Hello ISLANDS Community!

We are excited to share a report for the Sustainable Financing for Waste Management webinar, held by PacWastePlus and ISLANDS on Thursday July 28.

Thank you to all presenters for their valuable time and knowledge sharing and to the many participants that were able to join us for this informative webinar!

Please find the report and the recording below

Women are central in advancing SIDS’ clean energy development

Women are a driving force for SIDS’ clean energy development and for building islands’ resilience to climate change. However, in many SIDS, they face barriers in becoming active participants in climate action. For example, rural women are largely responsible for managing household energy, and can play a major role in the adoption of clean household solutions. And are therefore, a key component of the sector's sustainability and must be fully integrated in the decisions and solutions related to the clean energy sector.

Read the article to find out more about why more women are not taking a leading role in the energy sector – and what needs to be done to address the imbalance.

As we know, the transition to renewables will not come without an environmental cost. Batteries, EV, solar panels and many other products require rare metals - many of which are to be fund in the Ocean.

Companies keen to scrape the ocean floor 5,000 to 6,000 metres below sea level stand to earn billions harvesting manganese, cobalt, copper and nickel. Currently, about 20 research institutes or companies hold exploration contracts in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

However, mining - wherever it happens - often comes with very high social and environmental impacts. Some Pacific countries have expressed their concern at the UN Ocean Conference. Palau and Fiji - backed by Samoa, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands - have initiated an uphill battle against the deep-sea mining of unattached, fist-sized rocks rich in rare earth metals.

To many's surprise, French president Macron seemed in favour of a total ban on deep-sea mining.

I had a chance to participate in the BRS COP last month and learn about the success story on tackling the illegal use of lead-acid batteries in Trinidad and Tobago and how the country responded to the situation by enhancing national legislation as called for in the Basel Convention, to minimize their generation and ensure their environmentally sound management.
New legal instruments were developed, which later also contributed to preparing a regional development strategy for Central America and the Caribbean to support the sound management of used lead-acid batteries.

Please read the full story here:

Let me introduce you to the Moana Taka Partnership (MTP)

It is a public private partnership signed between Swire Shipping and SPREP, under which Swire Shipping vessels carry containers of recyclable waste from Pacific island ports to ports around the Pacific Rim to be sustainably treated and recycled in accredited facilities.

It was first signed in 2018 and grown from just 3 shipments to 100 traveling to multiple countries in the Asia Pacific.

The ISLANDS Programme aims at expanding this success story on a global scale, making it a reality in other SIDS regions too.

The General Manager Sustainable Development Division SWIRE Shipping, Mr Simon Bennett said: “Tell us what you've got. Tell us where you want to send it to because we, as a shipping company, have no knowledge or expertise in that area. There is nowhere on our route network that we cannot ship from and there is nowhere on our route network that we cannot ship to. So, if you know where you can ship it to, we will provide the container for free, and we will ship it for free to a place where it can be responsibly recycled.”

It was a good day at #UNOC2022 and one of the points of discussion was improving the implementation of international law, specifically the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Law is pretty unfamiliar to me (as is following rules!), but let’s give it a go.

UNCLOS establishes all the rules about the use of oceans and their resources. It essentially highlights the extent of different territorial waters, what can happen in those waters, and the regulations that govern those activities, including shipping safety, pollution prevention, and fisheries management. One of the most controversial issues is seabed mining, which UNCLOS says is to be carried out ‘for the benefit of mankind as a whole’. What this means, and to who, is very much up for debate.

Steps have been taken to strengthen implementation of UNCLOS, but as always, it’s difficult to do, especially when economic interests are at stake. In an interactive dialogue it was clarified that we have laws for three reasons: to be fair, to ensure activities are done peacefully, and to be practical. While this overview is simple, implementation remains incredibly complex.

So how do we do it? Programs and activities to enhance institutional and human capacities are important, as well as all the usual things: increasing participation, strengthening intersectoral collaboration, coordinating information and access to technology, and establishing a dedicated financial mechanism to facilitate these activities. It’s all the things we already know, and to put it simply: we need to get better at governance in general.

The day ended with this poignant reminder: the ocean was here before we existed and it will still be here after we are gone. So when we talk about ‘protecting the ocean’, we are really talking about protecting the well-being of humankind.
To achieve the well-being of mankind we need to do one thing: firmly establish unity amongst all people. I am amazed that even when trying to understand the complexity of the law, this simple truth resonates through it all.

#OceanAction #SaveOurOcean #SDG14 #BecauseOceans #livingfiercely