The nations and island territories which make up the region of the Pacific have neither individually nor collectively much importance as far as global aquaculture production is concerned. For the most part aquaculture production data, like that of other commodities, are included and lost in the regional association 'Asia and the Pacific'.
In spite of its anonymity, compared with that of its important status in neighbouring Asia, aquaculture in the Pacific region is not without some tradition. The ancient Polynesians had considerable understanding of the natural history of useful marine food fishes which enabled them to practise a simple form of husbandry and management in coastal ponds they constructed within the coral reefs. Furthermore, the ownership of fish ponds and fish was an important symbol of chieftainship. Few of these ancient fish ponds remain in production, and in recent years the islanders have applied modern practices onshore.
The Pacific Region which forms this survey is 'made up of the Pacific Islands and the countries of Australasia.
Considerable geopolitical changes have occurred among the Pacific Islands within the last two decades. Predominantly, reference to the Pacific Islands infers the islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, and excludes islands which are integral parts of other nations, for example, Hawaii. The independent island nations are the Federated States of Micronesia (Kosrae, Pohnpei, Truk, Yap), Fiji, the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Nauru, the Republic of Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, the Kingdom of Tonga, Tuvalu, the Republic of Vanuatu, and Western Samoa.
American Samoa and Guam are territories of the USA, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is a commonwealth of the USA.
The Cook Islands and Niue are free associations with New Zealand, and Tokelau is a non self-governing territory under New Zealand.
French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna are all territories of France.
The countries of Australasia which complete the regional survey are Australia and New Zealand.
The economic and natural resources of these nations and territories for aquaculture vary enormously. At the extremes there are the rich land mass and coastal resources of continental Australia, and the one-island nation of Nauru of 21 km2. The rest, for the most part, are nations made up of (often) many hundreds of small islands, most of which are atolls, with small populations and distributed over vast distances which makes inter-island transportation costly. Furthermore, the need for aquaculture production for food for island communities is not always important. Although many island populations are under-nourished, the majority have adequate resources of animal protein in the way of natural resources of marine fish and shellfish.
