Pacific Island countries and territories only contribute 13% of the “mismanaged plastic in the world’s oceans”, yet oceanic currents deposit much of this mismanaged plastic on Pacific shores. PERC co-director Trisia Farrelly has contributed to the authorship of the report Islands of Opportunity: Toward a Global Agreement on Plastic Pollution for Pacific Island Countries and Territories, which argues that existing voluntary agreements are inadequate in addressing the fundamental cause of this problem: the ever-growing production of virgin plastic. The report makes five recommendations:
• “Demonstrate Pacific island leadership on the issue of plastic pollution through a regional declaration of support for a global agreement at key strategic events, such as the United Nations Oceans Conference, Our Oceans Conference and Pacific Island Leaders’ Forum
• Ratification of existing regional instruments to strengthen and coordinate existing coverage of regional measures to address plastic pollution. Most importantly, as outlined in the MLAP, this includes the Noumea Convention, the Noumea Emergencies Protocol, the Noumea Dumping Protocol and the Waigani Convention
• Ratification of existing global instruments to strengthen and coordinate existing coverage of international measures to address plastic pollution. These include ratifying the London Convention and its Protocol under the International Maritime Organisation, MARPOL, and the Basel Convention
• Building on national and regional consultation around the Ad Hoc Open Ended Expert Group and other regional meetings, identify Pacific needs and priorities within a global agreement addressing the full life cycle of plastics
• Strategic and active engagement at AHOEEG-4, AHOEEG-5 and UNEA-5 in order to secure a negotiating mandate at UNEA-5″
Read the whole report here: