nature and exposes the diverse meanings and practical uses of the conc