Today’s article is contributed by Te Ipukarea Society president, and Ocean Ancestors advocate, June Hosking, currently living in Mauke.

At home in Mauke the news from Rarotonga continues to frustrate as a mining company sponsors yet another community event, on their mission to win people over. Are people aware that we have ex diamond mining and oil industry people exploring our seabed? How can they have a lasting affinity for this precious place we call home – the only home we have?

How is it that two Americans, intimately involved with a company holding a Cook Islands seabed minerals exploration licence, are directors of a Cook Islands traditional arts group? These people are closely associated with a company that sued Mexico for over US$2 billion, under a law associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The suit is because the Mexican Government rejected a proposed seabed mining project because the potential environmental impacts would have been too damaging. This case was eventually completed in September of this year, with the company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, winning the case and being awarded US$37 million.   Apparently, US companies have never lost a NAFTA investor dispute. Most of these disputes are because of challenges to environmental protection or resource management that were claimed to interfere with the profit-making potential of US companies.

Apparently, there are companies making money by suing for potential earnings lost due to mining applications being rejected. You can read about this for yourself on The Guardian. Just google “How a US mining firm sued Mexico for billions...”.

I cannot believe our licensing panel didn’t reject CIC’s mining exploration application based on the financial shenanigans they were in the midst of at the time they applied. SBMA’s “robust and transparent licensing process” should have discerned these are not “fit and proper persons” to operate in our waters. Please assure us that agreements with all three companies include them not being able to use some contractual loophole to sue the Cook Islands if we do not offer them a mining licence on environmental grounds.

The promise of gold and glory, a mesmerising snake that the Bible clearly warns against, is winning for now because this seabed mining drive has nothing to do with jobs. We’re already short of more than 3000 Cook Islands workers, hence employing foreigners. It’s not even about stopping climate change by providing metals for the ‘clean energy’ transition. Technology is already surpassing the need, finding other ways forward. Mining is not clean and we don’t need more ‘stuff’, that so quickly is discarded and added to our existing overwhelming waste issue. In fact, disturbing deep sea sediment will quite likely exacerbate our problems by releasing stored carbon back into the atmosphere.

Of course, the other use for these metals from the deep is in military applications. Interesting that nobody is talking that up as a reason to mine the deep! Maybe they realise that is a less than noble cause, best not discussed!

The drive is money, that’s it; a mark of neo-colonisation, a boom and bust industry. It slithers its way in, promises much, sways the indigenous population, then takes what it wants and slithers away leaving desolation in its path.

At boarding school in the 1970s, I shared a dormitory with two Nauruan girls. While I was careful with my allowance, these two wandered around with $10 notes! This is at a time when a loaf of bread or pint of milk was 5 cents. Then came Nauru’s downfall, to the point now where they don’t even have useful planting land. Yet, incredibly, they’re willing to sacrifice the environment again for the short-lived monetary gain!

Will we fall to such temptation?

The Cook Islands is fortunate to have a number of NGOs working towards ocean health and well-being, raising awareness, advising and implementing solutions, where possible, to combat negative impacts that are stressing our ocean. This work is so important as it proffers life, which in the long term ensures an income and/or sustenance, rather than short term dollars that many will never see.

We are starting 2025 with a 30 second message on CITV, Vaka TV and social media. An animation inspired by an SBMA’s booklet cover depicting a vaka sitting on lifeless nodules. I had to stifle a giggle when I first saw this, more so when I heard the Prime Minister had invited other Pacific leaders to join him on this vaka going nowhere.

Their own depiction sums up the problem; they’re stuck on the rocks, totally losing sight of the ocean. Moana-Nui-O-Kiva with more biodiversity than can be found on land, it supplies more oxygen for humans than the forests, it feeds clouds that water our gardens, it nourishes us (and our visitors) in many ways. Only with the ocean can the vaka voyage be a reality.

As we begin 2025 join us in discovering the whole ocean. The world’s engine, that must not just survive, but thrive. Because the ocean’s life is our life.