SUVA, FIJI 13-17 FEBRUARY 1998

The ideal participant is one who is in a position to contribute to the further development of GOOS in the South Pacific region and who understands the needs and requirements for development within the region. This workshop will seek to build awareness about the GOOS program which needs to be passed on to other South Pacific leaders who can decide their interest in becoming involved. The implications extend beyond national interests as GOOS is an international program with associated principles and obligations, such as data and information sharing. Participants might include national agency heads, regional organization directors and managers, ministers and high government officials, representatives of the user community such as the managers of fishing fleets or shipping companies.

The primary result of the workshop will be a GOOS Framework Plan for the South Pacific Region,which will identify the next steps that will be required if the region decides to move forward in the development of GOOS.

At the conclusion of the workshop this plan will have no status or endorsement of governments, it will only represent the result of several days thinking by people knowledgeable and interested in the potential of a cooperative regional approach in ocean observation for operational purposes.

Further advancement of the plan will be left to the leaders of the region to decide.

GOOS activities are not necessarily new and the South Pacific region is already involved in many activities that would be defined as "GOOS".

Regional organizations and individual countries and institutes are presently undertaking monitoring, collecting data and information and providing products to users. By organizing these activities under the GOOS umbrella they become collectively beneficial to a larger number of users in the region and world wide. The workshop will show how this is possible.