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The Pacific BioScapes Programme is supporting capacity in the Pacific to determine that the presence and population of key seabird biodiversity is enhanced as envisaged in the draft Regional Seabird Action Plan 2022-2026.

Since 2003, Pacific Islands countries and territories have endorsed five-yearly iterations of the Pacific Islands Regional Marine Species Programme and Action Plans for whales and dolphins, marine turtles, seabirds, dugong and sharks and rays.

The Pacific Region is home to approximately 25 per cent of the world's corals. Climate change, ocean acidification and pollution are having an impact on these reefs and large-scale responses to there threats are urgently needed.

The PNG Conservation and Environment Protection Authority will be assisted to raise awareness of the threats to sea turtle species in Papua New Guinea through a major turtle protection public awareness campaign in districts where illegal or excessive turtle take is occurring.

This strategy provide board strategic guidance for nature conservation planning, prioritisation, and implementation in our region.

This factsheet connects People, Places and Knowledge and provides a doorway through which Pacific Islands protected area practitioners can share expertise and benefit from opportunities in this region.

Environmental data is important to the Pacific region. There is a need for historical and current evidence of the status and trends of various environmental resources and drivers of environmental change.

The EU funded SPREP BioScapes Programme and the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority of PNG have been working together on something special. ‘Tuki na Trausel’ is a comic book in pidgin language illustrated by the famous Papuan illustrator Gima Segore. In the book, you can join Tuki and his uncle as they learn about sea turtles in the Pacific! In one day, they find turtle nests, meet a large adult female turtle and watch hatchlings take their first steps into the ocean.

This manual is not a summary of all that is known about sea turtles. There are already very good books and resources that do that. It is also not exhaustive about research and monitoring. Nor it is the global synthesis of all turtle research options. Advanced research into breathing rates and blood plasma and stable isotopes and hearing and endocrinology are a bit out of our scope. Here, we will deal with the basics that inform conservation and management. And by the basics I mean how many nesting turtles do we have; where are they; what threats do they face; and why this knowledge is useful.

Pacific Island countries have identified many critical issues and national priorities to protect biodiversity, communities and ecosystem in our region. In response, the Pacific Biodiversity and Sustainable Land-SeaScapes (Pacific BioScapes) Programme has the overall aim to better managing our coastal and marine resource and adapting to climate change through ecosystem-based responses.