Dear Editor, Our Tahitian cousins, it seems, are light-years ahead of us once again, calling for a cap on visitor numbers. They want a cap at 300,000 tourists so that there is one local for each visitor.

At our peak, pre-Covid, was it 10 tourists for each local? And the bean counters want even more?

Good on you Tahiti. Your industry will be sustainable while our environment is trashed by what can seem like an invasion of locust.

You’ll get the long-stay $800 a night traffic while we get the cheapies arriving with chilly bins full of meat hoping to save a couple of dollars.

Tahiti gets the high rollers while we get the ones that boil eggs in the hotel jug.

(Name and address supplied)

Eradicating crown

of thorns starfish

Long-term, these same agencies need to push for better management of wastewater (Eliminating ravenous coral killer, November 5, 2022). It is the increase of nutrient in ground, and surface waters (streams) that have led to the increased spawning of the taramea.

Leading the way should be MFEM (Ministry of Finance and Economic Management), with the wastewater disposal field located lagoon-side of Bounty. This area – currently a dust-bowl – drains to the Vaikapuangi stream only 50 metres from Trader Jacks, and the Avarua harbour. No vegetation means no nutrient uptake.

The existing plantings along the coastline don’t help either. Toa enable nitrogen-fixation, meaning the trees don’t ‘use-up’ groundwater nutrient (nitrate).

Resident reports of odour from resorts in Puaikura point to underperforming and/or overloaded wastewater systems bordering the coral sands belt.

Septic processing may also be comprised by the increasing number of storm events as seawater intrusion lifts groundwater levels/negatively impacting local drainage potential.

Agriculture? The fix is the planting of vetiver buffer hedgerows between fields and waterways; and upslope of the coastline. The grass acts as a catch ‘crop’ to contain and process fertiliser and livestock run-off.

On the main, such initiatives fall outside of the current focus by government on projects to attract climate change or infrastructure (finance), but are about taking responsibility for the true cost of development.

Andy Kirkwood

(Facebook)

COP27 delegation

What a rubbish, just wasting money on it (Fifteen officials representing Cooks at COP27 in Egypt, November 5, 2022). My question is why 15 people need to go there for, you don’t need 15 people to represent our country.

The Cook Islands government think the money grows on tree. Aue tatou e, te kite maiara te kavamani e, kare e rava ana te moni note ipukarea – no good at all. Wasting money, there are very important things that money would help our country.

Monday Adam Marsters Poaiti

(Facebook)

Deep sea mining

There is a certain hypocrisy in some of the groups and individuals who oppose deep sea mining or support a moratorium. If we are to base decision making on proven and sustainable scientific principles then the science of deep sea mining is in its infancy and needs to be accorded some caution until the scientific evidence is irrefutable.

How come these same people and groups support the notion of climate change based on 100 years or so of recorded and interpretations of the data which is also in its infancy in terms of verifiable science. For every scientist that says yes, there is also a scientist that says no. So how does one say yes to one and no to the other, the principles are the same I would have thought i.e. based on sound and verifiable science.

Te Tuhi Kelly (Rarotonga Community Blog)

(Facebook)