Fiji’s leader has hit out at his Australian counterpart, questioning their personal relationship following the Pacific Island Forum.
Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama has launched a scathing attack on Scott Morrison and his deputy prime minister over their attitude towards their Pacific island neighbours.
But the Australian prime minister insists his government still has a deep commitment to its regional neighbours after a tetchy week at the Pacific Island Forum which tried to turn the heat on Australia over climate change.
In an interview with Guardian Australia on Saturday, Mr Bainimarama accused Mr Morrison of being “very insulting and condescending” during a leaders retreat.READ MORE
“I thought Morrison was a good friend of mine, apparently not,” he said.
Asked if Mr Morrison’s approach might cause some Pacific leaders to look to China, Mr Bainimarama said: “After what we went through with Morrison, nothing can be worse than him.”
“China never insults the Pacific.”
Labor’s climate change spokesman Mark Butler weighed in saying the long-standing relationship with Pacific countries has been damaged by Mr Morrison’s heavy-handedness.
When combatting climate change, it’s good to have an ally like New Zealand in your corner. Together, we can save Tuvalu, the Pacific, and the world. Vinaka vakalevu for the passion you bring to this fight, @jacindaardern.
“It just adds insult to injury to have the deputy prime minister of the country then say if you lose your home through sea level rise you’ll be fine because you’ll be able to access some job opportunities in Australia.”
Pacific island leaders used the forum to urge Australia to lift its game on climate change to protect low-lying countries like Tuvalu by curbing fossil fuel emissions.
Nationals Leader Michael McCormack, who was acting prime minister while Mr Morrison was attending the forum in Tuvalu this week, said on Friday he gets annoyed when Pacific countries point their finger at Australia and say it should be shutting down its resources sector.
“They’ll continue to survive because many of their workers come here and pick our fruit, pick our fruit grown with hard Australian enterprise and endeavour and we welcome them and we always will,” Mr McCormack is reported as saying.
Mr Bainimarama said the comments were insulting and disrespectful.
“But I get the impression that that’s the sentiment brought across by the prime minister,” he said.
Labor frontbencher Jason Clare also had a crack at Mr McCormack, saying it’s hard to have credibility in this debate when emissions are going up and members of the government are cracking jokes.READ MORE
Back on home soil in Adelaide on Saturday, Mr Morrison said Australia has the deepest engagement and biggest commitment in the world to the Pacific,
“We’re there for the difficult conversations, we’re there for every type of conversation with our Pacific family, just like any family that comes around the table,” he told reporters after addressing a South Australian Liberals conference.
“We will always be there and regardless of whatever issues we have to work through at the time.”
Even so, Pacific island leaders are taking their call for action on climate change to the United Nations at a climate meeting in New York in September.
This week’s forum ended with a statement calling on major economies to “rapidly implement their commitment to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.
Many of the forum members wanted to single out coal-fired power for its impact on the climate, but the language was rejected in the final document.SOURCE AAP – SBS
The Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Tuvalu this week has ended in open division over climate change. Australia ensured its official communique watered down commitments to respond to climate change, gaining a hollow victory.
Traditionally, communiques capture the consensus reached at the meeting. In this case, the division on display between Australia and the Pacific meant the only commitment is to commission yet another report into what action needs to be taken.
The cost of Australia’s victory is likely to be great, as it questions the sincerity of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s commitment to “step up” engagement in the Pacific.
Australia’s stance on climate change has become untenable in the Pacific. The inability to meet Pacific Island expectations will erode Australia’s influence and leadership credentialsin the region, and provide opportunities for other countries to grow influence in the region.
An unprecedented show of dissent
When Morrison arrived in Tuvalu, he was met with an uncompromising mood. In fact, the text of an official communique was only finished after 12 hours of pointed negotiations.
While the “need for urgent, immediate actions on the threats and challenges of climate change”, is acknowledged, the Pacific was looking for action, not words.
Morrison was met with an uncompromising mood in by leaders in Tuvalu. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
What’s more, the document reaffirmed that “strong political leadership to advance climate change action” was needed, but leadership from Australia was sorely missing. It led Tuvaluan Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga to note:
I think we can say we should’ve done more work for our people.
Presumably, he would have hoped Australia could be convinced to take more climate action.
In an unprecedented show of dissent, smaller Pacific Island countries produced the alternative Kainaki II Declaration. It captures the mood of the Pacific in relation to the existential threat posed by climate change, and the need to act decisively now to ensure their survival.
And it details the commitments needed to effectively address the threat of climate change. It’s clear nothing short of transformational change is needed to ensure their survival, and there is rising frustration in Australia’s repeated delays to take effective action.
Australia hasn’t endorsed the alternative declaration and Canberra has signalled once and for all that compromise on climate change is not possible. This is not what Pacific leaders hoped for and will come at a diplomatic cost to Australia.
Conflict had already begun brewing in the lead up to the Pacific Islands Forum. The Pacific Islands Development Forum – the brainchild of the Fijian government, which sought a forum to engage with Pacific Island Nations without the influence of Australia and New Zealand – released the the Nadi Bay Declaration in July this year.
This declaration called on coal producing countries like Australia to cease all production within a decade.
But it’s clear Canberra believes compromise of this sort on climate change would undermine Australia’s economic growth and this is the key stumbling block to Australia answering its Pacific critics with action.
As Sopoaga said to Morrison:
You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia […] I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu.
And a day before the meeting, Canberra announced half a billion dollars to tackle climate change in the region. But it received a lukewarm reception from the Pacific.
The message is clear: Canberra cannot buy off the Pacific. In part, this is because Pacific Island countries have new options, especially from China, which has offered Pacific island countries concessional loans.
As tension built at the Pacific Island Forum meeting, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters argued there was a double standard with respect to the treatment of China on climate change.
China is the world’s largest emitter of climate change gasses, but if there is a double standard it’s of Australia’s making.
Australia purports to be part of the Pacific family that can speak and act to protect the interests of Pacific Island countries in the face of China’s “insidious” attempts to gain influence through “debt trap” diplomacy. This is where unsustainable loans are offered with the aim of gaining political advantage.
But countering Chinese influence in the Pacific is Australia’s prime security interest, and is a secondary issue for the Pacific.
But unlike Australia, China has never claimed the moral high ground and provides an attractive alternative partner, so it will likely gain ground in the battle for influence in the Pacific.
Growing confidence among Pacific leaders has changed diplomatic dynamics forever. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
For the Pacific Island Forum itself, open dissent is a very un-Pacific outcome. Open dissent highlights the strains in the region’s premier intergovernmental organisation.
Australia and (to a lesser extent) New Zealand’s dominance has often been a source of criticism, but growing confidence among Pacific leaders has changed diplomatic dynamics forever.
This new pacific diplomacy has led Pacific leaders to more steadfastly identify their security interests. And for them, the need to respond to climate change is non-negotiable.
If winning the geopolitical contest with China in Pacific is Canberra’s priority, then far greater creativity will be needed as meeting the Pacific half way on climate change is a prerequisite for success.
There is still anger in Solomon Islands over Blackbirding, an academic says.
About 60,000 Pacific Islanders were taken from their mainly Melanesian homelands to Australia in the 1800s to work on plantations. Photo: State Library of Queensland
David Gegeo, the director of research at Solomon Islands National University, said thousands of Solomon Islanders were kidnapped and later contracted to work in Australia in the 1800s, a practice known as Blackbirding.
Its legacy includes intergenerational anger that could be relieved, if the complete history of the practise were taught in schools, Dr Gegeo said.
“There was grieving over people leaving but also there was anger when people were taken. People still talk about those stories with a certain degree of pain, anger and frustration,” he said.
“‘What did we do to deserve this? We were taken away to develop someone elses country, economy’. Yes, there is still some anger.”
From listening to oral histories, Dr Gegeo said Blackbirding had disrupted social fabric in Solomon’s villagers and caused disputes.
“For example, Fiu harbour on Malaita where I come from, after young men were taken, a chief, or what we call in Kwara’ae a fata’abu, would curse the harbour because people were kidnapped from the harbour. Anybody who was seen in the harbour, even just walking along the beach would be killed. And there were bounties,” he said.
David Gegeo Photo: Solomon Islands National University
“Another impact: two friends went to the beach and one of them was taken away. The parents, or the tribal group of the kid that was taken away, would be angry and would demand compensation from his people, saying ‘it was your son who took my son to the beach that day and he was kidnapped. If it hadn’t been for his friendship with your son this would not have happened’. So sometimes compensation, killing took place because of it.”
“Also, the fact that young men who are supposed to be in the village and doing tribal responsibilities were taken away. It left a gap and women suddenly had to step into men’s roles because able bodied men were taken away.”
The school curriculum in the Solomons only focuses on the so-called benefits of Blackbirding, Dr Gegeo said, the result of history being “deemphasised” by the “colonial regime” as a means of modernising the country.
“It’s taught under Social Studies. The bit about Blackbirding is very highly selective in that it emphasised mostly what you might call the benefits of blackbirding,” he said.
“People coming back with guns and knives and axes, Solomons Pidgin and Chritianity but not the other side of it which is the suffering and the agony that Blackbirded Solomon Islanders went through.
“I believe in presenting a balanced picture of the phenomenon. Painful as it may be.”
Francis echoes growing body of international law and standards on the right to ‘prior and informed consent’
Pope Francis in Rome last week when he said indigenous peoples have the right to ‘prior and informed consent’ regarding their lands and territories. Photograph: AP
In the 15th century papal bulls promoted and provided legal justification for the conquest and theft of indigenous peoples’ lands and resources worldwide – the consequences of which are still being felt today. The right to conquest in one such bull, the Romanus Pontifex, issued in the 1450s when Nicholas V was the Pope, was granted in perpetuity.
How times have changed. Last week, over 560 years later, Francis, the first Pope from Latin America, struck a rather different note – for indigenous peoples around the world, for land rights, for better environmental stewardship. He said publicly that indigenous peoples have the right to “prior and informed consent.” In other words, nothing should happen on – or impact – their land, territories and resources unless they agree to it.
“I believe that the central issue is how to reconcile the right to development, both social and cultural, with the protection of the particular characteristics of indigenous peoples and their territories,” said Francis, according to an English version of his speech released by the Vatican’s press office.
“This is especially clear when planning economic activities which may interfere with indigenous cultures and their ancestral relationship to the earth,” Francis went on. “In this regard, the right to prior and informed consent should always prevail, as foreseen in Article 32 of the [UN] Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Only then is it possible to guarantee peaceful cooperation between governing authorities and indigenous peoples, overcoming confrontation and conflict.”
Francis was speaking to numerous indigenous representatives in Rome at the conclusion of the third Indigenous Peoples’ Forum held by the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development.
The UN’s Declaration – non-legally-binding – was adopted 10 years ago. Article 32 says
“states shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.”
Francis also told his audience “humanity is committing a grave sin in not caring for the earth”, and urged them to resist new technologies which “destroy the earth, which destroy the environment and the ecological balance, and which end up destroying the wisdom of peoples.” He called on governments to enable indigenous peoples to fully participate in developing “guidelines and projects”, both locally and nationally.
Various mainstream media including the BBC, The Independent and the Washington Post interpreted Francis’s speech as a comment, or an apparent comment, on the current Dakota Access Pipeline conflict in the US – almost as if that was the only conflict over indigenous peoples’ land they were aware of. But what about everyone and everywhere else? Such interpretations were swiftly rejected by a Vatican spokesperson, who was reported as saying “there’s no element in his words that would give us a clue to know if he was talking about any specific cases.”
So what do some of those who were with Francis that day think of his speech? How significant was it?
Myrna Cunningham, a Miskita activist from Nicaragua and former Chairperson of the UN’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, says the Pope was sending several main messages. These included the “need to reconcile the right to development with indigenous peoples’ spiritual and cultural specificities and territories”, and the importance of the UN Declaration and consent which was, she says, “in a way a response to indigenous demands.”
“I expected a strong message but his position exceeded my expectations,” Cunningham told the Guardian. “He is truly clear about the struggles of our people and an important voice to make our demands be heard.”
Elifuraha Laltaika, from the Association for Law and Advocacy for Pastoralists in Tanzania, says it was a “timely wake-up call to governments.”
“[His comments] come at time when, instead of scaling up, governments increasingly violate and look with suspicion at the minimum standards in the UN Declaration,” he told the Guardian. “Without heeding Pope Francis’s call, life would undoubtedly become more miserable for indigenous peoples than ever before. Greed towards extraction of hydrocarbons and minerals will open up additional fault-lines, heightening indigenous peoples’ poverty and inability to deal with impacts of climate change and a myriad of other challenges.”
For Alvaro Pop, a Maya Q’eqchi man from Guatemala, Francis’s remarks demonstrate his ongoing commitment to indigenous peoples’ rights.
“Indigenous peoples have been the guardians of their resources for centuries,” says Pop, another former Chairperson of the UN’s Permanent Forum. “Free, prior and informed consent is one of the most important issues of the 21st century. The Pope’s comments are truly significant.”
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a Kankanaey Igorot woman from the Philippines and now the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, says Francis’s comments illustrate his “understanding of the importance” of implementing the UN Declaration.
“His view that a bigger chance of overcoming confrontation and conflict between indigenous peoples and governing authorities can be achieved if prior and informed consent is respected echoes what many indigenous peoples have always stated,” Tauli-Corpuz told the Guardian.
Les Malezer, from Australia, describes it as “gratifying” that the Pope took such a “strong stance” on the need to respect indigenous peoples’ rights, and says he took the opportunity to raise with him the “Doctrine of Discovery” – the international legal concept grounded in the 15th century papal bulls.
“Each person in our audience had the opportunity to say a very few words to the Pope as he came around the room,” Malezer, from Queensland, told the Guardian. “I asked the Pope to continue to review the Doctrine of Discovery which was followed by many instances of genocide of indigenous peoples and the taking of their lands. Also I requested the Catholic Church seek to raise awareness worldwide of the situation and rights of indigenous peoples.”
In asserting indigenous peoples’ right to consent, Francis was echoing – and giving sustenance to – a growing body of international law and jurisprudence binding on governments, and guidelines, principles or operating procedures adopted by some financial institutions, UN agencies and private sector groups. According to a 2013 report by UN-REDD on the international legal basis for what is known as “FPIC” – free, prior and informed consent – “More than 200 States have ratified numerous international and regional treaties and covenants that expressly provide for, or are now interpreted to recognise, a State duty and obligation to obtain FPIC where the circumstances so warrant.”
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Pacific leaders have declared a climate crisis in the region and are demanding an end to coal mining.
The declaration was signed by several regional leaders at the Pacific Islands Development Forum in Fiji on Tuesday.
The declaration expresses grave concerns about the impacts the climate crisis will have on the Pacific.
In it, the Pacific Islands Development Forum called on governments of countries with high carbon emissions to stop hindering climate change efforts.
It also demands all coal producers immediately stop any new coal mining and phase out all existing production over the next 10 years.
The declaration asked the development forum’s 14-member states to immediately end subsidies on fossil fuel production.
Echoing 2018’s Boe Declaration from the Pacific Islands Forum, Tuesday’s declaration affirmed “that climate change poses the single greatest threat to the human rights and security of present and future generations of Pacific Island peoples”.
The move was welcomed by environmental non-profit 350.org, with founder Bill McKibben calling it a “very powerful manifesto”.
“The election, in the Pacific, of the government of Australia that continues to want to expand coal mines is a slap in the face to everyone else in that region and in the world,” he said in a videoed statement.
Bainimarama calls for concrete commitments to cut emissions
Meanwhile, Fiji’s prime minister said Pacific leaders should accept nothing less than concrete commitments to cut emissions at next month’s Pacific Islands Forum Summit.
Frank Bainimarama will be attending his first summit since 2008.
Fiji was suspended in 2009 in the wake of the 2006 coup and the abrogation of the then-constitution.
Mr Bainimarama had said he would stay away until New Zealand and Australia were no longer full Forum members.
In a speech at the Pacific Islands Development Forum – which was set up by Fiji after its suspension – Mr Bainimarama said the region cannot accept any watered-down commitments.
At last year’s forum, Australia was exposed as having attempted to water down a resolution that declared climate change the region’s greatest security threat.
Mr Bainimarama said the region needs greater commitments from the region’s bigger neighbours, hinting at Australia and New Zealand.
“Fiji and the Marshall Islands have already announced our intention to revise our own nationally determined contributions, and I urge this … membership to do the same and demand the same from the more developed economies, including and especially our large neighbours in the Pacific.
“We should accept anything less than concrete commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions in line with the most ambitious aspirations of the Paris Agreement. We cannot allow climate commitments to be watered down at a meeting hosted in a nation whose very existence is threatened by the rising waters lapping at its shores.”
The intensifying pressure on the ocean is a challenge for Pacific Islanders, so it is vital that ‘climate issues’ are prioritised.
Under the topic ‘healthy oceans’ the biggest fear remains unseen as the ocean ecosystem and communities are being threatened.
“Certainly, the oceans are in trouble, for many years now they’ve been looking after us,” says Mr. Kininmonth, Head of Marine Studies at USP.
“They’ve absorb a lot of excess from climate change, they’ve absorb large amount of pollution and yet we’ve taken many fishes as we possibly can as if there’s no tomorrow.
“We continue to treat the ocean in a way which is lacking respect and the oceans are now showing signs of really being in a large quiet amount of trouble.”
Women face unprecedented crises given the role they play to gather food especially those within the coastal.
“When we talk about climate crises, issues such as what is happening with our ocean, the catastrophe of this nature exacerbates in social inequalities,” says Zakiyyah Ali, member of Project Survival Pacific.
Healthy oceans are vital to the prosperity of Pacific communities and the global ecosystem, yet are facing an unprecedented crisis with issues of over-fishing, marine pollution and coastal erosion exacerbated by climate change.
Maureen Penjueli, from Pacific Network on Globalization (PNG) highlighted activities of seabed mining in Papua New Guinea (PNG) as destruction to their lifeline.
The message on healthy ocean will likely be heard at the United Nations this year when Mr. Justin Hunter attends to present at the Blue Pledge climate week.
The topic ‘Healthy Oceans’ was the first of its kind co-hosted by the University of the South Pacific (USP), the World Bank and its sister organization the International Finance Corporation, Future Pasifika.
Papua New Guinea’s prime minister says Australia and New Zealand must join his country in protecting Pacific islands from climate change impacts.
Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape and wife Rachael (front) visit Australian ship-building company Austal in Perth, 23 July 2019 Photo: PNG PM Media
Papua New Guinea’s prime minister says Australia and New Zealand must join his country in protecting Pacific islands from climate change impacts.
James Marape has returned home after his first official visit to Australia, a six day-visit in which he met a range of officials from the prime minister to state governments.
Mr Marape told the Guardian that Australia had a moral responsibility to the upkeep of the planet, particularly given the extreme effects climate change is having on smaller Pacific nations.
He said the voices of smaller island nations must be listened to.
According to Mr Marape, Australia, New Zealand and PNG must shoulder some responsibility for the displacement of communities from the smaller regional countries caused by climate change.
He said he believed the bigger regional countries should lead the Pacific as a “bloc” of nations reconfiguring their economies to handle resource productions in a more environmentally and socially sensitive way.
New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS has questioned the role of the president Thierry Santa on the commission tasked with saving the SLN nickel plant.
SLN’s ongoing losses have fuelled concern about the company’s viability and prompted the formation of a commission to rescue it.
In a statement, the FLNKS has queried if Mr Santa is there as a representative of the executive or as a politician of the anti-independence Future with Confidence coalition.
The FLNKS contends that there shouldn’t be a mixture because as president he is bound to represent the collegial government which includes ministers from the rival camps.
According to the portfolio distribution, Mr Santa is in charge of mining.
SLN’s parent company this week decided against invoking bankruptcy protections amid hopes that SLN can secure a cheaper electricity supply in order to return to profitability.
Fiji has embarked on positive initiatives by championing the way forward for collaborations to reduce greenhouse gas from ships.
This was highlighted by the Minister for Transport Jone Usamate at the welcoming ceremony of the Secretary-General for the International Maritime Organization Kitack Lim at the Fiji Maritime Academy in Suva yesterday.
Usamate says the Government has introduced a number of national policies and strategies to address the issue of greenhouse gas.
He adds Fiji’s Presidency of the COP23 has also been significant for the Pacific in driving the plans for a low carbon maritime transport sector.
The Minister says similar strategies has been taken by the IMO in the adoption of its greenhouse gas emissions from ships and setting out a vision to phase out emissions from shipping in this century.
Secretary-General for the IMO Kitack Lim says the main threat to the Pacific is climate change.
Lim adds that after high level collaborations, the IMO adopted a first comprehensive and initial strategy on how to tackle climate change issues, which began in April last year.
Now they’re working on what kind of action plan should be taken on the initial strategies.
Tony Yao used to fish in his outrigger canoe in the coastal waters off Tahiti in French Polynesia. But the decline in fish populations has forced his family to move in order to find less exploited fishing grounds.
His is just one story from the South Pacific that hints at a paradise being lost. The coral and volcanic archipelagos scattered across this massive expanse of ocean face a number of threats, but climate change and overfishing are arguably the most serious. In the past decade, many small-scale fishers have done the same as Tony Yao or abandoned their traditional livelihoods altogether.
Figures from the World Bank show that nearly one-third of global fish populations are overexploited. This has been driven by the rising demand for seafood across the world, but especially in China. Dwindling catches in China’s coastal waters have seen the country’s distant-water fishing fleet travel to the farthest reaches of the Pacific. There they are targeting tuna, the region’s highest-prized species.
Source: Congressional Record Service
The Pacific tuna fishing grounds are the largest in the world, contributing more than 60% of the global tuna catch. According to the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), almost all tuna in the region are caught in one of two ways. Those to be sold in cans are mainly caught by purse seine fishing boats targeting skipjack tuna. While longline vessels catch bigeye and yellowfin destined for high-value sashimi markets.
It’s a lucrative industry where a single tuna can net US$3 million. The fees paid by foreign vessels have also become a significant source of revenue for national governments. According to a Food and Agriculture Organization study completed in 2014, South Pacific island countries received just over US$340 million in fishing licence fees that year. At the same time, tuna remains a vital source of food and employment for local people, and many are unhappy about the increasing presence of Chinese fishing vessels.
In French Polynesia, there’s been a wave of online protests and petitionsto ban Chinese tuna fishing this year. Many accuse the Chinese of fishing illegally. There is no evidence for this and the Chinese deny it. However, they are buying up the biggest share of fishing licences, which is leaving competing fishers with less.
The Western & Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) oversees an international convention that aims to ensure rules are fair for all foreign nations operating in exclusive economic zones (EEZs) – up to 200 nautical miles off shore – of the Pacific nations as well as in the high seas (international waters) area between latitude 20N to 20S. The latest WCPFC figures show that 3,239,704 metric tonnes of tuna were caught across the Pacific in 2017. Of that, 78% (nearly 2,539,950 metric tonnes) came from the area managed by the commission.
But much of the fishing for tuna takes place in the high seas, which is largely unregulated. Despite WCPFC efforts, the management of shared stocks of highly migratory species, like tuna, often fails. The presence of extensive areas of international waters among the EEZs complicates the region’s fishery management efforts. It is here that China dominates, with more than 600 vessels out of a total of 1,300 foreign-operated ships. Their fleet is enabled by government subsidies on fuel and shipbuilding, which assist new enterprises and allow others to keep operating.
James Movick, director general of the FFA, claims that management of the high seas is the biggest single threat to the sustainability of the Pacific tuna fisheries. “When fishing in our 200-mile EEZs, they are subject to regulation and a robust fishery management regime. Outside, it is pretty much a free-for-all, and tuna do not recognise the boundaries of our EEZs,” he said.
A lack of data transparency and public reporting on fisheries compounds the problem. The Pacific Islands Tuna Industry Association in Fiji maintains a registry of all fishing vessels licensed to fish in the region. John Maefiti, an executive officer with the association, indicates that there are 627 Chinese fishing vessels registered, and the majority are longliners. But he adds: “There are some Chinese-owned vessels that fly Pacific islands flags.”
Cecile Matai, responsible for offshore, coastal and lagoon fishing licence applications in Papeete, the Tahitian capital of French Polynesia, claims: “No Chinese ship has a fishing licence, but there are Chinese ships in our ports for refuelling and obtaining supplies, or with mechanical problems which are being repaired.”
A compounded crisis
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), climate change is compounding food security issues in the Pacific islands, with harvests from fisheries expected to fall between 10-30% by 2050. Rising water temperatures, lower levels of oxygen and shifting ocean currents are already having a profound impact on the four main tuna species, as well as more generally on fish habitats, food webs, fish populations and the productivity of fisheries.
Climate change is also leading to more extreme weather in the South Pacific. The 2015-2016 tropical cyclone season was one of the most disastrous on record. Cyclone Winston, which smashed into Fiji in February 2016, was the strongest ever to make landfall in the southern hemisphere. As sea surface temperatures become warmer, hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones become more powerful.
Rising sea levels are another major issue for the region’s islands. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts global sea levels could climb by as much as 83 centimetres by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions remain high. The levels are creeping up even faster in the Pacific, where at least eight low-lying islands have been submerged in recent years.
Marine scientists are now finding links between ocean acidification and a decline in tuna populations. A new study in the journal Scienceoutlines the impacts warming waters have on commercially important fish species. Changes in the ocean temperature are affecting fragile ecosystem food webs. “While tuna spend their time in open water, tuna species as well as tuna fisheries depend on healthy coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs” claims UN Environment coral expert, Jerker Tamelander.
Over the sweep of a rich history in the South Pacific, Tony Yao and his ancestors have maintained a deep connection to the marine environment. After all, the ocean has always been the provider of life itself. Having met extraordinary challenges during their evolution, island cultures are now experiencing ones they could not have imagined, including unprecedented sea levels, storm surges from tropical cyclones, ocean warming, acidification, disappearing coral reefs, and competition from registered and unregistered fishing vessels.
