Hydro International –
At the Eye on Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi last week, the Geographic Information System (GIS) software company Esri committed to build a database for the Cook Islands Marine Park to aid in the spatial planning of the 1 million Sq. Km. park, which was officially declared earlier this year by Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna.
This new commitment is in response to Prime Minister Henry Puna’s challenge, which was issued to the international community at the summit, to provide support to developing countries who have expressed a commitment to protecting the oceans.
The Cook Islands Marine Park is a large addition to the Pacific Oceanscape, an innovative commitment by sixteen Pacific Island governments to integrated marine conservation and sustainable management across approximately 40 million sq km of ocean.
Prime Minister Puna and the Cook Islands delegation was joined at the summit by Teuea Toatu, executive director of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) in Kiribati, and a delegation from Conservation International (CI) which has committed technical and scientific assistance to implement the Pacific Oceanscape since its inception.
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