Pacific Islands Environment Outlook

Special edition for the Mauritius International Meeting for the 10-year Review of the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States

Integrating environment and development:1972-2002; State of the environment and policy retrospective: 1972-2002; Human vulnerability to environmental change; Outlook: 2002-32; Options for action.

How do we take stock of the state and direction of the world’s environment, and what can we learn from the experience? Among the myriad detailed narratives about the condition of the planet, the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) reports—issued by the United Nations Environment Programme—stand out as the most ambitious. For nearly three decades the GEO project has not only delivered iconic global assessment reports, but through its multitude of contributors has inspired hundreds of similar processes worldwide from the regional to the local level. This book provides an inside account of the evolution of the GEO project from its earliest days. Building on meticulous research, including interviews with former heads of the United Nations Environment Programme, diplomats, leading contributing scientists, and senior leaders of collaborating organizations, the story is told from the perspective of five GEO veterans who all played a pivotal role in shaping the periodic assessments. The GEO’s history provides striking insights and will save valuable time to those who commission, design and conduct, as well as critique and improve, assessments of environmental development in the next decade.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

GEO is both a series of periodic reports and an international participatory assessment process. GEO projects two major objectives are to provide an overview of major environmental concerns and to set in motion a global participatory assessment process. This document reports on a study commissioned in response to the Governing council's request for a Global Environment Outlook user profile and qualitative analysis of the actual use of the first and second Global Environment Outlook reports.

​This book explores the opportunities and challenges associated with the legal protection of World Heritage sites in the Pacific Islands. It argues that the small Pacific representation on the World Heritage List is in part due to a lack of strong legal frameworks for heritage conservation, putting such sites under threat. Providing a comprehensive analysis of the nomination, listing and protection of the Solomon Island World Heritage Site, it examines the implementation of the World Heritage Convention in the Pacific context. It explores how the international community’s broadening interpretation of the notion of ‘outstanding universal value’ has increased the potential for Pacific heritage to be classified as ‘World Heritage’. This book also analyses the protection regime established by the Convention, and the World Heritage Committee’s approach to heritage conservation, identifying challenges associated with the protection of Pacific Island heritage.