IAVS Regional Sections - Pacific islands
Pacific Islands Section
Contact person: Chair Dieter Mueller-Dombois
E-mail: dieter@hawaii.edu
Section Report: 2008
PABITRA, the Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect Network, celebrated its first 10 years of successful Pacific Island conservation research and teaching activity at the 21st Pacific Science Congress in Okinawa in June 2007. PABITRA became established in 1997 in Fiji through a workshop guided by Dieter Mueller-Dombois and Kanehiro Kitayama. Following that we had field workshops on biodiversity assessment with Pacific Islanders in Fiji 2002, Western Samoa 2003, and Palau 2007. During these field workshops we tested an emerging interdisciplinary methodology, which has become published in a 13 chapter book entitled "Biodiversity Assessment in Tropical Island Ecosystems: PABITRA Manual for Interactive Ecology and Management" edited by D. Mueller-Dombois, K.W. Bridges, and Curtis Daehler, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 2008. PABITRA sessions were held during former IAVS meetings, notably in Nagano 2000 and Honolulu 2004. The task of international coordinator was transferred to Dr. Curtis Daehler in Okinawa June 2007. A new proposal is underway to run the next PABITRA workshop in the Cook Islands. More information on our website www.botany.hawaii/pabitra
Section Report: 2006
From August 7-11, 2006, an initial synthesis meeting of PABITRA (the Asia-Pacific Biodiversity Transect) Network was held in the island Republic of Palau. The PABITRA Coordinator for Micronesia, Dr. Harley Manner, with the cooperation of Ms. Tarita Holm, Chairperson of the Palau Natural Resources Council, organized the workshop. In addition to Dr. Manner, two overseas PABITRA core members, Dr. Dieter Mueller-Dombois (Emeritus Professor of Botany and Ecology) and Dr. Curtis Daehler (expert on invasive species), were invited to explain the PABITRA concept under the capacity building and training project funded by APN (the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research CAPaBLE Grant CBA 2006-01NSY-Manner). The meeting comprised several seminars and fieldtrips. A first attempt was made to synthesize existing information of Palauan ecosystems and to define potential PABITRA transects and landscape segments from the central mountain range inland to the coast. The Palau PABITRA group selected the Ngerikiil and Diongradid watersheds as PABITRA study sites for the 2007 Joint Analysis Workshop planned for 28 March-5 April, 2007. The group was asked to review the PABITRA Manual and to begin a consultation process with the local communities about the 2007 workshop and the potential study sites, and to recruit students from PCC (Palau Community College) and interested villagers in an effort to build capacity for ecological biodiversity assessment.
Section Report: 2005
Following the PABITRA (the Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect Network) Session held at the 47th IAVS Symposium in Hawai‘i, two major PABITRA publications appeared in 2005: (1) A PABITRA feature was published in the Journal Pacific Science Vol. 59, 2. The issue includes 13 papers presented by PABITRA members from Fiji, Solomon Islands, Micronesia, and Hawai‘I, and (2) The methods book Biodiversity assessment in tropical pacific islands: a manual for interactive ecology and management was completed. This book was published as an electronic version. It is available free of charge on the PABITRA website under www.botany.hawaii.edu/pabitra
In March 2005, members of PABITRA were invited to Okinawa to contribute to a Symposium on Systematic Biodiversity Assessment on Island Ecosystems and Coral Reefs, a new Center of Excellence Program at Ryjukyus University under the direction of Professor Makoto Tsuchya. At the 48th IAVS Symposium in Lisbon, in July 2005, a keynote address was presented on Biodiversity limitations and landscape change: a marginal site syndrome in the Hawaiian Islands. The results were the outcome of Long-Term Ecological Research, a special objective of PABITRA.
End November 2005, a PABITRA workshop was held in Fiji to develop a permanent plot and transect system for two of the seven PABITRA Gateway Transect sites, Sovi and Mabo. Sovi contains still large segments of intact primary submontane tropical rainforest and Mabo is a cloud forest terrain next to Mount Tomaniivi (1324m), the highest mountain on Viti Levu, Fiji’s main Island. The Sovi area is considered for designation as a World Natural Heritage site.
A new PABITRA proposal was developed in 2005 for the Palau (or Belau) Islands, the most western archipelago of Micronesia. A message was received in November from APN (the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research) that the proposal was selected in the first review process and that the Palau proposal will likely be funded in March 2006.
Section Report: 2003
PABITRA, the Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect Network, was first presented in the 43rd IAVS symposium in Nagano, Japan. The theme of the Nagano PABITRA workshop was ‘Tasks of Vegetation Ecology in the PABITRA Net’. The 13 presentations were sub-structured under four sub-themes: 1. Assessment and monitoring of plant biodiversity in the Pacific Islands; 2. Analysis of human relationships to island biodiversity; 3. Analysis of freshwater flow, its relation to island biodiversity and ecosystem health; and 4. Historical perspectives on island biodiversity (Nagano Abstract book: 74-80). Following that, P ABITRA received funding from APN (the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research) in Kobe. This funding has been used to run an INITIAL SYNTHESIS meeting (July 15-19, 2002) on the proposed Gateway Transect in Fiji. A Fijian PABITRA group has thereafter been organized by Marika Tuiwawa, Curator of the Herbarium at the USP (University of the South Pacific) in Suva.
Section Report: 2002
PABITRA, the Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect Network, was first presented during the 43rd IAVS symposium, in Nagano, Japan. The theme of the Nagano PABITRA workshop was ‘Tasks of Vegetation Ecology in the PABITRA Net.’ The 13 presentations were sub-structured under four sub-themes: 1. Assessment and monitoring of plant biodiversity in the Pacific Islands; 2. Analysis of human relationships to island biodiversity; 3. Analysis of freshwater flow, its relation to island biodiversity and ecosystem health; and 4. Historical perspectives on island biodiversity (Nagano Abstract book: 74-80). Following that, PABITRA received funding from APN (the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research) in Kobe. This funding has been used to run an INITIAL SYNTHESIS meeting (July 15-19, 2002) on the proposed Gateway Transect in Fiji. A Fijian PABITRA group has since been organized by Marika Tuiwawa, Curator of the Herbarium at the USP (University of the South Pacific) in Suva.
