‘Large ocean states’ take a stand

The small island states of the Pacific are making their voices heard.

In the context of the global conservation movement, the land-deficient Pacific islands have always played a minor role, but that’s all changing as the world wakes up to the reality that its oceans are a hugely valuable resource.

The world is starting to realise and appreciate that the Pacific islands people lay claim to eight percent of the world’s surface – in the form of Pacific Ocean territory.

A team from Conservation International spoke to Pacific journalists on Saturday about the crossroads the region faces in the aftermath of Rio+20 – historically the first meeting at which the world recognised the key role Pacific island nations will play in the fight against environmental degradation and climate change.

As stewards of large swaths of the Pacific Ocean, the Pacific people bear disproportionate responsibility for the resource, given it benefits the global community as a whole.

At Rio+20, world leaders and influential businesspeople recognised small island states and agreed to convene a meeting devoted to their special status in 2014.

Conservation International chief executive officer Peter Seligmann believes the only tangible agreement to come out of Rio+20 was a commitment to the oceans, and the most positive outcome was a collective acknowledgement of the significance of the Pacific Islands.

”What really emerged was that there was a recognition that the island nations were not just small island developing states but they were giant ocean states and they had been left out by and large in corporate conservations by the international community,“ said Seligmann, who attended the first Rio meeting 20 years ago, and its successor in June.

”And that was the most important success at this discussion – a recognition of the importance of island states in the Pacific and (a focus) on the oceans as the environment for the entire world.“

Sue Taei, who heads Conservation International’s Pacific Islands marine programme, is urging Pacific people and governments to fiercely protect what is theirs – te moana nui o kiva, the resource and breadbasket that Pacific journalists, when pressed on Saturday, described as a ”kitchen cupboard“, as ”livelihood“, as ”life“.

”You wouldn’t let people do things to your land that you are letting them do to your ocean. You wouldn’t let them come onto your land with nobody watching them, chop down your trees and maybe give you about five percent of the profit, yet letting them do that on the ocean,“ she said, referring here to the infiltration of foreign fishing vessels into Pacific waters.

Taei described the Pacific Oceanscape – a leaders’ commitment to collectively manage 40 million square kilometers of the Pacific – as the largest conservation initiative (terrestrial or otherwise) in history.

While the Oceanscape commitment and Rio+20 were big steps forward, still the high seas are largely unmanaged (though Parties to the Nauru Agreement are working to address that issue).

Sixty-four percent of the world’s oceans, Taei said, are not being supervised and regulated.

”What didn’t happen (at Rio+20) is they didn’t commit to agreeing how to manage the high seas beyond fish stocks,“ she said.

”Your neighbour is the high seas and it’s not being managed.“

She is calling on Pacific leaders to unite, to take a stand against the pillaging of their oceans and the high seas, which she called their ”near neighbours“.

”We are the ocean people. We can lead this,“ she said.