At the Planning and Policy for Ecosystem-Based Management Forum held in January 2010, senior natural resource managers from eight Pacific Island countries identified the following critical environmental issues:
- sea level rise and coastal engineering
- availability of resources and data
- population and socioeconomic change
- greenhouse gases and climate change
- land-based pollution
- livelihood of people – food and land security
- invasive species
- sustaining fish stocks
- outdated and conflicting policies and regulations
- enforcement.