Whilst visiting family in Christchurch recently, Andrew and I learned the focus of this year’s World Day of Prayer is for the Cook Islands. Friends visited to ask us to sing the Lord’s Prayer in Cook Islands Maori for them to play at their combined service in Darfield on March 7th.

A recording was made on the phone.

We marvelled at how timely this is. God knows we need prayer during these critical times when decisions are being made that could potentially change the course of our future and way of being in ways that we can’t even imagine.

This evening, we’ll be meeting to pray for the nation, acknowledging the responsibility God has given us to appreciate and look after each other and His incredible creation all about us.

Next week I head to the International Seabed Authority meeting in Jamaica to stand, not just as a representative for Te Ipukarea Society, but as a voice for those who understand the mandate that is ours as Christians for Creation Care.

I recently watched a presentation given by a Hawaii University scientist who receives some funding from a mining company. Even so, he didn’t hold back the many worries his group of scientists have. He asks for years more research to create a baseline, and to distinguish natural variability from mining induced change.

There isn’t space here to share details, so I’ll just note a short summary of some concerns for the area that we get our deep sea fish from.

Potential effects of mining to midwater ecosystems:

To individuals – respiratory distress, auditory distress, reduced feeding, reduced visual communication, buoyancy issues, toxicity.

To populations – changes in community composition, emigration, mortality, decreased fitness/reproduction

To ecosystem services – seafood contamination, carbon released, loss of biodiversity, damage to fisheries through altered migration routes and distribution, reduction in food supply as well as contamination to our food supply as fish take in heavy metals and toxins via the food web.

As an older person of indigenous descent, I am also concerned that we have already lost so much of our special Cook Islands heritage.

I believe seabed mining will cause further loss as for example:

Traditional fishing practices are not passed on because fish are harder to find. 

Our traditional culture prioritises community needs, whereas a ‘pursuit of money’ culture tends towards individual and discrete group needs.

People will become even more reliant on external income, further forgetting our traditional self-sustaining practices.

Mining is a ‘boom and bust’ industry that will provide short term gain, but at a cost we can’t afford.

Let me know if you have thoughts to share as a Cook Islander who stands for Creation Care.

Prayers appreciated,

June Hosking.