Pacific Islands Environment Outlook - UNEP

MEAS AND NON-BINDING INSTRUMENTS 33
assessments under the National Advisory Committee
on Environment (NACE) and the Rural Lands
Development Committee. Vanuatu has, however, made
a significant policy commitment under the current
Comprehensive Reform Programme. This gives
environmental and resource management a priority in
the development planning agenda.
Framework environment laws elsewhere in the
Pacific have been drafted over the last ten years, but
few have been enacted, either because of arguments
about their implementation/effectiveness or because of
concern that they might impede development activities.
OVERALL EFFECTIVENESS OF REGIONAL MEAS
The regional conventions have been effective to the
extent that they constitute a platform on which further
action may be based. Much national implementation has
taken place in the fisheries area. However, the overall
effectiveness of the other regional MEAs is not readily
evident. The Waigani Convention is not yet in force,
little regional interest has been shown in the Apia
Convention, and the SPREP and the NFZT Conventions
generally reflect a compromise between the interests of
the PICs on one hand and the metropolitan powers on
the other.
There are no special arrangements made for the
funding of Apia or SPREP Convention related activities,
or for Secretariat support. Bare funding is provided for
the biennial meetings of the parties. In terms of
monitoring and reporting under these Conventions, the
parties requested preparation of a standardized format
for national reports in 1994. After many iterations, it
was agreed in 1996 that the guidelines needed to be
simplified and should avoid duplication of reporting
under other international agreements. This reflects a
wider issue that arises with regional instruments.
Also of note in the area of regional agreements is
the role of regional trade agreements as co-ordinated by
the Forum Secretariat. Increasingly, the role of such
instruments in managing sustainable development will
need to be recognized and utilized where appropriate.
Some of the areas of concern where trade and the
environment overlap are:
● Domestically Prohibited Goods (DPGs);
● the issue of fishing subsidies;
● the importation of Living Modified Organisms
(LMOs);
● eco-labelling;
● sustainable tourism;
● intellectual property rights.
BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTATION
● As noted above, the lack of specific funding for the
implementation of regional agreements (Apia,
SPREP and Waigani Conventions) has been a barrier
to effective implementation and participation in
agreements. In particular, legal activities and
capacity-building to develop appropriate legislation
have only taken place through ad hoc financial
assistance.
● The last significant regional activities in the field of
environmental law were the UNDP-funded Capacity
21 Project and the IUCN/ADB project in 1994–97,
which resulted in legal reviews of national legislation
in 12 PICs as part of the larger NEMS process. The
Government of Australia has also been funding a legal
capacity-building programme in Melanesia since 1994
to strengthen national environmental legislation
(PNG and Solomon Islands).
● Sometimes, environmental issues are not as high a
priority for the Pacific as trade and economic
development, education, health and public sector
reform. Environmental protection is still seen as
hampering ‘development’, with resultant delays in
making progress with formal legislation.
Non-binding agreements
GLOBAL
Agenda 21
The Pacific was well represented at the Earth Summit
(United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development – UNCED, 1992), with over one hundred
delegates including nine heads of government, and the
preceding 18 months of preparations involved a
considerable commitment and investment by the region
and its partners in sustainable development (Miles
1992). The region has since endorsed Agenda 21 at the
highest level (Forum 1992) and its objectives and
activities have become an integral part of the region’s
Action Plan for Managing the Environment in the South
Pacific, 1997–2000 (SPREP 1997b). The extent to
which these have become part of national policies and
programmes is unclear. The development of National
Environmental Management Strategies has facilitated
this integration but the actual implementation of
Agenda 21 has been largely driven by the availability of
funding and political momentum (e.g. related to the
negotiation and implementation of MEAs).
Of all the elements in Agenda 21, Chapter 17 has
received considerable attention from PICs. This has
been expressed through their involvement in the