PACIFIC – Friday, June 5, was World Environment Day and the Pacific’s key regional environment watchdog wants everyone to think of how they can have an impact.

The theme for World Environment Day was “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care”.

The executive director of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, David Sheppard, told Radio New Zealand’s Dateline Pacific what his organisation hopes for.

“The environment is clearly essential for livelihoods, culture, for life in the Pacific. If we don’t have a well managed environment we wont have sustainable development.

“So programmes of SPREP in partnership with other organisations are trying to assess the situation. In particular through activities such as state of the environment reporting.

“We are aware for example of loss of key species in the Pacific. We have for some species like bird species ranked amongst the highest extinction rates on earth.

“We know that four out of six turtles in our region are on the IUCN red list of threatened species.

“We know that some shark species such as oceanic white tip are severely depleted from original abundance.

“So the warning signals are there and the need is to look at what is the practical concrete actions that Pacific Island countries can take – supported by SPREP and other organisations with similar objectives.

DATELINE PACIFIC: That information has been put out there and put out there and put out there, do you think people are actually really taking notice?

“I think in the Pacific certainly the answer is ‘yes’, because all Pacific people live close to their environment and we see the impact.

“A lot of it is external – so areas like climate change and habitat clearing and what SPREP is supporting countries ,are some concrete actions to address these.

“So the theme of this years world environment day is focused on water specifically – and we are running out of water. It is a big challenge in our region, particularly outer islands.

“SPREP, through projects like the Pacific Adaptation to Climate Change project, is increasing water capacity through increasing the number of water tanks but linking that with education communication about water conservation and also national policy developments.

DATELINE PACIFIC: Your hope for World Environment day would be what?

“A better and more effectively managed environment and also for people taking action into their own hands.

“We can always bemoan climate change and factors outside our control but in fact there are many things that individuals, organisations, groups of communities can do themselves.

“So at SPREP on our campus in Apia that means installing recycling facilities, that means installing photovoltaic energy so that we run on Solar energy rather than diesel.

“It means we look at issues like trying to cut down our travel and use more video conferencing.

“So a message is, ‘yes there are challenges, but let us look at what is being done’, let us celebrate that and importantly let us look at what we as individuals, we as communities can do ourselves rather than just throwing our hands up in the air and bemoaning the challenges.