As a member of the Clean Pacific Roundtable, the Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO) was among the regional stakeholders participating in the Pacific Regional Preparatory Workshop for the INC to negotiate a new binding global agreement covering the whole life cycle of plastics.

The three-day workshop was hosted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) with the funding support of the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade at the Grand Pacific Hotel, Suva.

For the Pacific region especially for island countries and territories, marine plastic pollution is a pressing environmental, health, and economic development problem. And plastic pollution, in particular, threatens the livelihoods of Pacific island communities that are dependent on coastal systems for food, trade, and tourism. Plastics adversely affect fish and other marine life, coral reefs, beaches, and mangrove forests, and devalues the amenity of coastlines, threatening the growing tourism sector.

The objectives of the three-day workshop were to:

• Ensure that Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) were able to actively engage in negotiating a new binding global agreement that’s in line with the Pacific regional declaration on plastics.
• PICTs were able to establish regional positions to engage meaningfully in global negotiations.
• PICTs were able to establish negotiating positions with other SIDS to engage in global negotiations and provide Member Governments with the assistance they may need in negotiating a global agreement to address plastic pollution covering the whole life cycle of plastics.

SPTOs Sustainable Tourism and Development Manager Christina Leala Gale highlighted that in order for tourism to contribute to the plastic waste management problem, there was a need to have a plastics audit for the tourism sector in order to enable a circular economy for the industry.

In acknowledging the workshop deliberations and outcomes SPTO CEO Christopher Cocker supported Ms Gale’s comments in calling for a plastics audit for the tourism sector. Adding that plastic pollution was one of the most serious environmental problems affecting the oceans.

“Moving forward, strategies from these workshops ensure Pacific priorities are part of the conversation and equip our Pacific island nations moving forward. Over time, environmental monitoring can take several forms and an early activity for the stakeholders in the Pacific will be to develop standard approaches outlining what will be monitored and common methodologies for measurement,” Mr Cocker said.