15 Sep 2007

NZ Conservation department welcomes MOU signed at SPREP meeting

10:38 am on 15 September 2007

New Zealand's Andrew Bignall from the Conservation Department has welcomed the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the World Conservation Union or IUCN and SPREP.

The MOU was signed at the 18th South Pacific Regional Environment Programme currently underway in Samoa.

IUCN have set up office in Fiji, giving the region the first base.

New Zealand and Australia are members of IUCN, and Mr Bignall says having the MOU widens the resources for Pacific countries.

"It greatly strengthens the range of technical people from around the world in expertise you can call on from around the world and bring people here or bring advice here and new techniques and such like, so having that authoritative figure able to do that is really superb."