SAIPAN – The mayor of the Northern Marianas Northern Islands region, Jerome Aldan, said the US military should take into account indigenous and cultural factors in its plan to set up a live-fire range on the volcanic island of Pagan.

“You know, they ignore the fact that it is inhabited,” Aldan said, in a recent radio interview with Radio New Zealand.

Aldan said while Pagan’s original inhabitants were evacuated due to volcanic eruptions in 1981, they are hoping to return there soon.

He said the military has been insisting at every briefing and conference, and in documents as well, that the island is uninhabited.

“But that’s not really true. We are from here and we know what’s going on in our island,” he added.

Aldan said prior to World War II there were 8000 people on Pagan, including Japanese soldiers and local residents.

He also told Tahana that his office was able to secure funding for the re-establishment of a fishing community on the island.

“So we’re going to be having our own community development. These are the things that we’re looking at, but the military has failed to recognise them,” Aldan said.

He said “100 per cent” of the people of the Northern Islands are against the proposed military plan which, he added, will only “contaminate” the islands.

“Basically after the military is done, the island is going to be turned into a wasteland. What’s the use for us if we can’t use our own land,” he said.

Asked about the alternatives discussed by the military, Aldan said these are still all about live-firing, adding that there is no room to discuss alternatives.

“More than 50 families in Saipan consider Pagan their home island and have plans and desires to return to homesteads,” he says.

The island is currently occupied by about a dozen people, who he says live in shacks without plumbing, electricity or access to markets.

Dr Michael Hadfield, professor in the Department of Biology and the Kewalo Marine Lab at the University of Hawai‘i, said there are endangered species in the Northern Islands contrary to the claim of the US Navy

Hadfield also said that the Northern Islands “are not a dead place,” and that they have a history that goes back 2000 years.

He said online petitions have triggered an “international outcry” against the proposed “destruction” of Pagan.

Pagan is located about 320 kilometers north of Saipan, the main island of the Northern Mariana Islands. With an area of 47.23 km2, it is the fourth largest island of the Northern Marianas.

The island is a double island consisting of two stratovolcanoes joined by a narrow strip of land with a width of only 600 metres.

Archaeological finds indicate that Pagan was settled from several centuries BC.

In 2013 the US Naval Command filed a proposal to obtain the island for live-fire and military training which has sparked local resistance.