The 2019 Pacific Environmental Security Forum (PESF) is scheduled for 21-24 May 2019 in Wellington, New Zealand. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will co-sponsor the event, supported by New Zealand’s Ministry of Defence. The forum brings government, military and civilian representatives together from across the Asia-Pacific region. The 2019 PESF theme is "Building Resilience in the Pacific," and topics such as climate change and security, climate migration, bio-security, resource protection, regional environmental security solutions, and environmental security transformation will be discussed.
On the final day of the PESF, event organizers will announce the evolution of the PESF from an event-based initiative into a network, or structured community of practitioners named the Pacific Environmental Security Partnership (PESP). The non-binding network of environmental security partners will, similar to the Planetary Security Initiative, focus on direct integration of civil and military partners under the common cause of environmental security. While the PESF will remain the capstone event, the Partnership will seek to regularize more frequent engagement, education, and policy collaboration among environmental security practitioners to give effect to PESF working streams.
The PESP's strengths are among others:
- A unique access to knowledge, networks, and subject matter;
- The established Pacific Environmental Security Forum;
- Coordinated environmental security projects;
- Bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral civil-military environmental security meetings;
- A regional environmental security web site;
- Seeks to complement existing regional architecture