Alii everyone, I am Kliu from Palau. I am excited to participate in the PacWastePlus and GEF ISLANDS Study Tour to learn more about these systems. Here in Palau, we are looking at developing a national permitting and registration system for chemicals and hazardous substances. We are also in the final planning stages for a desk audit of all chemicals and hazardous wastes that are currently on island.

The things I am most looking forward to learn are how have similar communities/states to Palau been able to establish their own national permitting and registration systems for chemicals and hazardous materials. Taking into consideration that we are a nation of roughly 20,000 people, with a desire to participate in global activities but also keep environmental protection in balance, with limited resources, limited technical expertise, little to no financing for new efforts of change and more importantly remote to most access. What kind of challenges or pushback did you receive from your communities, from your local government, from the national government? How can we also expand the current CDS scheme so that more people can have a wider range of recyclables? What can we use (method) to take inventory of needed actions, movers-shakers and policies/legislation to help assist in identifying gaps in the system(s) and how to move forward? With current schemes in place how are taxes and fees allocated? What kinds of discussions or tools could we access to assist in developing fair and equitable distribution of these? To include a monitoring and evaluation tool for sustainability and applicability of current and introduction of new chemicals and hazardous materials.