On SPREP's 4 Environmental Priorities

Host: I’ve learned from your website that there are four strategic priorities in your strategic action plan 2011-2015, including (1) climate change; (2) biodiversity and ecosystem management; (3) waste management and pollution control; and (4) environmental monitoring and governance. How are they going at present?

David Sheppard: All of these are very important priorities. In the Pacific, as in China, if you don’t protect your environment, you won’t have an effective development. So all of those are key elements of that, so we are progressing actively in support of Pacific governments. For climate change, as I mentioned, I work on adapting to climate change; I work on renewable energy. Biodiversity, we work with the governments to look at how we can better protect species, including marine species such as whales and turtles. Wastes, we work to support countries; how we can better manage solid waste; how we can do with issues like e-waste, that’s the waste associated with used and old computers, for example. In environmental governance, we are looking at how we can strengthen the environmental policies and laws in Pacific countries that they are better able to respond to some of these environmental challenges.