Samoa - A carbon-neutral holiday destination by 2008?

Well, all the world's leaders are in Bali discussing Global Climate Change impacts.

At the same time, discerning travellers are stating home or taking short flights only in order to avois all their carbon-emissions from their jet exhausts.

Well, Samoa, a small beautiful island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with 300 volcanic cones, 300 villages, 300 lava tube caves, 300 waterfalls, 300 cultural activities and 6000 foot mountains, boasts an already (unofficial carbon neutral status).

Samoa has a new Greenhouse Gas Abatement Strategy (Dec 2007), it has just updated its second Greenhouse Gas Inventory (Dec 2007), but excluded jet emissions like the rest of the world (HELLO).

Anyway, with our G-PAS funding, we're going to try and correct all the negative impacts from Climate Change - with your help as visitors - just fill our planes to capacity, this way NOT adding to the jet emissions, well, not much anyway.

Secondly, we want a limit on the number of visitors to our islands, well, at least until Global Climate Change has been arrested.

And Samoa needs more trees - we just got 3 new National Parks approved by Government and 2 more lined-up. We are going to showcase SAMOA to the world, so come visit our National Parks, Marine Protected Areas, Village Fish Reserves, Community Conservation Areas, etc. and see the rarest bird in the world - the Punae or Samoan Moorhen - you'll need to climb to 6000 feet deep into the rainforests of Savaii Island (and you'll see another endemic bird species, the Samoan White-Eye, found only on one island in the world - Savaii Island), travel with a guide (Mose) who is dressed in barefeet, just a can of fish, no water, no tent, bo warm clothing against the early morning frosts - yes, here in the tropics - and stories that will keep you awake all night.

Samoa, just like Costa Rica, has forest cover increasing (but due to invasive tree species like Tamaligi – but we don’t need to tell the tourists that), and plans to repair our indigenous forests harmed by previous international commercial logging - now banned thanks to our progressive Government.

Costa Rica set 2021 to become a carbon neutral holiday destination, but Samoa plans to do it by 2010 - easy, we may already be carbon-neutral, but we need to do our GHG inventory research and add all jet emissions out-of Samoa (our national share).

The following article is excellent: 5:00AM Friday December 07, 2007

Climate Change

* Fran O'Sullivan: Sustainability dissent heats up
* Greenpeace in Bali

Costa Rica, a leader in eco-tourism and home to some of the world's rarest species, planted its 5 millionth tree of 2007 this week as it tries to put a brake on global warming.

President Oscar Arias shoveled dirt onto the roots of an oak tree planted in the grounds of his offices, reaching the milestone in the Central American nation's efforts to ward off what some experts say are the first signs of climate change.

By the end of the year, Costa Rica will have planted nearly 6.5 million trees, which should absorb 111,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, Environment Minister Roberto Dobles said.

(Samoa plans to plant a million trees over the next 10 years to help absorb 20,000 tonnes of carbon - either plantation forests or natural regeneration)

The country aims to plant 7 million trees in 2008 as part of the newly launched programme.

Along with other green-minded nations such as Norway and New Zealand, Costa Rica is aiming to reduce its net carbon emissions to zero, and has set a target date of 2021.

(2000 and when???????????)

"I don't know if we will end up being carbon neutral in 2021 as we have proposed, but the important thing is the audacity of the goal and the work we have to do," President Arias said.


Advertisement for Costa Rica (and SAMOA)


Costa Rica is a magnet for ecology-minded tourists who visit the lush national parks and reserves that cover more than a quarter of the country and are home to almost 5 per cent of the world's plant and animal species including exotic birds and frogs.

SAMOA HAS 10 ENDEMIC BIRDS, ENDEMIC ORCHIDS, EVEN AN ENDEMIC PLANT GENUS – AND OVER 20 FLORA AND FAUNA ALREADY ON THE IUCN ENDANGERED RED LIST. SAMOA needs to act now. Can you help?


Over the past 20 years, forest cover in Costa Rica has grown from 26 per cent of the national territory to 51 per cent, though environmentalists complain that loggers continue to cut down old trees and that the national park system is underfunded.

SAMOA’S forest cover has increased since 1997 from about55% to 65%, but we need more data, more payments for these ecological services and more tree-planting thanks to G-PAS.

Costa Rican authorities have blamed the loss of more than a dozen amphibian species, including the shiny yellow "golden toad", on higher temperatures caused by global warming.

Just listen to Pacific Island Countries raising their concerns in Bali this week – WHO CARES ABOUT PACIFIC ISLANDERS?


Experts also say climate change is behind a spike in mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever. The number of dengue fever cases so far this year in Costa Rica's high-altitude central valley stands at 3487 cases - 86 per cent higher than in 2006.


(Thanks to G-PAS funding for 2008-2010, SAMOA will be able to help address many of these issues, and hopefully reverse the trends in SAMOA and other South Pacific Island Countries. SAMOA needs to act NOW, and thanks to GEF, we are finally getting the political clout we need to address some major issues affecting our sustainable livelihoods here in the Pacific. Now we need your support, as discerning travellers, take short trips only, even if it means Americans and Europeans are no longer being encouraged to visit the far-away South Pacific. Samoa is better-off marketing only to New Zealand and Australia (assuming Australia signs the Kyoto Protocol), attracting visitors from other carbon-neutral countries).

GOOD IDEA? Take advantage of Samoa's infamous 7-Island 10-Day Ecotours at $USD500 and $USD1000 per day per person fully inclusive, living in cute boutique village beach resorts with the locals or pampered in air-conditioned hotels along the way, respectively. Ecotourism can be a fantastic environmental management tool so test your travel ethics on this one. Doing ecotourism in a carbon-neutral holiday destination makes sense.