The critical components of the dynamic relationship between people and reefs can be captured as four spheres; 'People and Livelihoods', 'Natural Systems', 'Institutions and Governance' and 'External Threats and Opportunities', as depicted above. These sectors have often, in the past, been considered in isolation. There is a growing awareness that effective and sustainable management of people - reef systems requires active consideration of the components within all spheres as well as interactions between spheres.

In the ReefBase Pacific Database users can interact with these spheres. The interactive diagram of Spheres allows the user to locate information that falls within a certain sphere or information that relates to more than one of these spheres.

The ReefBase Pacific team requested a number of respected scientists from the region to explore these interactions and relationships in the Pacific context. Provided below are the current contributions to this initiative; 'People and Reefs in the Pacific'.