14 Mar 2006

Palau seeks support to protect biodiversity

4:11 pm on 14 March 2006

Palau's Chief of Staff to the president says it's vital that Palau gets other countries to support its efforts towards protecting the region's biodiversity.

Palau is tabling a Micronesia challenge to encourage sustainable conservation.

Billy Kuartei says Guam, Commonwealth of Northern Marianas and the Federated States of Micronesia have already signed up.

And he says the President of the Marshall Islands, Kessai Note, is about to sign.

"There's a lot of talk about meaningful conservation and so on and I think it is good and we don't have that big of a landmass and forests and for us to say yes we want development but we also want to set aside various initiatives under the national government urging for us to protect our area networks."

Billy Kuartei says the declaration of commitment will be tabled by the Palau president at a meeting in Brazil next week.