Minister Ainuu calls for large-scale investment from donor partners to support resilient programmes in managing invasive species

Today was the first day of the 28th session of the Conference of the Parties and earlier in the morning Minister of Natural Resources Hon. Esa Mona Ainuu was one of four panellists on Managing Invasive Species for a Resilient Pacific side event hosted by the Government of Niue and regional mechanism PRISMSS Restoring Island Resilience. 

It was the first side event that took place at the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion based at the Expo City venue for COP28, home for the Pacific Island countries for the next two weeks. 

The main theme of the panel discussions was on how Pacific Island nations are scaling up investment in the management of invasive species to increase the climate resilience of their ecosystems and communities. 

When asked about how important large-scale investment from donor partners was for Niue in scaling up management of invasive species, Minister Ainuu responded that it was very important. 

“The biodiversity loss in Niue is huge. We continue to call on our partners to ensure that our island and other islands in the Pacific can address the issue of invasive species as a holistic approach. We have had partial programmes, during the programmes we have had issues because funding is needed and government priorities have changed. There’s a lot of factors as to why a partial approach has not been successful for Niue.” 

Minister Ainuu has called out to donor partners to support small island nations such as Niue and in the Pacific to support their programmes on a large-scale, particularly through funding support.