Pacific Regional Ocean Partnership updates

The Pacific Regional Ocean Partnership Steering Group met on May 28, 2014, in Hagatna, Guam. Representatives of this group include Leo Asuncion (Hawaii), Fran Castro (CNMI), Joseph Artero-Cameron (Guam), and Dr. Ruth Matagi-Tofiga (American Samoa).

The PROP Steering Group discussed the revised Action Plan and implementation, shared local initiatives in the jurisdictions, reviewed the draft PROP website, and discussed climate and disaster resilience.

Highlighted contributions from each jurisdiction include:

• American Samoa:  American Samoa Climate Change Adaptation Plan—completed the plan and is currently taking the strategy to villages for community review and feedback.
• CNMI: Climate Change—The governor issued an executive directive directing agencies in the CNMI to work with the Climate Change Working Group.  They have completed the Vulnerability Assessment for Saipan: www.climatecnmi.net, and will having a community workshop on Rota and Tinian in June 2014 to gather information for each respective islands vulnerability assessment. With approval of the Action Plan, there are agencies readily waiting to engage in the Action Coordination Teams.
• Guam: Guam Homeland Security Office and Civil Defense Office have begun their climate change and disaster resilience mitigation recommendations for natural disasters.  They are working on Climate Change Resiliency Task Force. Guam is 99 percent complete on the report to the President of United States.
• Hawaii: They have legislation and are implementing the Hawaii Ocean Resource Management Plan. In addition, Hawaii is developing an online tool to aid permitting with integration of GIS data layers, including area use, to enable decision-making.

The PROP Steering Group agreed to send the PROP Action Plan to the governors for their endorsement by June 30, 2014.

The priority areas in the Action Plan include: 1) Climate and Disaster Resilience; 2) Collaboration with the Pacific Islands Regional Planning Body for Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning; and 3) Strengthening PROP Institutional Capacity.

Toward these efforts, we have made progress on several objectives and actions, including:

• Examining the likely climate impacts in light of the proposed listing of coral species under the ESA;
• Strategizing on the development of local incident command teams to assess ecological threats from disaster and the development of Action Coordination Teams;
• Discussions of an outreach strategy, including finalizing the PROP website to distribute information.

The PROP Steering group will be creating Action Coordination Teams in Climate Change-Endangered Species Act, Coastal Hazards Resilience and PROP Ocean Data Portal. Each PROP member will appoint two people to each of these teams as it pertains to their expertise or what they can bring to the table for the team. PROP expects that local partners, federal partners and collaborators will participate in the ACT.

Election was held and Fran Castro (CNMI) was elected chairperson of the PROP and Joseph Cameron (Guam) as vice chair. (PROP)