About PACON

Mission Statement

PACON International is dedicated to sharing scientific and technical information on the world’s oceans and coastal regions to advance marine science and technology and its utilization in ocean policy formation, and the sustainable development of the world’s oceans, through education and public programs.

Goals

• To strengthen the global exchange of information and collaborative research linkages with Pacific nations’ programs in marine environment

• To provide information freely to all participating nations

• To promote the environmentally-sound utilization and sustainable development of the ocean’s resources

• To emphasize through education and public programs, the need for sound ocean policies

• To advance the various disciplines involved in marine science and technology

Who We Are

PACON International serves the Pacific region, which includes some of the fastest growing economies in the world, augmenting countries already advanced and enhancing those which are rapidly developing. The region also includes the greatest ocean area of the planet with considerable marine resources upon which countries in the region rely and over which trade is conducted. Just including the 21 countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the region accounts for $35 trillion (57% of the world’s economy). It also harbors some of the greatest natural risks from volcanism, earthquakes, and tsunamis in the world. In addition key political hotspots and Pacific islands are at risk from sea level rise resulting from global warming.

Why PACON?

The intense commerce and rapid development in the region, in the face of unprecedented environmental change, demand innovative scientific and technological approaches to the challenges posed by such changes. Facilitating such activities must be effective mechanisms for information exchange among diverse groups from government, industry, and academia. This balanced approach is vital to the identification and solution of the many problems, as well as the promotion of opportunities arising from these activities.

How Do We Work?

For over 20 years, PACON has held international conferences within the Pacific region for broad audiences of policy-makers, educators, scientists, engineers, academics, and businessmen, covering a range of topics from coastal engineering to biotechnology, sea-floor mapping to educational methods, environmental rehabilitation to aquaculture, and shipping to remote sensing.

In the future PACON intends to continue and refine this approach by having special conference sessions focus on problems of general significance with speakers from different backgrounds summarizing new development and approaches to those issues, and by providing conference delegates with access to that combined expertise in workshops and discussion sessions. These conferences will continue to be held in different parts of the region, not only allowing a focus of particular issues important to that region, but also with implications for the region as a whole (e.g. the Spratley Islands)