24 - The role of Secretariat of the Pacific Community in the biological control of weeds in the Pacific Islands region – past, present, and future activities

Summary

Introduction

The Pacific Community comprises small islands spread over 30 million square kilometers of ocean, with land making up a fraction of this area. The region (Fig. 24.1), which stretches from Palau and Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the west, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the northwest, to New Caledonia in the south and French Polynesia and the Pitcairn Island in the east, offers a suitable environment for the proliferation of many tropical, alien invasive weeds. Increasing volumes of trade and movement of people to and from the Pacific render the threat of new plant invaders an ever-increasing problem. Many weeds have been introduced into the region in the last 100 years following European contact. As a result, the region is already inundated by several invasive weeds that cause significant environmental, economic, and social problems for the local people (Meyer, 2001; Orapa, 2001; Dovey et al., 2004). Many of these weeds are difficult to control. On the other hand, the geographic nature of islands also offers unique opportunities for successful management of some weeds using relatively cheap and sustainable pest management methods such as biological control. Weed biological control capacity in the Pacific region is not as well developed as in developed countries, which have a long history of biological control.