ABSTRACT
The peoples of the South Pacific region have long been concerned with protecting the varied, fragile, and vulnerable environments that surround their myriad and far-lung islands. Yet the 22 Pacific island countries (PICs) that make up this region are comprised entirely of developing states and territories with all the needs and limitations that third- or fourth-world status implies. 1 Thus a certain tension between environmental protection and sustainable development is both inevitable and pervasive across the South Pacific. This tension began to be felt virtually from the beginning. Independence swept through the region in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing attention on the new microstates’ development needs as an immediate priority. Largely as a result of these needs a substantial degree of productive regional co-operation emerged to meet the challenges posed. Indeed, over time the South Pacific region has become replete with international regimes and specialist intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) to assist with meeting its multifaceted developmental needs. 2 Environmental concerns were slower to make their way onto the regional stage. Nevertheless, a regime to address the region’s environmental protection needs has been well supported since these were accepted as significant in the mid-1970s. Today, the core of this regime, the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), has become an essential element in the area’s system of environmental protection as well as a central actor well able to hold its own in regional affairs.
