The New Zealand Government has pledged $40,000 towards saving one of the Pacific's iconic treasures - the giant clam.
Once a fairly common sight in the waters of the Micronesian nation of Palau, the clam has been devastated by over-harvesting and poaching.
The giant tridacana clams regularly grow more than 1.2m inlength, weigh more than 230kg and live for more than 100 years.
Palauans have long eaten the meat of the clams, sold the shells to tourists and ground smaller shells to chew with the betel nut. In recent years poachers have destroyed the population.
They usually only take the adductor muscle, which is valued as an aphrodisiac in Asia, and leave the rest to rot.
Foreign Minister Phil Goff said the New Zealand Aid project would pay for young clam stock and the fencing of nursery areas.
It would also help cover the cost of distributing the young shellfish to clam farms throughout Palau.
The fall of the giant clam is not the only time Palau's environment has suffered, due to its close economic and geographical ties with Asian countries.
About 850km east of the Philippines, with a population of nearly 20,000, Palau has recently passed an anti-shark fishing law.
Fishers have targeted them for Southeast Asian markets where the expensive dish of shark fin soup is popular.
Like the giant clam, many of the sharks are just stripped of the one valued part of their body and the rest is left behind.
In January the Palau Government showed it was serious about enforcing the new law when President Tommy Remengesau set alight $270,000 of shark fins seized from a Taiwanese trawler.
Mr Goff, who travelled to Palau, said the locals were thankful for New Zealand's stand on many environmental issues and, in particular, global warming.
Palau's Vice-President, Sandra Pierantozzi, said that the effects of global warming on the waters and coastline of the nation's 300-plus islands had become noticeable in recent years.
Ms Pierantozzi said any rise in the level of the ocean would be devastating and all countries should realise that Pacific nations that had contributed nothing to global warming would be those that suffered the most.
