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Pacific Islands regional meeting to focus on oceans, climate, resource management

Pacific leaders are arriving in Samoa's capital, Apia, for the annual Pacific Islands Forum. This year's gathering of Pacific leaders comes as the Australian Government pledges to renew its engagement with the region. [Photo: Supplied]

Leaders from around the region will attempt to form a collective voice on such varied topics as climate change, illegal fishing and labour mobility as they gather in Samoa's capital Apia for the annual Pacific Islands Forum.

The official theme of this year's forum is The Blue Pacific: Our Sea of Islands, Our Security through Sustainable Development, Management and Conservation.

In an address to journalists ahead of the forum, Samoa's Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said the theme provided a new narrative for how the forum engaged with the world with a unified voice.

"By the sheer fact of our geography, such as trends associated with shifts in the centres of global power, this places the Pacific at the centre of contemporary global geopolitics," he said.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is due to arrive in Apia later this week ahead of the main event, the leaders' retreat, on Friday.

This year's gathering comes as the Australian Government pledges to renew its engagement with the region.

Read more at ABC Net Au