Koroyanitu National Park Development Program

Metadata only recordKoroyanitu, located on the Fiji island of Viti Levu, contains large tracts of virgin tropical forests. Due to the economic conditions of the area, villages are under pressure to allow logging companies to harvest timber. Six villages are cooperatively exploring an ecotourism project that will act as an alternate source of income that would reward them for their land stewardship. This Cooperative established a Trust to manage the area, promote ecotourism, promote community development, and environmental protection. In 1994 the village of Acabe, raised US$14,200 from the project, more than the total village income for 1993.PES-1 (Payments for Environmental Services Associate Award

Anthropogenic and environmental drivers shape diversity of naturalized plants across the Pacific

Aim The Pacific exhibits an exceptional number of naturalized plant species, but the drivers of this high diversity and the associated compositional patterns remain largely unknown. Here, we aim to (a) improve our understanding of introduction and establishment processes and (b) evaluate whether this information is sufficient to create scientific conservation tools, such as watchlists. Location Islands in the Pacific Ocean, excluding larger islands such as New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Methods We combined information from the most up‐to‐date data sources to quantify naturalized plant species richness and turnover across island groups and investigate the effects of anthropogenic, biogeographic and climate drivers on these patterns. In total, we found 2,672 naturalized plant species across 481 islands and 50 island groups, with a total of 11,074 records. Results Most naturalized species were restricted to few island groups, and most island groups have a low number of naturalized species. Island groups with few naturalized species were characterized by a set of widespread naturalized species. Several plant families that contributed many naturalized species globally also did so in the Pacific, particularly Fabaceae and Poaceae. However, many families were significantly over‐ or under‐represented in the Pacific naturalized flora compared to other regions of the world. Naturalized species richness increased primarily with increased human activity and island altitude/area, whereas similarity between island groups in temperature along with richness differences was most important for beta diversity. Main conclusions The distribution and richness of naturalized species can be explained by a small set of drivers. The Pacific region contains many naturalized plant species also naturalized in other regions in the world, but our results highlight key differences such as a stronger role of anthropogenic drivers in shaping diversity patterns. Our results establish a basis for predicting and preventing future naturalizations in a threatened biodiversity hotspot