A rift within French Polynesia’s ruling party Tavini Huiraatira deepened during Easter weekend with a mass resignation from a group of 14 members.

The resignation was tendered by a group of young members of the local Territorial Assembly.

In their resignation letter, the members of the local parliament, writing to Tavini’s historic 81-year-old leader Oscar Temaru, insist that their decision was “carefully considered” and “does not question the respect we have [towards Temaru].”

• READ MORE: Other French Polynesia reports

The mass resignation reduces Tavini’s majority to 22 within the Territorial Assembly (out of a total of 57 MPs).

This also means Tavini no longer has an absolute majority within the House.

The Assembly is scheduled to convene at its next sitting this week on 9 April 2026.

Crucial Assembly meeting on Thursday
Any motion of no confidence requires the approval of at least 35 MPs.

The other components of the Assembly include 16 from the opposition pro-France (autonomists) and 5 others who are independents.

The 14 resigning MPs belong to a group of “moderate” members of the Tavini, who were mostly elected at French Polynesia’s last territorial elections in May 2023.

Tensions have since surfaced between the newly-elected members of the “new generation” and the founding members of the Tavini, including party president Oscar Temaru and the party’s number two, Antony Géros (who is also the Speaker of the Territorial Assembly).

At the recently-held municipal elections, Géros lost his position of Mayor of the small city of Paea and in the capital city of Pape’ete, pro-autonomy figure Rémy Brillant won — well ahead of two pro-independence figures, Tavini-backed Tauhiti Nena (who secured 11.03 percent of the votes) and 25-year-old Tematai Le Gayic, 25 (who scored much better with 23.3 percent).

In the wake of the municipal elections, Le Gayic was the first to signal the split with his party.

The next territorial elections are scheduled to be held in 2028.

The group of dissident MPs is perceived as close to Brotherson, 56, who became French Polynesia’s President in May 2023.

Géros was not chosen at the time.

Less confrontational approach
Brotherson has since embodied a less confrontational approach, especially with regards to his perceived good relationship with the French government, as opposed to a more confrontational approach from his party’s historic leadership.

Among the most often cited causes of the rift between Tavini’s old guard and the younger group of MPs are such issues as French Polynesia’s undersea mineral resources exploitation (which Temaru favours, as a key to the French Pacific territory’s independence).

The younger Tavini MPs, as well as French Polynesia’s Tavini President Moetai Brotherson (who is also Temaru’s son-in-law), are opposed to this exploitation of resources.

This anti-deep sea mining exploitation is also the official stance of the French government, which is warning of potential environmental damage from such operations.

Brotherson’s general stance over independence is also more nuanced and contrasts with the party’s support for a short timeline and process.

Since the resignation, Tavini has held several “emergency” meetings in a bid to reconcile the two opposing factions.

But none of those have been conclusive.

Some of the views expressed by militants support a resignation from Brotherson, which he is opposed to.

Others recommend a one-on-one meeting between Temaru and Brotherson to try and iron out their differences.

“If nothing comes out of this meeting, then Tavini Huiraatira will take action on April 9,” the party wrote on social networks at the weekend.

“If we start entertaining diverging views of the party’s objectives, we’re in trouble”, an irate Géros told local media.

Biblical references
Temaru and his son-in-law have separately commented on the Easter weekend crisis.

On Good Friday, they both used biblical, religious metaphors and direct references to Easter.

“Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing” said Temaru, quoting crucified Jesus Christ during his Easter martyrdom.

But he also admitted there were “reasons to be worried”.

Meanwhile, Brotherson posted on social networks: “While some are meeting in tribunal mode, on this Good Friday, I prefer to leave it to God.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Museums around the world present the story of war in different ways. The Imperial War Museum in London includes military history, the Holocaust, women’s roles in the two world wars, wartime artwork and the political issues of the time.

This museum records both civilian and military experiences, looking at the impact of war on people’s lives. Its Crimes Against Humanity section has a continuous film about genocide and ethnic violence in our time.

The Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam focuses on the Dutch experience during the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany during World War Two, and features personal stories of those who lived during that period.

• READ MORE: Up close and friendly with Vietnam’s war resistance Củ Chi tunnels and museum
• Scars on the Heart exhibition at Auckland Museum
• Museum’s attempt to show ‘both sides’ of the Second World War
• Nuclear-Free Pacific exhibition opened – calls for inspired peace and regionalism

National museums in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh musealise the memory of the 1947 Partition in different, selective ways, with oral history, survivor testimonies, and personal artefacts to document the displacement and trauma of the subcontinent’s division.

How does our own war museum remember war?

Visitors to Auckland’s War Memorial Museum find that the top floor is dedicated to the memory of New Zealand soldiers killed in World Wars One and Two.

The WWI Hall of Memories contains a sanctuary, used for commemoration. In this space are medals and badges of units in which men and women from the Auckland Province served, and British badges that acknowledge those who joined British units.

Roll of honour
In the WWII Hall of Memories, carved into marble is the permanent roll of honour of men and women from the Auckland Province who died in both World Wars, and in Korea, Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam.

The Scars on the Heart exhibition covers New Zealand’s civil wars of the 1840s and 1860s, the Anglo-Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, the Asian wars and New Zealand’s involvement in United Nations peacekeeping missions. Items on display include letters, diaries, photos, clothing and firearms.

There is a recreation of a bivouac shelter at Gallipoli and a Western Front trench from WWI.

This year, the greatest number of active armed conflicts since the end of the Second World War is taking place. The Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight on January 27 — the closest it has ever been to midnight.

Funding for nuclear weapons programmes is increasing and the New START treaty, the nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia has expired, with US President Donald Trump having no interest in renewing arms limitation agreements.

Remembering the destructive and tragic consequences of war should be central to the role of museums in their telling of stories about war. However, unfortunately, around the same time as the recent removal of asbestos from the museum, some of these vital stories have been removed.

They include evidence of civilian war trauma installed in the 1990s by then head curator Lieutenant-Colonel Chris Pugsley to show impacts of war on civilians. Another removal has been the 1968 “Letter from a Vietnam Hospital” by the New Zealand surgeon and surgical team leader in Vietnam, Dr Peter Eccles-Smith, and a photo of a woman and a child who were victims of the Nagasaki atomic bomb in 1945.

No record of NZ nuclear protests
There is also no longer any text or photos showing New Zealand’s official protests against French nuclear testing at Moruroa Atoll in the South Pacific.

In addition to the reinstatement of these particular items, a more encompassing telling of stories about war at Auckland Museum than at present could include the portrayal of New Zealand’s resistance to international wars, the work of civilian and army medical personnel, photos of injured soldiers and civilians, photos and placards of anti-war demonstrators, stories of conscientious objectors, portrayals of victims of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and photos and stories about the nuclear-free movement in NZ and the Pacific, including the fateful journey of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior across Oceania into Auckland Harbour.

Auckland Museum’s 2025 plan included “Enabling commemoration opportunities to reflect the community while exploring themes of conflict and peace; and commitment to broadening our commemorative narrative to be inclusive of diverse experiences and events relevant to our communities.”

This year is 30 years since the International Court of Justice declared that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally contradict international law. Next year, 2027, will be the 40th anniversary of NZ’s nuclear-free legislation, a fitting time for Auckland Museum to launch an exhibition that could include NZ’s official and civil society opposition to nuclear weapons.

Veteran peace activists hope to forge a constructive working relationship with Auckland Museum to help portray people’s experience of war more fully, and create a peace gallery to tell the story of NZ’s peace history.

Audrey van Ryn is a peace activist and writer. In 2009, she created the Auckland Peace Heritage Walk on behalf of the United Nations Association of NZ. She is currently secretary of Community Groups Feeding the Homeless.

• If interested, please contact Dr David Robie of the Asia Pacific Media Network

The legacy of nuclear testing in the Pacific is unfinished business. From the 1997 disappearance of journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud to the 2025 return of the Rainbow Warrior, these stories are part of a continuous struggle for justice.

In the Pacific, the “Atomic Age” and the climate crisis are not competing issues, they are the same fight for habitability and truth. To face our future, we must first address the lingering shadows of the past.

In “French” Polynesia, there are concerns about the mysterious fate of former anti-nuclear investigative journalist Jean-Pascal Couraud, known as “JPK” (his byline),  who was editor of the now closed Les Nouvelles de Tahiti newspaper.

Early in 2015, a judge upheld prosecution against three men accused of a kidnapping that led his death in Tahiti in 1997.

More than a decade earlier, JK’s family lodged an allegation of murder with the police following claims that he had been assassinated by a (now disbanded) local presidential militia. An investigating commission had alleged that three men, Rere Puputauki, Tino Mara and Tutu Manate, had abducted JK and dumped his body at sea.

• READ MORE: Other Eyes of Fire reports
• The Rainbow Warrior bombing 40 years on: re-energising for global peace
• Eyes of Fire website (Little Island Press)

Twenty two years later, the family are still waiting for justice, and fed up with France’s “investigation”. When the Rainbow Warrior bombing on 10 July 1985 is set against its broader political context in the Pacific, it can be seen that this event was much more than the dramatic, isolated episode against the Greenpeace flagship as portrayed by most New Zealand media.

An “Eyes of Fire” video project in 2015, which included more than 40 student journalists, also demonstrated the importance of a continuing interpretation of these events for the future of Aotearoa New Zealand and its citizens. The students looked back at the past, but were asking questions relevant to the present and future when they interrogated me and my Greenpeace colleagues involved in the Rongelap voyage.

My own baptism in French nuclear arrogance and perfidy was thanks to the late Swedish activist, researcher, and writer Bengt Danielsson, who was awarded the 1991 Right Livelihood Award for “exposing the tragic results… of French colonialism”. He and his wife Marie-Thérèse Danielsson wrote the classic and chilling books Moruroa, Mon Amour and Poisoned Reign.

In 2021, a French investigation team published a book and website that introduced new revelations about the nuclear testing programme and its health and environmental harm inflicted on Tahitians. The book, Toxique: Enquête sur les essais nucléaires français en Polynésie, by Sébastien Philippe and Tomas Statius, and the associated website Moruroa Files, were a forensic analysis of about 2,000 French government documents declassified in 2013.

Consistently lied about the tests
According to former Auckland University of Technology scholar Ena Manuireva, who was born in Mangareva (an atoll near the French nuclear testing sites of Moruroa and Fangataufa), these publications confirmed what Tahitian people already knew: “That since 1966, the French government has consistently lied about and concealed the deadly consequences of their nuclear tests, which they now seem to acknowledge, to the health of the populations and their environment.”

Following the third test after French nuclear bombs began in the Pacific, on 7 September 1966, local Tahitian lawmaker John Teariki challenged then French president Charles de Gaulle by saying: “No government has ever had the honesty or the cynical frankness to admit that its nuclear tests might be dangerous. No government has ever hesitated to make other peoples — preferably small, defenseless ones — bear the burden.”

“May you, Mr President, take back your troops, your bombs, and your planes.”

De Gaulle ignored the advice. And it took another 30 years and 190 further tests before France stopped its ruthless nuclear pollution in the Pacific.

France’s Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) was reported in early 2025 to have spent 90,000 euros in a big public relations campaign in a vain attempt to discredit the research in Toxique and the Moruroa Files, according to documents obtained by the investigative outlet Disclose.

The CEA published 5000 copies of its booklet, titled ‘Nuclear tests in French Polynesia: why, how and with what consequences’ and distributed them across Oceania.

The Rainbow Warrior bombing, with the death of photographer Fernando Pereira, was a terrible tragedy. But a greater tragedy remains in the horrendous legacy of Pacific nuclear testing for the people of Rongelap, the Marshall Islands and “French” Polynesia; associated military oppression in Kanaky New Caledonia; and lingering secrecy.

New Zealand and the PIF states should now require full investigation of nuclear testing in French Polynesia and seek a more robust compensation programme than currently exists. New Zealand and the PIF states also need to take a less ambiguous position on decolonisation in the Pacific, give greater priority to that issue and seek a “re-energising” of the activities of the UN Special Committee on Decolonisation.

This is especially important in relation to “French” Polynesia, Kanaky New Caledonia and the end of the Bougainville transitional political autonomy period with a unilateral declaration of independence slated for 1 September 2027.

Decolonisation is also a critical issue that has a bearing on New Zealand’s relations with Indonesia, particularly over the six Melanesian provinces that make up the region known in the Pacific as “West Papua” and Indonesia’s growing politically motivated role in the region over climate change aid.

A massive new transmigration programme under current President Prabowo Subianto is taking place at the same time as Jakarta’s “ecocidal” deforestation regime intensifies in the Melanesian region with the destruction of millions of hectares of tropical rainforest.

“The wealth of West Papua — gas from Bintuni Bay, copper and gold from the Grasberg mine. Palm oil from Merauke — has been sucked out of our land for six decades, while our people are replaced with Javanese settlers loyal to Jakarta,” says a West Papuan leader, Benny Wenda.

Taking the lead
It is critically important that New Zealand and the PIF states take a lead from the Melanesian Spearhead Group — at least those states other than Fiji and Papua New Guinea, which have both been co-opted by Indonesian bribery through economic aid.

They should take a more pro-active stance on West Papuan human rights and socio-political development, with a view to encouraging a process of political self-determination and a new, more credible United Nations supervised vote replacing the 1968 “Act of No Choice”.

With regard to climate change issues, it is essential to address the lack of an officially recognised category for “climate refugee” under international law. It is also important to seek an international framework, convention, protocol and specific guidelines that can provide protection and assistance for people crossing international borders because of climate change.

The existing rights guaranteed refugees — specifically the right to international humanitarian assistance and the right of return — must be extended to “climate refugees” or climate migrants.

This issue should be acted on systematically and with a practical vision by the PIF with the Australian and New Zealand governments. Australia and New Zealand need to respond to Pacific Island States’ (PIS) concerns over climate change and global warming with a greater sense of urgency and resolve.

Regional and country specific climate change plans and policies are needed to deal with large numbers of Pacific refugees or climate-forced migrants, in the event of worsening climate-change scenarios in the future.

This is especially important for New Zealand, as a country with a significant Pacific population (442,632 — 8.9 percent, 2023 NZ Census) with island communities well integrated into the national infrastructure and as a country that is well placed to welcome more Pacific Islanders.

In April 2025, the New Zealand government announced plans to double defence spending as a share of GDP over the next eight years under its long-awaited Defence Capability Plan.

Trump-inspired global arms race
However, the priority appeared to be New Zealand joining a new Donald Trump-inspired global arms race while the country faced no threat, at the expense of the climate crisis, nuclear free and Pacific peace-making capacity that have forged the country’s global reputation.

Speculation was also rife about the possibility of New Zealand joining a second tier of the controversial AUKUS security pact between Australia, the UK and the US, which would raise geopolitical tensions with little benefit for the Pacific region.

As Marshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson has remarked, the people of Rongelap changed the course of history for Pacific nuclear justice by taking control of their destiny with the help of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior.

However, the relocation of the islanders four decades ago has revealed that the legacy of nuclear tests remains unfinished business.

“In the current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament,” says former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark.

“New Zealanders were clear — we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.”

“On the fateful last voyage,” reflects Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman, “the crew of the Rainbow Warrior, look at us in black and white through the lens of time, and lay down the wero — the challenge. They faced down a nuclear threat to the habitability of the Pacific.

“Do we have the courage and wits to face down the biodiversity and climate crises facing humanity, crises that threaten the habitability of planet Earth?’

To Ngāti Kura kaumatua Dover Samuels, the Rainbow Warrior was “probably the biggest battleship that ever traversed the oceans of the world. But she wasn’t armed with guns, she was armed with peace”.

An edited extract from the final chapter of New Zealand journalist Dr David Robie’s recent book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior marking the 40th anniversary of the bombing. He sailed with the Greenpeace crew to Rongelap Atoll for the evacuation of the nuclear health-damaged community and remained on board for 11 weeks. This article was first published by Greenpeace Aotearoa.

• David is speaking about the Rainbow Warrior and nuclear justice tomorrow, 24 March 2026, at Grey Lynn Library, 6-8pm, as part of EcoFest.

When the Strait of Hormuz closes, you don’t need to be a military analyst to understand what just happened. You only need to understand what the world runs on.

Oil. Gas. Shipping lanes. Insurance rates. Container schedules. Energy prices that decide whether factories hum or go dark, whether households heat or freeze, whether governments fall or survive.

This is why serious analysts have been saying for years that Hormuz is not a “threat” Iran invented for propaganda; it is a structural red line that the US and its allies kept treating like a bluff because they could not imagine a regional actor actually pulling the lever that exposes a vulnerability — dependence.

• READ MORE: Iran vows ‘revenge’ for Larijani, Soleimani; 2 killed in attacks on Israel
• Thousands urge NZ prime minister Luxon to condemn illegal US-Israeli war on Iran
• As Israel keeps bombing Iran, Palestinians face growing violence in West Bank
• Trump scolds allies over Strait of Hormuz operation; UAE closes airspace
• Chris Hedges: The world according to Gaza – it’s only the start
• War on Iran: Australia should put trust in its neighbours not a modern Titanic rogue state
• Other US-Israel War on Iran reports

And this is why what we are watching now is a massive US miscalculation that will be studied later the way the Iraq invasion is studied today, with the same disbelief that decision-makers could be so arrogant, so blind, and so certain that the other side would fold.

Because Washington didn’t only miscalculate Iran’s will. It miscalculated geography, logistics, and blowback. It miscalculated the fact that the US empire in the Middle East is not a fortress; it is a web of exposed arteries: bases scattered across Gulf monarchies, troops housed in predictable locations, air defenses that are expensive and finite, radars and communications nodes that can be degraded, and a regional order that can be shaken with one choke point.

You can see the arrogance in the assumptions. For years, Iran warned that if its survival is threatened — if the US and Israel push the conflict into an existential zone — Hormuz becomes part of the battlefield. Washington heard that and filed it under “Iranian theatrics,” because the American political class is addicted to the idea that their enemies always bluff, while they alone possess the right to act.

But Iran was not bluffing. Iran was describing the rules of an environment where deterrence is the only language that keeps you alive.

Hormuz was always the red line
The Strait of Hormuz is the world economy’s pressure point, and the fact that it remained open for years was not proof of Western strength. It was proof that Iran understood escalation control, because keeping Hormuz open — even while under sanctions, sabotage, assassinations, and constant threats — was Iran’s way of signaling restraint.

The West interpreted that restraint as weakness.

That’s the miscalculation.

Washington assumed Iran would keep absorbing blows, keep taking “limited strikes,” keep responding in contained ways, because Washington has lived for decades inside a fantasy where escalation is something the US controls.

But in a real war environment, you don’t get to decide the boundaries alone. The other side gets a vote. And Iran’s vote is written in the geography of the Gulf.

Iran’s ‘Samson option’
I used the phrase “Samson option” not to be dramatic, but to describe the logic of a state pushed into a corner: if the enemy wants you neutralised, disarmed, and humiliated, you don’t respond only with missiles; you respond with the full spectrum of leverage you possess — military, diplomatic, economic, and psychological.

Iran’s leverage is not limited to striking targets. It includes making the war economically unbearable for everyone who enabled it. It includes turning a regional conflict into a global cost spiral. It includes demonstrating that the “free flow of energy” is not a natural law; it is a contingent privilege that can evaporate when a state is pushed past its red lines.

This is what the West still struggles to internalise. It thinks deterrence is only about bombs and bases. Iran thinks deterrence is about making aggression unaffordable.

And Hormuz is how you make it unaffordable.

The three “solutions” don’t solve anything
Once Hormuz becomes the choke point, you immediately hear the same three proposals recycled through Western media.

First: “military escorts”: The idea that you can escort tankers through the most militarised, most surveilled, most missile-saturated corridor on earth as if this is a piracy problem. But escorts do not remove risk; they merely concentrate it.

They turn commercial shipping into military convoys, and that increases the probability of a clash that escalates further. You can escort 10 ships. Can you escort everything, every day, indefinitely, under constant threat? And at what cost in interceptors, drones, naval assets, and insurance panic?

Second: “ceasefire”: The idea that Washington can call a pause and re-freeze the conflict after crossing lines that Iran considers existential. But a ceasefire is not a magic reset button; it is a negotiation outcome.

And Iran is no longer interested in ceasefires that reproduce the same cycle: war, negotiations, pause, then war again. Iran has learned — painfully — that diplomacy has been weaponised against it.

Third: “capitulation”: The fantasy that Iran will disarm itself and accept a future where it is strategically naked. This is the most delusional solution of all, because it assumes Iranians are incapable of reading the regional record.

Iraq disarmed and was invaded. Libya dismantled its programme and was destroyed. Syria gave up its chemical file and was still ripped apart. In that record, capitulation is not peace. Capitulation is an invitation.

So no, none of the three “solutions” solves the crisis. They only reveal the empire’s problem: it assumed it could impose costs without paying them.

Even The New York Times admits miscalculation
One of the most interesting developments is how even mainstream reporting — carefully framed, carefully sourced — has begun to concede what was obvious from day one: the Trump administration and its advisers miscalculated Iran’s response.

The New York Times, in the sections I cited, points to something the propaganda refuses to admit: Iran is not acting like a decapitated regime. Iran is adapting. It is learning. It is targeting vulnerabilities, not staging symbolic retaliation.

It is degrading key radar and air defence systems, hitting communications infrastructure, and shifting the battlefield away from the tidy “Israel–Iran” framing into a wider map that includes US assets and allies across the Gulf.

That matters because for years the West comforted itself with the idea that the Iranian response would be predictable and containable. The NYT reporting suggests the opposite: Iran is adjusting its tactics as the campaign evolves, hitting systems that matter to US coordination and defence, and doing so without the old “ample warning” pattern that allowed the US to frame everything as controlled.

In other words, Iran is making the environment less manageable for the US, which is exactly what deterrence looks like when you cannot match the empire symmetrically.

The miscalculation wasn’t only military
There is another layer that people avoid saying out loud, but it’s central: the US and Israel did not only miscalculate Iran’s missiles; they miscalculated Iran’s society.

Even Iranians who dislike the Islamic nature of their political system can still connect a basic dot: wherever America and Israel intervene, the country becomes worse.

People don’t need to love their government to recognise a foreign assault on their nation. This is why the fantasy of “decapitation + instant uprising” is so dangerous: it projects Western wishful thinking onto a society that is being attacked and then expects the society to celebrate its attacker.

That is not how national psychology works under bombardment.

‘They want Iran’s energy’ is the quiet part out loud
Now we come to the part that explains the deeper imperial logic behind all this: energy.

I referenced the mindset openly circulating among the empire-adjacent influencer class: the idea that “we need Iran’s energy for AI projects,” that the AI race with China will be decided by securing energy inputs, and that therefore this war is not only Israel’s war, but “our war”.

This is imperial logic in its purest form. It doesn’t even bother to hide behind democracy or human rights. It says: we need your resources for our future, and if you will not give them to us under cooperative terms, we will take them under coercive terms.

And here is the thing these people cannot understand, because their mindset is trapped in a 19th-century colonial reflex: cooperation is possible.

China shows that cooperation is possible. China buys resources, builds infrastructure, creates contracts, offers development pathways, and yes, does it for its own interests, but it does it through exchange, not through looting. The US model, by contrast, is too often: bully, sanction, destabilise, bomb, then pretend it’s about “order”.

So when I say this war has gone “too wrong” for Washington even to benefit from Iranian energy later, I mean something very simple: you do not kill people, destroy families, and then expect business as usual. You don’t kill children and then expect Iranian society to say, “Sure, let’s partner with you.”

This is where imperial arrogance collides with a proud, dignified Iranian society.

How Trump miscalculated                            Video: Syriana Analysis

Iran’s demands are not cosmetic
Now the crucial point: why Iran won’t stop now.

Iran is not continuing this because it “loves war”. It is continuing because the war created leverage, and Iran’s leadership understands that if you stop now, you waste the leverage you paid for in blood and risk.

This is why Iran’s demands are emerging with clarity.

First: deterrence restored. Not just for Iran, but for the wider deterrence ecosystem that includes Hezbollah. Iran wants to punish its enemy to a degree that makes future attacks psychologically and strategically unthinkable.

Second: US bases constrained or removed. Iran is not naïve; it knows it may not expel the US from the region overnight. But it can force a new reality where US installations become purely defensive or are reconfigured in ways that reduce their offensive utility against Iran.

In plain language: if Gulf monarchies host bases that are used to strike Iran, those bases become part of the battlefield, and Iran is signaling it wants to break that model permanently.

This is why the Iranian foreign minister’s tone matters, and why voices like professor Marandi’s matter: the message is no longer “we can negotiate and return to normal.” The message is “normal is what created this war, and we need a new security architecture.”

‘Deterrence or nothing’ framework
This is where Amal Saad’s analysis captures the logic cleanly: deterrence or nothing; total war or total ceasefire.

Her point is that the old conflict-resolution framework doesn’t apply, because Iran is not seeking a temporary suspension of hostilities; it is seeking to alter the bargaining space itself. Tehran rejects the framework in which negotiations are essentially arms control over Iran, and insists instead that the real issue is US-Israeli aggression and the regional order that enables it.

That is why Iran refuses a ceasefire that simply resets the cycle.

And that is why the US miscalculation is so profound: Washington thought it could strike under a cover of “diplomacy,” then return to negotiation as if diplomacy were a neutral channel. Iran now treats that as subterfuge, and it wants to make the weaponisation of diplomacy costly enough that it cannot be repeated.

Why Iran won’t stop now
So we return to the simple truth: Iran won’t stop now because stopping now would mean relinquishing the leverage it has finally acquired — militarily, economically, psychologically — at the very moment when the US and Europe are feeling pain they cannot hide.

Trump was elected on promises of prosperity. Now energy prices surge, markets shake, global supply lines tighten, and allies panic. From Tehran’s point of view, this is the rare moment when the empire is vulnerable enough that Iran can increase its demands instead of being forced to accept humiliating ones.

And when you understand that, you understand why this isn’t ending with a tidy “ceasefire” press release. Iran believes that if it accepts another temporary arrangement, it will simply be attacked again when the West finds a better moment.

So the choice Iran is presenting is brutal but clear: a settlement that restores deterrence and rewires the regional security order, or continued pressure through the one lever that forces the world to pay attention.

Hormuz.

Washington assumed it was a bluff.

Now the world is learning what happens when a red line is real.

Kevork Almassian is a Syrian geopolitical analyst and the founder of Syriana Analysis. This article was first published on his Substack Kevork’s Newsletter and shared via Collective Evolution.

Greenpeace delivered the petition to opposition Labour leader Chris Hipkins in Wellington today.

Standing on the steps of Parliament, Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Dr Russel Norman said: “This war is plainly illegal — it is not an act of self-defence nor is it sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

• READ MORE: Iran fires missiles, drones across Gulf, region remains in war crosshairs
• Thousands call on Christopher Luxon to condemn the illegal attacks on Iran by Trump and Israel
• Other US-Israeli war on Iran reports

“While we have come to expect that the US government approach to international law is more honoured in the breach than the observance, nonetheless international law is critical for the security of everyone on the planet but especially for a small nation like New Zealand.”

Dr Norman said Luxon was expected to advocate in favour of international law and hence condemn “this reckless illegal war”.

“Silence in the face of injustice is complicity, and thousands of New Zealanders agree that Luxon should be standing up to bullies like Trump, who is attempting to destroy any possibility of a rules-based international order.”

Greenpeace delivered the petition to the Parliament opposition who have been open about their condemnation of Trump’s illegal war.

Fossil fuel price war link
Greenpeace also made the link from this illegal war to the escalating price of fossil fuels.

“This illegal war has disrupted oil, gas and fertiliser supplies, exposing Luxon’s Trump-like obsession with outdated fossil fuels, leaving New Zealanders paying the price,” said Dr Norman.

“Luxon has collapsed the EV market by killing the clean car discount, making it cheaper to import gas guzzling cars. He’s ended public transport subsidies for young people, blocked funding for cycleways, but wants to spend billions of dollars to build new roads.”

The Prime Minister now wanted to expose the country even further to the volatile global fossil fuel market by charging New Zealanders a gas tax to build an LNG import terminal.

“The Luxon government should be investing in renewable energy and the electrification of transport to insulate New Zealanders from energy supply shocks and rising energy prices, as well as cutting climate pollution,” said Dr Norman.

Republished from Greenpeace Aotearoa.

For a country with a record of large deforestation projects, Indonesia’s current activities in the far southeastern corner of the republic, South Papua province, surpass all.

With 2.5 million hectares of land being cleared for sugarcane and rice production for food and biofuel projects, alongside large oil palm concessions, Indonesia’s government has created a hugely consequential project right on Papua New Guinea and Australia’s doorsteps.

It is transforming the shape of an otherwise forest and swamp-dominated region, as well as the environment, culture and health of local Papuan communities.

• READ MORE: West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military — David Robie
• New film on West Papua highlights ‘ecocide’
• Other West Papua environmental reports

New film on West Papua highlights ‘ecocide’.     Video: RNZ

“The world should notice this. It’s not the Amazon, it’s just in our front door, in the Pacific here,” said Dandhy Dwi Laksono, director of Pesta Babi (Pig Feast): Colonialism in our Time, a new documentary film about the impacts of the deforestation in South Papua, the agri-business schemes behind it and the role Indonesia’s military plays in it all.

Laksono has been in New Zealand this week promoting the film with its producer, West Papuan journalist Victor Mambor, who said few people in other parts of the world know about what’s going on there.

“Maybe they only know [of] the conflict, military conflict, armed conflict in West Papua. But they never know the conflict like that,” he said.

The film sheds new light on the response by local Papuans in the wider Merauke region and its remote bush communities to an agri-business master plan attempted by several Indonesian presidents now.

Prabowo accelerated project
The current president, Prabowo Subianto, has accelerated the project and committed military support for it, saying the military is needed to secure the agri-business projects in Papua because of their scale and importance to Indonesia’s national food and energy security.

However, Mambor said the presence of Indonesian troops in Papua had long been problematic for Papuans, and was growing.

“This is the problem in West Papua. There will be more troops, and then of course because of more troops there will be more conflict. More troops, more conflict, more problem.”

Given the ongoing armed conflict between West Papuan independence fighters and Indonesia’s military in other parts of Papua region (known internationally as West Papua), this film offers a useful insight into a struggle that is less known, but no less concerning.

Papua has some of the world’s largest remaining tracts of native rainforest — and clearing this large region of forest and swamp systems is likely to add to carbon emissions, pollution haze and biodiversity loss.

According to the NGO Mighty Earth, estimates of the CO2 emissions from so much land clearance range from 315 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Indonesia’s first state-owned inspection, testing, certification, and consultancy company) to more than double that, according to a report by the Indonesian independent research institute.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Yasinta Moiwend was startled when, on a quiet morning, a massive ship docked at her village pier in West Papua.

The vessel carried hundreds of excavators and was escorted by military forces. It was the first convoy of 2000 heavy machines to arrive in Papua under a National Strategic Project for food production, palm-based biodiesel, and sugarcane bioethanol.

Yasinta, a Marind Anim woman in Merauke, never realised that her village had been chosen as the ground zero for what would become the largest forest conversion project in modern history — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.

• READ MORE: West Papuan filmmakers expose Merauke rainforest destruction in ‘siege’ doco
• West Papua Solidarity Forum, 7-8 March 2026
• Kōrero with Victor Mambor  – West Papua: Journalism as Resistance, 9 March 2026

Vincen Kwipalo, from the Yei community, was also shocked when his clan’s land was suddenly marked with a sign reading: “Property of the Indonesian Army.”

Only later did he learn that the land had been seized for the construction of a military battalion headquarters, at the very moment when sugarcane, a plantation company, was also encroaching on his ancestral forest.

Threatened by the same project, Franky Woro and the Awyu community in Boven Digoel erected giant crosses and indigenous ritual markers on their land. Known as the Red Cross Movement, this form of resistance has spread among Indigenous groups across South Papua.

More than 1800 red crosses have been planted to confront corporations and the military—both physically and spiritually. Though a Christian symbol is central to the movement, local Church prelates condemned it as not part of the church.

The Pesta Babi trailer. Video: Jubi Media at Café Pacific

Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”) combines detailed field recordings with in-depth research to examine the power structures behind the operation.

It exposes how government and corporate entities — collaborating with military and religious groups — advance international and national goals of “food security” and “energy transition” at the expense of Indigenous communities and landscapes.

The documentary illustrates the networks of Indonesian elites, oligarchs, and multinational corporations that benefit from the project, providing a vivid depiction of the political ecology of Indonesian governance in Papua.

Pig Feast serves as a record of colonialism that remains intact today.

This film is co-produced by Jubi, Ekspedisi Indonesia Baru, Greenpeace, Yayasan Pusaka, and Watchdoc Documentary. It is being screened as part of a weekend of West Papua Solidarity Forum events organised by West Papua Action Tāmaki Makaurau.

• Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”) — Colonialism In Our Time, directed by Cypri Dale and Dandhy Laksono and produced by Jubi Media and collaborators. Investigative documentary (90min).
• Book tickets for the “Sinéma Merdeka: Stories from West Papua” event here

A world premiere of a new documentary revealing the devastation of rainforest in the southeastern part of West Papua is one of two films being screened in Aotearoa New Zealand next month.

Billed as “Sinéma Merdeka: Stories from West Papua”, the programme is showing the heart of a hidden Pacific conflict and will be presented live by celebrated Papuan journalist and Jubi News founder Victor Mambor.

The two films are Pesta Babi — Colonialism in Our Time and Sa Punya Nama Pengungsi (My name is Pengungsi).

• READ MORE: West Papua Solidarity Forum, mini film festival aim to educate
• WATCH the trailer for Presta Babi

“Pesta Babi” (The Pig Party), directed by Cypri Dale and Dandhy Laksono, is being premiered at the Academy Cinema, Auckland CBD, at 6pm on Saturday, March 7.

Filmed under siege and a draconian media ban, the filmmakers offer a rare and
urgent glimpse into indigenous life in Merauke, where Indonesian bulldozers have been systematically destroying their pristine rainforest home.

This film is co-produced by Jubi, Ekspedisi Indonesia Baru, Greenpeace, Yayasan Pusaka, and Watchdoc Documentary.

The unofficial trailer of Pesta Babi                               Video: Jubi Media

The second film, “Sa Punya Nama Pengungsi”, directed by Yuliana Lantipo is set against the backdrop of escalating government violence and the displacement of an estimated 100,000 Indigenous Melanesian people from their lands.

“My name is Pengungsi” is centred on the story of two Papuan children born in the midst of the conflict. Both are named “Pengungsi”, which in English means “Refugee”.

Films talanoa
The films will be followed by a Q&A/Talanoa with Mambor and film director Dandhy Laksono, and hosted by Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and deputy chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN).

“These films give a powerful insight into the hidden occupation and oppression inside West Papua which all people in Aotearoa need to see to understand what our neighbours are enduring,” said an organiser Catherine Delahunty.

The twin-film festival is part of a weekend West Papua Solidarity Forum programme at the Auckland University Old Choral Hall, 7 Symonds Street, on Saturday, March 7, and on Sunday, March 8, at the Taro Patch, Papatoetoe.

There will also be a public media seminar, “Kōrero With Victor Mambor – West Papua: Journalism as Resistance” at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub at 165 Stoddard Rd, Mt Roskill (next to Harvey Norman), featuring journalist and filmmaker Victor Mambor at 6pm, Monday, March 9.

West Papua is the western half of New Guinea island and has been occupied by Indonesia since 1963. The independent state of Papua New Guinea is the eastern half.

Organisers of the film screenings are West Papua Action Tāmaki Makaurau. The group notes that more than 500,000 civilians have been killed in a slow genocide against the indigenous population, according to human rights agencies.

Basic human rights such as freedom of speech are denied and Papuans live in a constant state of fear and intimidation.

Foreign journalists have generally been barred entrance.

Traditional ways of life are under threat as huge tracts of rainforest are cut down to make
way for Indonesian palm oil and food estates, the world’s largest gold mine and ever-increasing transmigration from Indonesia, making Indigenous Papuans a minority in their own land.

• Book tickets for the “Sinéma Merdeka: Stories from West Papua” here.

Two Extinction Rebellion activists joined the speakers today at an Auckland protest over Israel’s genocide and ecocide in Gaza and occupied Palestine, condemning the “apocalyptic” assault on both people and their living environment.

Caril Cowan, a de facto coordinator of Extinction Rebellion Tāmaki Makaurau, spoke of the climate crisis this month in Aotearoa New Zealand to provide an insight into the Gaza emergency.

“One of our climate scientists, says this is normal — get used to it. We are going to have killing storms over, and over, and over …

• READ MORE: In Gaza, Trump’s Board of Peace met with deep scepticism, little hope
• UN begins clearing of massive waste dump in Gaza
• Freedom Flotilla journalists speak out on Israeli ill-treatment
• Other Gaza reports

“As we are saying, ‘We are all Palestine’, I just think of the people of South America, I think of the people of Africa, I think of Europe, where people are dying now because of the climate.

“They are dying of heat exhaustion, they are dying from floods, they are dying from landslides, like we have been having, not just a few. It’s happening. It is here now.”

After the rally, the protesters marched around the corner from Te Komititanga Square to the US Consulate in Auckland for a “Blood on your hands “ protest over the US role in funding and enabling Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

Cowan was among those protesters who symbolically raised blood on their hands over the “shameful” US role under President Donald Trump and previous presidents.

US pays part UN dues
This week in Washington, a UN spokesperson said the United States had paid about US$160 million (NZ$268 million) of the more than US$4 billion it owes to the UN, just as Trump hosted the first meeting of his so-called “Board of Peace” initiative over Gaza that critics say could undermine the United Nations.

The US is the biggest contributor to the UN budget, but under the Trump administration it has refused to make mandatory payments to regular and peacekeeping budgets, and slashed voluntary funding to UN agencies with their own budgets.

Washington has also withdrawn from dozens of UN agencies.

Another speaker at today’s rally, Adam Jordan, from both Extinction Rebellion and the Palestinian movement, talked about the “connection” between the Gaza genocide and anthropogenic climate breakdown.

“As is so often the case with colonialism, and the capitalist system more generally, ecological destruction has always been inherent to the Zionist, settler-colonial project,” Jordan said.

“From contaminated soil and groundwater to decimated farmland and burning down centuries old olive groves that had been lovingly tended by countless generations of Palestinians.

“Rather than ‘making the desert bloom’ as they often claim, the colonisers are engaged in a process of ‘desertification’ — transforming once fertile and active farmland into an area devoid of both vegetation and biodiversity.”

Damage visible from space
Jordan said that destruction of both people and the land itself in Gaza had reached such “apocalyptic proportions that the damage is visible from space”.

“The people who have not yet been killed by the bunker buster bombs, the forced starvation, disease, sniper fire and autonomous killer drones live in a wasteland of undrinkable water, unexploded munitions, overflowing landfills, contaminated soil and toxic debris, with orchards and fields reduced to dust in which life itself is being rendered impossible for the long term,” he said.

Gaza pollution environmental threats                Video: Al Jazeera

“Ecocide here fuses with genocide in a manner never seen before.”

But where was the real connection between Palestine and the climate crisis?

“Despite all the rhetoric from governments and corporations about how they’re taking climate change seriously, the 2020s have so far seen an accelerated expansion of fossil fuel production, just when it had to be reined in and inverted into a sustained dismantling — for the world to avoid a warming of more than 2°C, and ideally no more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial baseline.

“Currently we’re at 1.6°C above that baseline, and this is already proving to be absolutely catastrophic. In fact it’s proving again and again to be deadly,” Jordan said.

“The destruction of Gaza is of course executed by tanks and fighter jets, sending their projectiles that turn everything into rubble — but only after the explosive force of fossil fuel combustion has put them on the right path.

“All these military vehicles run on oil. As do the supply flights from the US, UK and Germany.”

Emissions burden
One study had estimated that from October 2023 to January 2025 the emission burden of the Gaza genocide by Israel and the West to be 32 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent.

“That’s more than the annual emissions of many countries,” Jordan said.

“It has generated more than 36 million metric tonnes of debris from buildings being either severely damaged or completely destroyed. It would take as long as four decades to remove and process all of this debris.”

Jordan said what was happening in Gaza was not just a transnational effort, but “a stain on the so called ‘international law’ that cannot be washed clean”.

“For over two years now we have watched as the corrupt corporate media has dehumanised the victims and attempted to humanise those committing this genocide,” he said.

“We have watched as academic institutions, politicians and governments all over the world have denied or justified the unspeakable horrors taking place in Gaza, just as they deny the severity and the consequences of the climate crisis and justify the continuation of business as usual, no matter how destructive it is to our environmental life support systems.

“But this is just business, this is just how the capitalist system works. Both people and the environment are seen as expendable, here only for the purposes of wealth extraction by the ultra wealthy ruling class — or as I prefer to call them, ‘The Epstein class’.”

New flotilla plans
Among other speakers, Rana Hamida spoke about the new Global Sumud Flotilla plans to break the military siege of Gaza in April.

The flotilla has announced plans to send more than 100 boats carrying up 1000 activists, including medics and war crimes investigators, to the besieged enclave.

Hamida appealed for more volunteers from New Zealand to join the fleet.

New Zealand protesters have again spotlighted the country’s stake in US space militarisation today and speakers branded Rocket Lab as an alleged key link in the “IDF kill chain” as part of the Gaza genocide.

“Rocket Lab is a celebrated New Zealand success story, with a stated mission to open access to space and improve life on Earth,” said Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa  (PSNA) advocate Brendan Corbett.

“Yet many of its key contracts are with the US military and their suppliers.

• READ MORE: Government increases New Zealand space launch limit to 1000
• Other Rocket Lab reports

“It is driven by share price increases and creating value for shareholders.”

Corbett said the global space militarisation market size was valued at US$61 billion (about NZ$100 billion) in 2025 and was projected to grow from US$66 billion this year to US$116 billion by 2034.

North America dominated space militarisation last year with a market share of more than 40 percent.

‘World war threat’
“The overwhelming majority of our human family are totally appalled at this march to militarisation of space and the threat of world war,” Corbett told the crowd in Te Komititanga Square as they marked the 123rd week of protest over the Gaza genocide.

“But not the war mongering investor class. They make more money.

“Guess what people? Increasing geopolitical rivalry and security threats propels market growth.”

A so-called “ceasefire” came into effect in Gaza on October 10, but since then Israeli violations almost daily have killed 591 Palestinians and wounded 1578 – and children dying at a rate of about two a day — with the besieged enclave facing a severe humanitarian crisis.

Overall, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has topped 72,049 with 171,691 wounded – mostly women and children — since the start of the war, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The government has raised the total number of launches allowed for Rocket Lab at its Mahia launch pad tenfold to 1000, as the cap set at 100 in 2017 is close to being breached.

However, a physics professor at Auckland University, Dr Richard Easther, told RNZ News this week that he did not trust the New Zealand Space Agency to make good decisions while the agency said it had assessed all space activities against clear legislative criteria.

Geopolitical tension
Corbett stressed the increasing geopolitical tension, rivalries and escalating security threats across the globe.

This situation was expected to encourage countries to strengthen space-based defence capabilities.

Military forces of various nations required satellites and space systems to maintain secure communications, surveillance, and navigation under hostile conditions.

“This is the Rocket Lab, Black Sky, Palantir, IDF kill chain,” said Corbett, referring to the Israeli Defence Forces, although critics prefer to characterise IDF as the IOF – “Israeli Offence Forces” in view of Tel Aviv having attacked five countries in the region last year.

“This demand drives procurement of hardened, redundant, and cyber-secure space infrastructure — ”these are the factors contributing to space militarisation market growth”.

Corbett quoted Palantir chief executive officer Alex Karp telling investors in a call last month: “Palantir is here to disrupt and make the institutions we partner with the best in the world, and when it’s necessary to scare our enemies and, on occasion, kill them.”

“Military tech companies no longer pretend they are ethical and humane,” Corbett said.

Space technologies
He explained how space militarisation included deployment and use of space technologies for military applications such as reconnaissance, communications, navigation and so on.

It involved satellites, ground systems and related technologies for defence.

“This is the market niche that fuels Rocket Lab’s business plan,” he said.

Some countries used space and counter-space capabilities and integrated them into regular military exercises.

With space militarisation, countries integrated space assets such as satellites, ground stations, and launch systems into defence operations.

“These factors are driving the overall market growth,” Corbett said. “These are the activities that are driving us to war.”

RIMPAC 2026 exercises
He cited some of the major companies involved, including Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Technologies — both investors in Rocket Lab — Northrop Gumman Corporation, Airbus Defence and Space, and others.

Other speakers included Kia Ora Gaza activist Patrick O’Dea – who reminded the crowd of nuclear-free protest success in blocking visits by US warships in the 1980s – PSNA’s Neil Scott, and Maire Leadbeater of West Papua Action Tāmaki.

O’Dea challenged the crowd top campaign against New Zealand taking part in the RIMPAC 2026 military exercises in Hawai’i during June to August and “collaborating with the IDF”.

Protesters marched with banners declaring “Break the Rocket Lab kill chain” and “Rocket Lab – death for money” to Queens Wharf where a visiting Norwegian cruise ship Viking Orion (1000 passengers) was moored.

Citizen journalists bring to our attention the truths that we need to know. Being a witness to such truths is different to doom scrolling. It is about awareness.

This is about knowing the truths that the people who run this deteriorating world, want to hide.

Victims everywhere are begging to be heard and seen. And some people are revealing these truths. Some are trained in journalism, some are freelancing because the mainstream is not the clear clean truth stream, and some are self-trained.

• READ MORE: Amnesty calls for independent probe of ‘shocking’ Australian police violence against peaceful protesters
• Other articles by Saige England

The role of filming and reporting the truth is vital in an era when books are banned, when the names of predators are redacted, when the people at the top are part of an oligarchy that supports murder and rape.

A couple of years ago — almost to the day — I was pepper sprayed by a frontline policeman for filming police brutality against peaceful protesters standing on the footpath in Lyttelton Aotearoa New Zealand.

In that situation police seized people and hurled them to the ground. In other instances, as with human rights activist, John Minto, they seized baffled people and hauled them onto the road.

The men and women in blue vests and black gloves, formed a scrum over each seized civilian. They pummelled and beat them viciously, and hauled them into vans. Minto suffered a gash down his forehead.

Nightmares last longer
Others had similar wounds and thanks to the direct illegal use of pepper spray, many suffered a sense like glass in their eyes. In my experience, those painful symptoms lasted weeks. The nightmares lasted longer.

Early last year, I was banned from my own Town Hall for witnessing the State of the Nation speech by Winston Peters. One of that leader’s loyal fans complained that I was taking notes. I produced my press card. Made no difference.

I witnessed a leader inciting hatred. Witnessing. The security guards banned me. The police upheld the ban. I am a multi-award winning reporter who has reported from conflict zones around the world. And I see the conflict increasing.

In the United States, in Europe, in Australia, in Aotearoa New Zealand, what are we learning?

The right to support the right of all human beings to live on their land is decreed a crime by our leaders. Why? Because some have more than others and they want to protect their “more” and push others to have less, even nothing.

These are the actions of totalitarian capitalist regimes intent on retaining power over the land, the rivers, and all the waterways.

We see it in the US with ICE killing a woman who was poet and a mother, we see it in the killing of a nurse, and all the disappearances, people — including children — hauled off streets and “disappeared”.

Police kicking 2 women
We see it with police kicking and beating two women wearing abayas in the Netherlands. If they are assaulting women in public we can be certain they are also molesting women behind the public gaze.

We see totalitarian push back against human rights in Germany and France, Australia and New Zealand.

Let’s call this flagrant attack on democracy what it is.

It is imperialism. Yes I know, it sounds like I’m recalling Thatcher. But hey she never went away. Her Daddy abused her friends and she loved him. Thatcher was an abuse enabler.

Like Blair. Like Trump. Like other abusers who hold power. It is no surprise that many of these leaders who were raised by power hungry predators, become predators. They exploit others.

Really it is a very simple equation. Democracy is impossible under financial imperialist capitalism.

Imperialism upholds the right of one people to reign supreme over another. We aren’t talking about something that ended over a hundred years ago. We are talking about something that is being perpetuated now.

Shameful exploitation
And by now, those of us who are descended by people who usurped and enslaved, are coming to a difficult conclusion — that it is shameful, this history of exploitation.

As one Quaker researcher said: “What I have learned is that if my ancestors were not as radical for human rights as I have hoped, I can at least be different, be radical for human rights now.”

Greed, predatory behaviour is handed down from predator to predator. It used to favour the oldest son. Now it just faces those prepared to sell out to buy in.

Mercenary capitalist entrepreneurs control society and they govern our countries. The brutes who exploit are connected.

So back to the streets. Back to what some reporters saw and reported and what others who aren’t real reporters, failed to report.

Let’s pick apart the claims of incitement. Incitement for what?

Chanting crime
The authorities in NSW deem that it should be a crime for any citizen to chant these words.

From.

The.

River.

To.

The.

Sea.

What next? Will Jews be told they can no longer chant in Hebrew: le shana haba b’yerulashaem. See the parallel.

Next.

Year.

In.

Jerusalem.

Every year Jews around the world chant — as they have for decades and decades — the vow that next year they will be in Jerusalem. They lived in Europe. They lived in the US.

And this they chanted.

Perhaps that is why it bothers Zionists and supporters of genocide. But it wasn’t a return.

Jews who recite this are Europeans and Americans, New Zealanders and Australians.

When they talk of exile, they are talking in mythological proportions, invoking the Bible and tribalism, Goliath and David.

Zionist regime supreme
But one group is reigning supreme. The Zionist regime has pushed thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, and murdered tens and tens and tens and tens of thousands, and still this genocide continues.

But has New South Wales deemed it a crime for Jews to chant “next year in Jerusalem”?

No.

Nor should it. People have the right to chant.

But let’s understand the real history, rather than the propaganda pumped out by a multi million dollar US-Israeli think thank.

Thanks to very real anti-semitism, Europe did not want to rehome Jewish refugees from the Holocaust. Britain helped out with an imperialist Zionist strategy that pushed Palestinians out of their homes.

Some Jews fled, refused to do what had been done to them. Good on those Jews. And good on those Jews around the world who stand for societies that care and share, that don’t steal and kill.

I am worried about the implications of any law that bans a chant by exiled people. Will it become a crime for any group of people to chant about their desire to return to lands from which they were exiled?

Governments around the world are leaning that way. They stomp down on Indigenous people, on refugees, on immigrants. They protect their excessive power and privilege.

Blaming immigrants
It’s very popular among these regimes to blame immigrants who come from land that was raped and raided by imperialism. Just tune into our ageing playboy Winston Peters.

Make no mistake under regimes such as this, no one is safe. No one.

It is clearly a crime for others to stand alongside those who have been oppressed and exiled, so will it one day be deemed a crime to talk about ALL the stolen children? Like the stolen indigenous children? The children born in a certain place, on certain land, near a river, near the sea.

Will it be a crime to talk about those abused in state homes?

Will the imperialist histories be redacted? Oh they are. The narrative is changed. The victims can barely survive.

I witnessed some of this so I can remind myself and I can remind you.

When I first went to Israel in 1982 the Begin regime invaded Lebanon. Desecrated people dreaming under cypress trees.

The Israeli Offence Force assisted then, in the genocide, of around 3000 children, women, and men — Palestinians — in refugee camps.

Evil massacre
It was a bloodbath, an evil massacre carried out under stealth, at night. The victims did not have a chance. They had no one to defend them. They were murdered by mercenary Israeli soldiers.

One Israeli soldier, Ari Folman, later made a film, Waltz with Bashir which depicts how he came to realise he was among the soldiers who surrounded the camps and fired flares to illuminate the area for the Lebanese Christian Philangist militia.

Like most soldiers, he was only “following orders”. It haunted him.

The ghosts of every massacre carried out by every totalitarian state like Israel haunt the world. And every regime that supports it is responsibile.

Imperialism is the bloodstain that won’t wash out until the notion of super and special entitlement due to race or class or religion is extinguished.

It is racist and classist and it is wrong.

I wrote my novel The Seasonwife because I wanted to show the truth — that people down the bottom rungs of the class system were exploited by those at the top to exploit indigenous people.

Criminalised the poor
We need to know these truths. And they can be proved. Settler colonialism is not a pretty policy, it was dreamed up by a country that created poverty and criminalised the poor. It sent them out to do its dirty work. Oh some rode on those waves but others were submerged. And Indigenous people lost their rights.

Here in Aotearoa a Treaty was forged, a treaty which clearly gives Indigenous people the right to rangatiratanga. And successive legal acts pushed indigenous people down, breached the principles of that partnership.

When one partner is the abuser the partnership is not equal.

We must remember the crimes of imperialism. We must. Because the past is now.

The massacres of Palestinians is an extension of every colonial crime. The crimes are connected: slavery; forced servitude; exile due to poverty; apartheid, assimilation, extermination.

It is a thread from this ocean to that river to that ocean. From here to there. From Europe to the Levant and the Middle East. All the greed-mongers benefit.

The crimes against Palestinians have been going on for more than seven decades. Research the Nakba. Before the British aided and mounted a violent rape-and-kill takeover, Muslims and Jews and Christians worshipped alongside each other in Palestine. It is easy enough to find documentary evidence of this pleasant land on YouTube.

Look at it now. Look at the difference between Haifa or Tel Aviv and Gaza.

Standing against supremacy
Any Jew who has a soul, who has a conscience, will not stand for the slaughter of innocents or for the creation of a white apartheid supremely state. In the US most Jews are against this, and increasingly so are Jews in Australia and New Zealand, standing up against the supremacy of Zionism.

And Christians need to stand too. It is KKK fundamentalist to support the extermination of people. There is nothing holy in supporting theft and expulsion and the gunning down of women, children, and men.

When we invoke laws that support genocide we create a soul-less compassionless society.

A truly Humanist, Animist, any Values-based system will create a society with laws that uphold rather than extinguish, human rights.

It was a white Australian male who used his inheritance to kill 51 people praying at two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand. The Iman who greeted him at the door welcomed him as “a brother”.

It was a Muslim man who risked his life and suffered terrible injuries while tackling two ISIS-inspired extremist gunmen at Bondi Beach in Sydney. That Muslim man stepped in front of a gun to defend Jewish children, women, and men.

I met many such kind, brave, peace-loving men when I lived in the Middle East and I experienced the utmost hospitality from Muslims.

I differentiate between all people and their regimes.

Greed in common
The regimes that uphold human rights violations are all connected. They all have one thing in common: greed.

Their rulers are predators.

Israel is a US-supported state responsible for mass murder, for genocide, for apartheid, for stealing children decade after decade.

Every government that has failed to denounce that State of Hate is acting against the right of people — all people — to real and precious freedom.

Once again, I call down my Jewish ancestors who experienced, as I have, anti-semitism — in standing against the supremacism that is Zionism.

I stand with Jews Against Zionism. I stand with Jews for Peace. I stand with Jews Against Genocide.

I stand with Jews who support the right of Palestinians to return. Yes to the land, yes to that beautiful river, and to that precious sea. I stand with their right to live where they want to live.

Right to protest
And I stand with the right of all citizens to protest. I stand with the right of citizen journalists to film and report human rights violations.

In my social media posts I continually put aggressive impulsive patriarchal police on notice. I let them know that violence by people who are supposed to protect, is unacceptable.
Their actions could lead to them being incarcerated.

Maybe not now, not yet, but one day. Their violent actions could certainly lead to them being jobless.

Their violent actions will be seen over and over again. The truth won’t be erased.

And I say this to mainstream reporters, please do your job. Join a union and oppose the patriarchy that presents propaganda as truth. Some reporters on the ground in Sydney who said they saw violence by the police and no violence from protesters, but the BBC and RNZ changed that narrative.

News presenters who were not present at the scene presented a skewed version provided by their government. They became a mouthpiece for propaganda. And in doing so they supported totalitarianism.

Reporters must not be mouthpieces for what one commentator so aptly described as the Broligarchy. Predators.

Out of police
The policeman who pepper sprayed me, two years ago, when I took footage of assaults against peaceful civilians by violent police, is no longer in the force. Perhaps he has joined the great raft of unemployed.

I would like to think he can be educated into compassion, that he can learn, that the hard look in his eye will one day be softened when he holds a brown grandchild in his arms.

Think twice police. Think twice reporters. Think twice every one who reads this.

Would you want your children to support all human rights? Do you think words like river and sea and return should be banned? Do you think the colour of the grass and the colour of a rose should be denounced as evil?

Do you think people should have the right to live on their land unmolested? Do you think the land and the waterways should be respected or bombed to dust, drained for its minerals?

Do you believe in freedom? If you do, then know that those who are upholding the right of one people to strip the rights of others, will not leave it there.

These totalitarian leaders are united. As one commentator put it, they are the broligarchy. They are connected. They are predators. And they will use force to shut you up and shut you down.

But I hold hope.

Moral weapon — the truth
Every citizen journalist who films human rights crimes being carried out by the arm of the government is armed with a valuable moral weapon: the truth.

Every citizen journalist reporting these truths is a hero.

The truth might be redacted, those who speak it or shout it might become victims, but in calling it out, they fall on the side of freedom and they will be remembered.

Freedom will come. Because it must. The greed mongers who rule must not prevail.

When the truths of victims is heard, the predators lose the narrative, and then they lose their power.

We are all connected in the lifestream of this tiny, precious blue planet. A spark is born and that spark is creativity, it is the spark that rises from destruction and despair.

Never stop witnessing
Harmony. Peace, and Tranquility is possible if our goal is cooperative living.

So be a witness, and never stop witnessing. Raise your voice, raise your heart and your soul. We are all connected and related because we are all brothers and sisters and cousins, spinning on this spinning orb, sparks in the eye of the universe.

Sparks of creativity are born in societies where nurturers are valued rather than predators and exploiters.

In such a world, peace will prevail.

One fine day.

Saige England is an award-winning journalist and author of The Seasonwife, a novel exploring the brutal impacts of colonisation. She is also a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

Climate change has been a key focus for iwi leaders gathering at Waitangi this week, as coastal communities across New Zealand’s North Island recover from recent severe weather events.

The National Iwi Chairs Forum, representing more than 70 iwi, has been meeting to set priorities for the year ahead, with leaders pointing to the increasing frequency and severity of weather events as a growing concern.

Taane Aruka Te Aho, one of the rangatahi leaders of Te Kāhu Pōkere — the group that travelled to Brazil for COP30 last year — told RNZ that recent weather events across the motu have become a repeating pattern.

• READ MORE: Waitangi 2026: Dawn service in pictures
• Speeches, celebrations and heckling – what happened at Waitangi
• Indigenous and Pacific leaders unite at Waitangi with shared messages on ocean conservation
• Big Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi delegation joins Māori in solidarity over Te Tiriti
• Other Waitangi reports

“The data shows us that these climate catastrophes are going to keep coming, more frequent, more severe. We’ve seen that in Te Tai Tokerau, in Tauranga Moana, in Te Araroa,” he said.

On behalf of Te Pou Take Āhuarangi, the climate change arm of the National Iwi Chairs Forum, Te Kāhu Pōkere attended the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in November 2025.

They were the first iwi-mandated rangatahi Māori delegation to attend a global COP.

At this year’s forum, the rōpū is presenting its findings and what can be taken back to hapū, iwi and hapori.

‘Key learnings’
“One of the key learnings for me was the importance of data sovereignty and data strategies harnessing environmental data to help us in our climate-based decision-making,” Te Aho said.

In the wake of flooding and storms in the north and east of the country, dozens of marae again opened their doors to displaced whānau, providing shelter, kai and serving as Civil Defence hubs.

Te Aho said those responses showed the strength of Māori-led systems of care.

“It’s paramount that we acknowledge our whānau, but also fund our whānau to keep resourcing, because they are the ones opening up their doors,” he said.

“To ensure not only our mokopuna are thriving, but to ensure our people of today can go back to work, that they’re looked after. Pākeke mai, rangatahi mai, kaumātua mai, kei konei te iwi Māori ki te tautoko i a rātou.”

Last month, the government announced a $1 million Marae Emergency Response Fund to reimburse marae for welfare support provided during the severe weather events, allowing them to “replenish resources and build resilience.”

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka said at the time, the fund “ensures marae are not left carrying the costs of that mahi”.

‘Building resilience’
“Allowing them to replenish what was used, recover from the immediate response, and continue to build their resilience for future events.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also praised the response from marae.

“Marae have been exceptional in the way they have stepped up to help their communities, providing shelter, food and care to people in need,” he said.

Pou Tangata chairperson Rahui Papa welcomed government support for marae but said long-term planning was needed.

“Back in Cyclone Gabriel, they talked about a 100-year weather event. It’s come up three or four times within the last few years,” he said.

“And I’m picking that, with my weather crystal ball . . .  it’s going to happen time and time again.

“So comprehensive responses have to be employed. Emergency centres at marae have been just absolutely wonderful. I take my hat off to those communities and those marae that have worked together to really find a way to look after the community.”

Climate change key issue
Ngāti Hine chairperson Pita Tipene said climate change was one of the key issues being coordinated at a national level.

“There’s no point in planning for something next week and next month if we’re consigning our planet to the changes that are upon us,” he said.

“We only have to look at the devastation around Te Tai Tokerau, let alone Tauranga Moana and Tai Rāwhiti.”

Tipene also acknowledged the contribution of Te Kāhu Pōkere.

“The young people who went to COP in Brazil and presented back to us said the solutions are in place and led by people. Their messages were very, very clear and the energy and the focus that they bring to those efforts is significant,” he said.

“The National Iwi Chairs Forum comes together because we know we have much more strength together than we are alone. And so coordinating our efforts into areas that will improve the circumstances of our people or protect and enhance the environments of our people, that’s our overall priority.”

Forum members also unanimously backed a legal challenge by Hauraki iwi Ngāti Manuhiri, which is taking the government to the High Court over amendments to the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act. The changes, made last year, raised the threshold for iwi seeking customary marine title.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Green Party is celebrating the decision to decline plans to mine the Taranaki seabed.

In a draft decision on Thursday, the fast-track approvals panel declined Trans-Tasman Resources’ (TTR) bid to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed a year for 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight.

The panel found there would be a credible risk of harm to Māui dolphins, kororā/little penguin and fairy prion.

• READ MORE: Other seabed mining reports

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said it was a huge win for the environment and the community.

“We’re absolutely delighted to see the proposal not backed. Even the government’s own panel have come out and said seabed mining has little regional or national benefit and that it would only benefit destructive corporations.

“It’s an incredible win for the environment, but massive props to the local campaigns, local community people, iwi, NGOs, researchers, scientists, fishers, just regular, ordinary people who care, who have said the same thing for many years and have fought hard and long.”

TTR have until February 19 to comment on the decision.

Putting profit before people
Davidson said the mining company would be putting profit before people and the environment if they tried to appeal it.

“How silly would they look. The message is already very clear. This is destructive, overrides local community voices and Te Tiriti, and it’s harmful and dangerous to our environment, which people actually care about.

“They have no support.”

She said the draft decision set a precedent and sent a message to the government that seabed mining was a “dumb idea”.

“Stop putting forward your stupid ideas.”

Davidson said if the government was relying on seabed mining as a way to grow the economy, they were “at a dead end”.

“It’s short-sighted, it’s stupid and it will not work.”

Trans-Tasman Resources said it would now consider its next options.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A new Pacific Media research publication and outlet for academics and community advocates has now been added to the Informit database for researchers.

Two editions of the new journal, published by the Aotearoa-based independent Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) and following the traditions of Pacific Journalism Review, have been included in the database’s archives for institutional access.

Most university and polytech journalism schools in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific subscribe to Informit which delivers expert-curated and extensive information from sectors such as health, engineering, business, humanities, science and law — and also journalism and media.

• READ MORE: New journal warns Pacific media near breaking point amid revenue collapse and political pressure

Informit also offers an Indigenous Collection with a broad scope of scholarship related to Indigenous culture, health, human geography in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.

Pacific Media offers journalists, journalism academics and community activists and researchers an outlet for quality research and analysis and more opportunities for community collaborative publishing in either a journal or monograph format.

While associated with Pacific Journalism Review, the new publication series provides a broader platform for longer form research than has generally been available in the PJR, featured here at ANU’s Development Policy Centre. The full 30-year archive of PJR is on the Informit database.

Earlier editions of Pacific Journalism Monographs have included a diverse range of journalism research from media freedom and human rights in the Asia-Pacific to Asia-Pacific research methodologies, climate change in Kiribati, vernacular Pasifika media research in New Zealand, and post-coup self-censorship in Fiji.

Managing editor Dr David Robie, who founded both the PJR and PM, welcomed the Informit initiative and also praised the Tuwhera DOJ platform at AUT University.

“There is a real need for Pacific media research that is independent of vested interests and we are delighted that our APMN partnership developed with Informit is continuing with our new Pacific Media journal,” he said

The first edition, themed on “Pacific media challenges and futures”, was partnered with the The University of the South Pacific and edited by Associate Professor Shailendra Singh and Dr Amit Sarwal and published last year.

The second edition, themed on “Media construct, constructive media”, was partnered with the Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) and edited by Khairiah A Rahman and Dr Rachel E Khan, and was also recently published.

A two-day West Papua Solidarity Forum and mini film festival is being held in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau next month featuring West Papuan and local academics, advocates and journalists.

Hosted by West Papua Action Tamaki and West Papua Action Aotearoa, keynote speeches, panels and discussion on the opening day, March 7, will focus on updates from West Papuan speakers from the frontlines and activist/academic contexts with responses and regional perspectives from solidarity groups.

Themes will include military occupation updates, colonial expansion, environmental issues, community organising and human rights abuses, said a statement from the organisers.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

Speakers include: Viktor Yeimo (online from West Papua), Dorthea Wabiser, Victor Mambor, Ronny Kareni, Kerry Tabuni, Hilda Halkyard-Harawira, Emalani Case, Nathan Rew, Arama Rata, Dr David Robie, Maire Leadbetter, Teanau Tuiono, Te Aniwaniwa Paterson.

The evening event is a public mini festival of Papuan films introduced by journalist and editor Victor Mambor from Jubi Media in Jayapura.

The second day, March 8, is dedicated to solidarity development and relationship building across the region and opportunities to support West Papua in Aotearoa, with cultural and political kōrero and talanoa.

This event is an opportunity for students, community groups, media, unions, academics and activists to learn more about West Papua and the current regional and political context.

A media seminar featuring Victor Mambor and organised by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) will also be held at the Whānau Community Centre and Hub on Monday, March 9.

• Note: The Forum event is being held at two venues — the Auckland University Old Choral Hall, 7 Symonds Street, on Saturday, March 7 (9.00am-4.30pm), and at “The Taro Patch”, 9 Dunnotar Road, Papatoetoe, Auckland (close to train station) on Sunday, March 8  2026(9.00am-4.00pm).
• More details, koha and registration at Humanitix by February 20 2026

Pacific delegates in the United States Congress are warning efforts to fast-track deep-seabed mining could sideline island communities and cause irreversible damage to fragile ocean ecosystems.

The concerns were raised at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing in Washington last week, held a day after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) finalised new rules streamlining permits for seabed mining.

The changes allow companies to apply for exploration and potential commercial recovery through a single process, replacing regulations dating back to the 1980s.

• READ MORE: Other deep-sea mining reports

NOAA says the update reflects advances in deep-sea science and technology and does not weaken environmental safeguards.

But Guam Delegate James Moylan said decisions made in Washington had real and lasting consequences in the Pacific.

“The ocean is how we live. It feeds our families, holds our history, and connects our people to generations before us,” Moylan said.

American Samoa Delegate Aumua Amata Radewagen warned seabed mining could threaten fisheries, which she described as the lifeblood of island economies.

Northern Marianas Delegate Kimberlyn King-Hinds said Pacific territories “don’t get the luxury of being wrong” on ocean policy, warning that damage to the seabed would be permanent.

Industry representatives told lawmakers the streamlined process would provide certainty without weakening environmental reviews, while scientists warned deep-sea ecosystems could take decades to recover, if at all.

For Pacific delegates, the message was clear — faster permitting must not come at the expense of island voices or ocean protection.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The logbook of presidential flights in Indonesia reveals an unusual pattern — from the Merdeka Palace to the Land of the Bird of Paradise.

By 2023, then President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo had set foot in Papua at least 17 times — a record in the republic’s history, surpassing the total visits of all previous presidents combined.

Each touchdown of the presidential plane on the land of Papua or at the new airports he inaugurated was more than just a working visit. It was a statement of presence as a political message: Papua is no longer marginalised; it exists on Indonesia’s main political map.

• READ MORE: Indonesia’s development dilemmas – a green info gap and budget pressure – David Robie
• Other West Papua development reports
• Other Laurens Ikinia articles

Yet, behind the roar of the presidential plane and the welcoming traditional dances, lies a critical question: Has the physical presence of a national leader, accompanied by the rumble of massive infrastructure projects, touched the core issues of Papua?

Or has it merely become a grand symbol of integration, while social fractures, injustice, and sorrow continue to flow?

This analysis evaluates the multifaceted impact of President Jokowi’s dozen plus visits and draw crucial lessons for the new administration of President Prabowo Subianto and Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka (Jokowi’s Son) in weaving a more just and sustainable Papuan policy.

The multidimensional impact of Jokowi’s visits
From a national political perspective, the frequency of President Jokowi’s visits to Papua, was a smart and unprecedented political communication strategy. Each landing in the Melanesian land has not merely been a routine agenda but a powerful symbolic political performance.

Handshakes with tribal chiefs, meetings with traditional leaders in public arenas, and speeches amid crowds function as direct counter-narratives to long-standing issues of marginalisation and separatism.

This physical presidential presence is an undeniable visual declaration: Papua is an inseparable part of Indonesia, and the nation’s highest leader is consistently present there.

This presence serves as a potent tool of state legitimacy, shortening the psychological distance between the centre of power in Jakarta and the easternmost Melanesian region, while demonstrating the intended political commitment. However, beneath this symbolism, the legitimacy built through physical presence is temporary if not supported by real structural change.

The critical question often raised by the community, especially Indigenous Papuans (OAP), is simple yet fundamental: “After the president’s planes and helicopters leave and the protocol frenzy subsides, what has truly changed for our lives?”

The narrative of integration through presence and physical development often clashes with demands for self-determination and historical grievances still alive among indigenous Papuans, as reflected in the ongoing armed conflict in the Central Highlands, indicating that this approach has not fully addressed the deep-seated roots of dissatisfaction.

The most visible legacy of the Jokowi era in Papua is none other than the infrastructure revolution — thousands of kilometres of the Trans-Papua Road cutting through wilderness and remote mountains, the magnificent Youtefa Bridge in Jayapura, and airport modernisations like Ewer Airport in Asmat, Wamena Airport, and the construction of the trans-Wamena-Jayapura road, Wamena-Nduga road, and other physical developments.

The government’s logic is that connectivity is an absolute prerequisite for growth. With good roads, the price of necessities in the interior is expected to drop, tourism can develop, and public services like health and education can become faster and more equitable.

Data from the Ministry of Public Works and Housing indeed records significant accessibility improvements. However, behind this physical progress, reports from organisations like the Pusaka Foundation and Greenpeace Indonesia warn of massive and often overlooked ecological impacts.

The opening of certain segments of the Trans-Papua Road is judged to accelerate deforestation, threaten Papua’s unique biodiversity, and disrupt watershed areas.

More profoundly, the issue of community involvement and consent in land acquisition processes often becomes a source of new conflict, sparking tension. As Indonesian human rights activist Usman Hamid has stated, infrastructure development is like a double-edged sword: on one side, it opens isolation and shortens distances, but on the other, it paradoxically erodes customary land rights, damages the environment that is the source of their cultural life and subsistence, and ironically, is enjoyed more by new settlers with greater capital and networks.

On the socio-economic level, the government vigorously distributed various social assistance programmes such as the Indonesia Health Card (KIS), Indonesia Smart Card (KIP), and various forms of Direct Cash Assistance (BLT).

These affirmative policies aim directly at catching up on welfare gaps and, statistically, have succeeded in reducing poverty rates in cities like Jayapura, although they remain the highest nationally. Sectors like Youtefa Bay tourism also show rapid growth. However, the economic growth created is often enclave-like and not inclusive.

Maria, a small business owner in Jayapura, illustrates this reality — large infrastructure projects are handled by contractors from outside Papua, hotels and medium-scale businesses are often owned by non-Papuan investors, while local SMEs struggle to compete due to limited access to capital, training, and marketing networks.

The structural gap between OAP and non-Papuans in ownership of means of production and access to quality job opportunities remains wide. Consequently, many Papuan sons and daughters only become manual labourers or contract workers on the grand projects building their ancestral land, an irony that deepens the sense of injustice.

In the socio-cultural realm, President Jokowi’s presence, often adorned with Papuan cultural ornaments and humbly participating in traditional dances, was a powerful form of symbolic recognition. This gesture sent a national message that Papuan culture is respected and valued at the highest state level.

However, this symbolic recognition on the political stage often does not align with the daily reality in Papua. The late Papuan peace figure, Father Neles Tebay, once described that in Papuan cities, “two worlds” often coexist but do not integrate: the modern world of migrants dominating the formal sector and modern economy, and the world of indigenous communities, often marginalised in culturally insensitive development processes.

Ethnic-tinged horizontal conflicts that have occurred, such as in Jayapura and Mimika, are clear indicators of how fragile social harmony is and how deep the unresolved socio-cultural gap remains.

The darkest and most challenging point of this entire development narrative lies in human rights issues and the unending armed conflict. Although presidential visits often include a conflict resolution agenda, incidents of human rights violations and armed clashes between security forces and the TPNPB (West Papua National Liberation Army) continue to recur, with unarmed civilians often becoming trapped victims, as in the tragedies in Nduga and Intan Jaya highlighted by Komnas HAM and LBH Jakarta.

An approach relying almost solely on physical development, unaccompanied by sincere efforts towards historical reconciliation and fair, transparent law enforcement for past human rights violations, is considered by many in Papua as merely “covering a festering internal wound with a bandage”.

This unresolved historical pain and injustice continues to be the main fuel for resistance and demands for independence, proving that concrete and asphalt roads alone are not enough to build lasting peace and justice felt by all the nation’s children.

Valuable lessons for the Prabowo-Gibran era
The current administration under President Prabowo Subianto and Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka must not continue the Papuan policy with business as usual. The previous administration’s legacy offers a clear roadmap, as well as warnings about dead ends that must be avoided.

Four critical lessons should form the basis for transitioning from symbolic development to substantive, just transformation.

First, policy focus must undergo a paradigm shift from mere physical development towards the holistic empowerment of Papuan people. This means massive investment in quality education with curricula relevant to social contexts and local potential, as well as vocational training that equips Indigenous Papuans with skills to manage the economy on their own land.

Firm and measurable affirmative schemes must be designed to ensure Indigenous Papuans are not merely spectators, but the primary owners and managers of strategic economic sectors, from culture-based tourism and organic agriculture to creative industries.

Without this step, magnificent infrastructure will only become a channel for an extractive economy controlled by outsiders, perpetuating dependency and disparity.

Second, the government must enforce the principle of absolute harmony between development, cultural preservation, and environmental protection. Every major project, especially those touching customary lands and indigenous forest areas, must undergo credible, participatory, and legally binding Environmental and Social-Cultural Impact Assessments (AMDAL & ANDAL).

Development must no longer sacrifice local wisdom and ecosystems that are the soul and identity of Papuan society. Development models imported from Java or Sumatra must be reviewed and replaced with approaches born from dialogue with local ecology and culture, so that progress is not synonymous with environmental destruction and cultural marginalisation.

Third, this new era must open space for conflict resolution through a courageous approach of dialogue and reconciliation. The government needs to initiate inclusive dialogue involving all elements of Papuan society, including pro-independence groups willing to discuss peacefully, to address the roots of historical and structural dissatisfaction.

This complex issue has been comprehensively formulated by the Papua Peace Network. The establishment of an independent and trusted Papua Truth and Reconciliation Commission could be a monumental step to heal past wounds and build a foundation for sustainable peace, recognising that true security is born from justice.

Fourth, Special Autonomy must be revived in its meaning and spirit. A comprehensive evaluation of the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law, along with its trillions of rupiah in fund flows, is a necessity.

These funds must be shifted from physical projects that are often off-target to investments in enhancing the capacity, health, and economy of indigenous Papuans. More importantly, Special Autonomy must be interpreted as a political recognition of the special rights of Indigenous Papuans.

This means strengthening traditional institutions and providing real and decisive participatory space in every strategic decision-making at the provincial and district levels, so that policies are no longer felt as something imposed from Jakarta.

Ultimately, the main challenge for the Prabowo-Gibran administration is to demonstrate that commitment to Papua goes beyond rhetoric and showcase projects. Success will be measured not by the length of roads built, but by the fading of tension, the reduction of disparities, and the rise of self-confidence and economic independence among Indigenous Papuans.

Only by making these four pillars — human empowerment, harmony, dialogue, and living autonomy — the foundation of policy can Papua be truly integrated into the Republic of Indonesia in a dignified and sustainable manner.

A revolutionary approach model
To translate the lessons from the previous era, the current administration requires a radical change in its approach model, moving from a centralised development paradigm towards participatory governance based on Papuan native institutions.

The most revolutionary option is to form a special ministry focused on empowering Indigenous Papuans, inspired by the Ministry of Māori Development in New Zealand.

This ministry is not intended to manage regional administration, but specifically to guarantee the fulfilment of indigenous Papuans’ rights, as mandated in the Special Autonomy Law.

By placing the Governing Body for the Acceleration of Special Autonomy Development in Papua (BP3OKP) and the Papua Special Autonomy Acceleration Executive Committee under it, the government can create centralised, strong, and accountable coordination, thereby avoiding programme overlap and leakage of Special Autonomy funds.

This institutional revolution must be supported by data-based governance and authentic participation. Every policy and fund allocation, especially the massive Special Autonomy funds, must arise from rigorous data studies and in-depth dialogue with the community, rather than just technocratic planning in Jakarta.

Transparency and accountability in fund use must be guaranteed through independent oversight mechanisms that actively involve representatives of traditional councils or institutions, religious institutions, and local NGOs as watchdogs. Only then can the allocated funds truly become an instrument of change, not merely an instrument of expenditure.

Another key pillar is building equal and formal partnerships with Papuan traditional institutions, such as the Papuan Customary Council (DAP) and various stakeholders. These institutions are not merely ceremonial objects but must be recognised as strategic government partners in every stage of development, from planning and implementation to evaluation.

As socio-cultural anchors, understanding the pulse and real needs of the community, their involvement can prevent social conflict and ensure development programmes align with local wisdom and customary rights.

Furthermore, meaningful decentralisation becomes a prerequisite for success. Local governments in Papua must be given substantive authority and massive capacity building to independently manage natural resources and public services.

Moreover, the development approach must start from the grassroots, making participatory development at the village level the standard method. This method ensures that community aspirations are heard directly and the projects implemented truly address their priority needs, not merely pursuing physical targets.

Ultimately, this approach aims to reverse the traditional relationship between the central government and local governments in Papua. From a relationship that has so far seemed patron-client, to a partnership based on the sovereignty of indigenous communities and substantive justice.

Thus, development is no longer felt as something given from above, but something built together from below, creating a sense of ownership and sustainability that will become the foundation for long-term peace and prosperity in Papua.

Indonesianising in the Papuan Way
Reinterpreting the term “Indonesianising” Papua is a main task for the current administration. This concept must no longer be interpreted as an assimilation process erasing distinctive identity, but must transform into an integration that respects uniqueness.

True integration is not homogenisation, but an effort to embrace diversity as a strength. In this context, Indonesia is not a single mould, but a mosaic that gains its beauty precisely from the differences of each piece. For this, a multidimensional approach grounded in four main pillars is required.

First, in the field of education, the national curriculum must become more flexible and inclusive. Enrichment with local content — such as the history and wisdom of Papuan tribes, local languages, and inherited ecological wisdom — should not be merely supplementary, but the core of the learning process.

Schools must become places where Papuan children are proud of their identity while mastering global competencies. Second, in the field of the economy, self-reliance must be built on local strengths.

Easily accessible micro-financing systems, entrepreneurship training, and strong marketing support for flagship products like Wamena arabica coffee, sago, matoa, or high-value marine products will create a sovereign economy that empowers, rather than displaces, the indigenous people.

Third, recognition at the legal level is the foundation of justice. Recognition of the customary land rights of indigenous communities in land and natural resource governance must be guaranteed and integrated into national regulations. This is a concrete step to prevent agrarian conflict and ensure development benefits return to the rightful land owners.

Fourth, building intensive cultural dialogue through student, artist, and youth exchange programs between Papua and other regions, or other countries. This direct interaction will break the chain of prejudice, build empathy, and strengthen a true sense of brotherhood as one nation.

Towards a ‘Just Papua’
The legacy from the previous period is ambivalent. On one hand, there is magnificent infrastructure and symbolic integration strengthened through physical presence; on the other, deep disappointment remains due to unbridged gaps and a persistently pulsating conflict.

The Prabowo-Gibran administration now stands at a historical crossroads. The choice is between continuing the visually spectacular yet often elitist “concrete development” model or taking a more winding yet dignified path: namely, the Papuan human empowerment model, which places indigenous Papuans as the primary subject and heir to the future of their own land.

This strategic choice will be fate-determining. It will measure, later at the end of their term, whether presidential and vice-presidential visits to Papua are still met with cold protocol performances, or with new hope and genuine smiles from a people who feel recognised, valued, and empowered.

Ultimately, genuine national integration can only be realised when Indigenous Papuans can stand tall with all their identity and dignity, not as a party being “Indonesianised,” but as fully-fledged Indonesians who also shape the face of the nation.

The future of Papua is not about becoming like others, but about being itself in the embrace of the Bird of Garuda.

Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Pacific Studies, Indonesian Christian University, Jakarta. He is also an honorary member of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) in Aotearoa New Zealand, and an occasional contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

New Zealand has scrapped a project to build an airport in Tokelau after sinking NZ$3 million into the design phase.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade told RNZ Pacific that the Tokelau government had been advised of their decision.

Tokelau is completely inaccessible by plane, with visitors and its roughly 2600 residents required to travel via boat from Samoa. A return fare on the boat, which runs once every two weeks, is approximately NZ$306, with a travel time of around 24-32 hours.

• READ MORE: Other Tokelau reports

“This decision was made in the context of the high cost of the project and the constrained fiscal environment currently facing the New Zealand government,” MFAT said in a statement.

“We recognise that air services have been a long-held aspiration of the people of Tokelau. ”

The government had spent around $3 million on feasibility, design, business casing and procurement planning since 2020, with funding agreed to the year before. The project faced delays due to COVID-19.

Stuff reported in 2022 that tenders for the project that had been put out for one provider who would be willing to work with the council of elders, or Taupulega, on a design concept.

Intended design
An Official Information Act request from October 2024 confirmed that the intended design included one terminal with an 800m by 30m runway on Nukunonu, the largest of Tokelau’s three atolls.

A tender for a construction contractor had been placed as late as September 2025, with an expected timeline reaching out to 2030, according to MFAT’s DevData tool.

John Teao, former chairman of the Wellington Tokelau Association, said he was personally pleased to see the project come to its end.

“There’s not enough land to have an airstrip . . .  and it’s also the environmental impact — it’s a pristine environment,” Teao said.

“I just don’t see any any justification for an airport.

“Maybe in the future, if they have sea planes or things like that.”

Teao said he hopes to see the money spent on something more useful, such as improving the existing boat system.

Bridging the gap
The New Zealand Labour Party’s Pacific spokesperson, Carmel Sepuloni, said this project was intended to bridge the gap between Tokelau and the world.

“While the details are unclear, it’s disappointing to hear this news,” she said in a statement.

“There are real risks that come with having no access to an airstrip. With a population of about 2500 and almost 10,000 Tokelauans living in New Zealand, travel to and from Tokelau is difficult.

“There’s a clear need and given Tokelau is within the realm of New Zealand, I’d expect the government to offer a clear explanation as to why they’ve scrapped these plans.”

An election in Tokelau for their General Fono is set for January 29. Each village is selecting their candidates for just over a week of campaigning.

The Fono consists of three Faipule, or village leaders, three Pulenuku, or village mayors, and 14 general delegates, elected for a three-year term.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

In an otherwise mixed month for the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme (SPREP), its leadership is hailing a win for Pacific conservation efforts with the UN Treaty on the High Seas coming into effect.

The legally binding UN High Seas Treaty officially received more than 60 ratifications, and following years of negotiations, has this month become international law.

It is a welcome positive development for Pacific conservation in a month when the US announced it was going to leave SPREP.

• READ MORE: Other SPREP reports

SPREP’s Director-General Sefanaia Nawadra described the treaty coming into effect as a testament to the long-running work by Pacific Island countries on ocean governance.

The treaty will give Pacific Island countries the ability to better manage high seas pockets in between their national waters, he said.

“The Pacific is peculiar in that within the national jurisdictions of countries in the Pacific, in between, there are what I call donut type spaces, international waters,” he said.

“So this [treaty] allows us to implement management measures beyond our national jurisdictions into these areas that are of particular concern to countries within our region.”

“So it’s a very important agreement for us, and is the continuation of the global leadership that Pacific Island countries have shown on oceans throughout the history of global oceans management, starting off with UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea], which is the primary instrument that governs oceans.”

Asked whether the treaty might make it easier for deep sea mining to take place in the Pacific, Nawadra said: “Primarily it’s meant to be a conservation or sustainable management instrument. So you would allow conservation and protection in some cases, but in other cases, you would allow for managed activities”.

He said the onus would be on Pacific countries to work together in groups or sub-groups to settle on what activity is allowed.

The US retreat
Nawadra was philosophical about the US withdrawal from SPREP, but uncertainty lingers over what it means for the various programmes which the Pacific community cooperates with the US on.

He said he was not worried about the removal of US funding, but indicated the greater impact is likely to be on the work SPREP does with various US government agencies.

“We do a lot of joint activities with NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmoshperic Administration], with US CPA, US Department of Agriculture, Geological Service,” Nawadra explained.

“Those are joint activities that benefit the US as much as it benefits the Pacific. I’m not sure how that will pan out going forward over technical cooperation. That’s something that we have to work through with the US.”

Meanwhile, the director-general denied media reports that China’s latest funding offer to SPREP was about filling the gap left by the US.

Shortly after the US announcement, China, which is not a member of SPREP, announced a donation to the organisation of US$200,000 — which is approximately the amount of the funding shortfall created by the US departure.

The timing and amount of China’s donation was merely coincidental, Nawadra said.

“They didn’t step in because of the US. We’ve received funding from China for almost 10 years now,” he said.

“So it’s just a continuation of the annual contribution that they voluntarily give to SPREP. So it wasn’t additional to what they normally donate.”

He said the US retreat was not because of anything outside SPREP’s mandate that the organisation had done.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Just over a week after the United States announced its withdrawal from the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) — China has stepped in to fill the funding gap.

President Donald Trump included the scientific organisation among a list of others that US government officials were ordered to withdraw from.

In a post to his social media platform Truth Social, Trump called these organisations “contrary to the interests of the United States”.

• READ MORE: Other SPREP reports

Others mostly consisted of United Nations bodies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN framework convention on climate change, and UN Oceans.

The US was SPREP’s second-largest financial backer in 2024, responsible for US$190,000, or around 15 percent of overall funding from member states. That number dropped from $200,000 in 2023.

China, a donor but not a member, gave $200,000 in 2024, with an additional $362,817 left aside in case SPREP ever needed it, according to SPREP’s statement for the financial year.

RNZ Pacific asked the Australian and New Zealand governments, both significant SPREP backers themselves, whether they were concerned for SPREP’s future functioning.

NZ not concerned
New Zealand said they were not concerned, nor had they been asked to make up any shortfall, while Australia said they were engaging with SPREP to understand the implications.

A little over a week after Trump’s announcement, the Samoa government-owned Savali newspaper reported a US$200,000 donation to SPREP from China.

“The cheque was handed over in a small ceremony this morning at Vailima by China’s Ambassador to Samoa, Fei Mingxing, to SPREP officer-in-charge and director of legal services and governing bodies, Aumua Clark Peteru,” the report read.

Peteru reportedly said that China’s contributions in December 2023 and September 2024 “provided essential organisation-wide support”.

NZ/China relations expert and Waikato University pro-vice chancellor, Al Gillespie, told RNZ Pacific the saga was “a real pity”.

“We are seeing that countries play favourites and for position. The US leaving SPREP (and so many others) will create voids all over the place that others will fill,” Gillespie said.

“In the Pacific, if NZ and Australia cannot pick up the pace, others, like the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will step in and become the leaders in these areas.”

SPREP has repeatedly denied RNZ Pacific’s requests for comment, saying that the US has not formally given notice to withdraw.

“Silence is commonly the best defence right now for many on a host of international topics,” Gillespie said.

The Samoan government and the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand have been approached for comment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

COMMENTARY: By Laurens Ikinia in Jakarta

The island of Papua is a land of profound paradox. Beneath its ancient, cathedral-like forests and within its mineral-rich mountains lies a narrative of staggering contrast.

It is a place where immense natural wealth exists alongside some of Indonesia’s most acute human development challenges.

This dissonance poses a central riddle: why does a land of such abundance host populations grappling with persistent poverty, gaps in education and healthcare, and a deep sense of political marginalisation?

• READ MORE: Other West Papua articles at Asia Pacific Report

A principle found in Papuan wisdom offers a starting point: the past is a mirror for gazing upon tomorrow.

To understand Papua’s present and navigate its future, we must look honestly into that mirror. Yet, when the reflection shows recurring patterns of inequality and unfulfilled promises, we are compelled to ask what kind of future is being built.

The story of Papua is not merely one of resources; it is fundamentally about people, their rights, and their place within the Indonesian nation.

This reflection need not occur in isolation. Looking east across the Pacific, two nations — Australia and New Zealand — have embarked on their own complex, painful, and unfinished journeys of reconciling with their Indigenous peoples.

Their experiences are not blueprints, but they offer invaluable mirrors in which Indonesia might glimpse reflections of its own challenges and potential pathways forward.

The central, reflective question is this: Amidst Indonesia’s unique historical and political complexity, is there room to learn from these Pacific neighbours? Can Jakarta find a distinctive, yet equally courageous, path to reconciliation with Papua?

Unsettled foundation: A history demanding to be heard
Any discussion of Papua must begin by acknowledging the fractured foundation upon which its relationship with Jakarta is built. Unlike New Zealand, where the Treaty of Waitangi (1840) provides a contested but acknowledged founding document for Crown-Māori relations, Indonesia and Papua have no mutually agreed foundational treaty.

Papua’s integration was solidified through the Act of Free Choice (Pepera) in 1969, a process whose legitimacy remains internationally debated and is remembered with bitterness by many Papuans.

This unresolved historical grievance is the DNA of the conflict. It infects every policy, fuels distrust, and allows security-centric approaches to dominate.

Jakarta’s apparent reluctance to engage in open, high-level dialogue about this history keeps the wound open. New Zealand’s experience, though painful and expensive, demonstrates that confronting a dark past is not a threat to national unity, but a prerequisite for building a common future on a clearer moral and legal foundation.

The first lesson from the Pacific is that sustainable solutions cannot be built on unacknowledged history.

The Australian mirror: Pillars of incremental recognition
Australia’s relationship with its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples represents a protracted and painful journey from the brutal realities of colonisation toward a fragile, imperfect process of recognition and repair.

The historical backdrop is one of profound trauma, marked by dispossession, assimilation policies, and the devastating legacy of the Stolen Generations. Yet, in recent decades, a discernible — though inconsistent — policy shift has emerged, built upon several key pillars that provide a structured, if unfinished, framework for addressing historical wrongs.

These pillars offer critical points of comparison for other contexts, such as that of West Papua under Indonesian administration, illuminating stark contrasts in both philosophy and outcome.

Political recognition: From absence to acknowledgment
The 1967 Referendum, which allowed Aboriginal people to be counted in the census and gave the federal government power to make laws for them, stands as a symbolic turning point in Australian political consciousness. Today, the lexicon of recognition is embedded in official discourse, with terms like “First Nations People” and “Traditional Custodians” routinely used in parliamentary speeches and public ceremonies.

The establishment of the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) represents a systematic, though often criticised, effort to coordinate policy across government. This reflects a tangible, if uneven, move toward recognising Aboriginal peoples not merely as citizens, but as original inhabitants with a unique historical and cultural status deserving of specific acknowledgment.

Papuan Special Autonomy: Otsus in stark contrast
In stark contrast, Jakarta’s primary instrument for Papua is Special Autonomy (Otsus), a policy centered on fiscal transfers and nominal political affirmation. While Otsus mandates native Papuan leadership in provincial governments, its essence is consistently stifled by centralised security policies, the dominance of national political parties, and the imposition of territorial divisions with minimal deep consultation.

Consequently, Otsus feels less like a partnership born of genuine historical recognition and more like a technical administrative concession granted — and tightly controlled — from the centre. The core Papuan struggle remains one for existential recognition: an acknowledgment of their distinct identity as Indigenous peoples with inherent political rights, rather than merely as beneficiaries of state-administered policy.

Economic rights: Land and resource sovereignty
Australia’s Native Title Act of 1993 was a revolutionary legal development, overturning the doctrine of terra nullius and recognising the persistence of Aboriginal traditional ownership and connection to land. Although the claims process is notoriously arduous and contested, it has resulted in the return of millions of hectares of land.

Complementing this are land handback programmes and innovative co-management models for national parks and cultural sites, such as Uluru-Kata Tjuta.

Furthermore, nascent royalty-sharing schemes from mining on Indigenous-held land aim to provide an independent economic base, positioning communities not as passive recipients but as stakeholders with property rights.

The contrast with Papua is profound. The region functions as Indonesia’s primary economic engine, with megaprojects like the Freeport copper and gold mine and the Tangguh LNG facility driving national exports. Yet, this extractive model is intensely centralised, with profits flowing to Jakarta and global corporate headquarters while Indigenous communities near these operations often live in stark deprivation.

Otsus funds, while substantial, are funneled through government mechanisms and do not alter this fundamental, exploitative structure. Critically, Papuan customary land rights (hak ulayat) are routinely overridden by state-issued business permits. There exists no large-scale, legally empowered mechanism for reparations or asset restitution to Papuan tribes, leaving them economically marginalised on their own land.

Social policy: Closing the gap
Since 2008, Australia has formally adopted the Closing the Gap Strategy, a framework establishing specific, measurable targets for improving Indigenous life outcomes in health, education, and employment.

This strategy represents an explicit, if imperfect, admission that historical marginalization requires targeted, accountable, and data-driven intervention by the state. It acknowledges a collective responsibility to address disparities directly, even as critiques of its implementation and pace persist.

Indonesia lacks an equivalent national policy framework specifically tailored to address Papua’s acute and unique disparities. Development indicators and programs are largely standardized, failing to account for Papua’s distinct geography, history, and cultural context. As a result, health and education systems suffer from severe infrastructure deficits, critical staffing shortages, and a curriculum that ignores local knowledge.

Maternal mortality and malnutrition rates remain among the highest in Southeast Asia. The fundamental gap lies in agency: for meaningful progress, Papuans must be transformed from objects of development into its active, designing subjects.

Cultural recognition: Beyond symbolism
In Australia, Aboriginal cultural expression has increasingly moved beyond tokenism toward a more integrated, though still contested, national presence. Indigenous languages are being documented and revitalised, customary law receives limited recognition within the justice system, and Aboriginal art is celebrated as central to the nation’s identity.

The practice of acknowledging Traditional Custodians at the outset of official events, while symbolic, performs a daily act of cognitive recognition.

In Papua, the situation is different. The region’s stunning cultural diversity, encompassing over 250 distinct languages, is often treated as an intangible treasure or tourist asset rather than a living foundation for governance.

Local languages are not mediums of formal instruction, and customary norms are easily overridden by narratives of national unity and acculturation. While Papuan art and ritual are occasionally showcased, they are seldom integrated into substantive policymaking for cultural preservation and transmission, leaving this profound heritage vulnerable to erosion.

New Zealand mirror: A framework for courageous reconciliation
If Australia demonstrates a fitful journey toward recognition, New Zealand presents a more advanced, treaty-based model of reconciliation. The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, despite its contested translations and history of breaches, is the accepted foundational document of the modern state. This has provided a crucial platform for building concrete mechanisms to address historical grievances and partnership.

The Waitangi Tribunal and reparations
Established in 1975, the Waitangi Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry that investigates Crown actions alleged to breach the Treaty’s principles. Its recommendations have fueled a massive, ongoing process of historical settlement involving land restitution, financial compensation, and formal Crown apologies.

This process, while not without controversy, provides a formal channel for redressing historical wrongs and transferring resources back to Māori iwi (tribes).

Guaranteed political voice
Māori have had dedicated parliamentary seats since 1867, ensuring a direct voice in the national legislature. This has been complemented by the rise of a dedicated Te Pati Māori political party and the establishment of the Ministry for Māori Development (Te Puni Kōkiri), which advocates for Māori interests within the government apparatus.

This structural presence ensures that Indigenous perspectives are embedded in political discourse.

Biculturalism as national policy
Biculturalism is woven into New Zealand’s institutional fabric. Te reo Māori is an official language, supported by Māori-language immersion schools (Kura Kaupapa Māori), a dedicated television channel (Māori Television), and prominent university faculties.

The national curriculum incorporates Māori history, knowledge, and perspectives, fostering a broader public understanding.

Comparison with Papua
For Papua, the absence of any such foundational agreement or framework leaves a profound vacuum. There is no equivalent to the Waitangi Tribunal to investigate historical grievances or restore resources.

Politically, there are no guaranteed mechanisms for Papuan representation at the national level in Indonesia. Socio-culturally, while Papua’s languages are celebrated in folkloric terms, there is no nationally broadcast, Papuan-led television channel or a system of dedicated higher education institutes focused on Melanesian studies and leadership.

New Zealand’s lesson is the transformative power of a framework — however contested — that creates institutional channels for grievance, voice, and cultural revitalization.

Deep Pacific connection: Why New Zealand cares
New Zealand’s sustained attention on Papua transcends standard diplomatic concern; it is rooted in profound connections that resonate deeply with the New Zealand public and polity, creating a unique sense of obligation.

First, a demographic kinship creates relatability: New Zealand’s population of approximately 5.1 million is nearly equivalent to the population of Indonesia’s six Papuan provinces (around 5.6 million). This similar scale makes the challenges faced by Papuans feel immediate and comprehensible.

More profoundly, there are undeniable historical and anthropological links. Scientific research in population genetics traces Polynesian ancestry, including that of Māori, back through Melanesia.

Culturally, the social structures of Papuan highlands tribes, with their complex clan and confederation systems, closely mirror the traditional Māori hapu (clan) and iwi (tribe) organisations. Similarities extend to concepts of customary governance, spirituality, and reciprocal exchange, suggesting shared ancestral roots.

This connection is cemented by modern history. Papuan people provided crucial aid to Australian and New Zealand troops during the Pacific War in thd Second World War. Furthermore, as documented by historians like Maire Leadbeater, New Zealand was indirectly involved in the territory’s mid-century fate, initially supporting Dutch efforts to prepare Papua for independence before acquiescing to the controversial Act of Free Choice that facilitated Indonesian integration.

For many New Zealanders, particularly Māori, advocating for Papuans is viewed as a Tangata Moana (People of the Ocean) responsibility — a moral, cultural, and spiritual call to support fellow Pacific indigenes facing adversity.

This deeply felt public and civic sentiment ensures the issue remains persistently alive in New Zealand’s parliament, churches, universities, and civil society, constantly applying pressure and challenging any government inclination toward a “business as usual” foreign policy approach toward Indonesia regarding Papua.

This unique solidarity, born of shared identity and history, makes New Zealand a distinct and vocal stakeholder in Papua’s ongoing struggle.

Forging a distinctive path: Strategic recommendations for Indonesia
Indonesia’s engagement with the Pacific region offers a reservoir of wisdom, yet the fundamental lesson is that adaptation, not adoption, is key. The nation’s immense diversity, complex history, and unique political architecture mean that solutions cannot be copy-pasted.

However, the perennial fear of national disintegration must not become a paralysing force that stifles the bold policy innovation required to address the root causes of discord, particularly in Papua. Moving beyond rhetorical commitments to tangible action demands significant political will and courage.

The following recommendations outline a potential pathway for transformative change, aiming to forge a new social contract built on justice, partnership, and genuine autonomy:

The journey must begin with a profound act of historical reckoning and political courage. The President should personally initiate a high-level National Reconciliation Framework for Papua.

This would be a landmark political initiative, potentially involving the establishment of an independent Papuan Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its mandate must be coupled with an official, unambiguous state acknowledgment of past human rights violations.

This process would create a structured and equal dialogue platform, moving past cycles of recrimination. Addressing this historical wound is not an end in itself but a necessary precondition to cleanse the poisoned well of present-day interactions and build a foundation of trust for all subsequent reforms.

Concurrently, the policy of Special Autonomy must be radically reimagined. The concept of “Otsus Plus” should evolve from a mechanism of fiscal devolution into a genuine political and economic partnership. This entails granting local governments conditional veto rights over major investments affecting customary land (ulayat), ensuring development is not imposed but negotiated.

Furthermore, the legislative and cultural authority of the Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP) as the authentic voice of indigenous institutions must be constitutionally strengthened.

Finally, granting full autonomy over education and cultural policy, including locally relevant curricula and language instruction, is essential for preserving Papuan identity and fostering endogenous development.

True partnership is impossible without a fundamental restructuring of the economic model in Papua. The economy must shift from a centralised, extractive paradigm to one based on community sovereignty and benefit.

This requires legalising and strengthening customary land rights (hak ulayat) as a supreme legal principle, not a secondary consideration. Building on this, transparent and direct royalty-sharing mechanisms from natural resource projects must be established, ensuring proceeds flow to indigenous land-owning communities.

Complementing this, a Papuan-led “Closing the Gap” strategy with clear, measurable targets for health, education, and employment should be developed, with progress annually reported to the national parliament to ensure accountability.

Security and political representation form the twin pillars of stability and dignity. The prevailing security approach must be recalibrated to prioritise dialogue, community engagement, and human security over militarized confrontation. In parallel, to ensure Papuan voices are substantively embedded in national lawmaking, permanent seats for indigenous Papuan representatives should be constitutionally created in the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI).

Following the precedent set for Aceh, this guaranteed political representation would ensure Papuan perspectives directly influence national legislation that affects their lives, transforming them from subjects of policy to active architects of their future within the Republic.

Finally, Indonesia should strategically reframe its external engagement regarding Papua. Rather than viewing the Pacific’s cultural and political solidarity with Melanesian Papuans as a point of friction, Indonesia should embrace it as an opportunity for cultural diplomacy.

By proactively encouraging and funding robust academic, cultural, and civil society exchanges between Papuan and Māori/Pacific Island communities, Indonesia can build powerful bridges of people-to-people understanding. This initiative would acknowledge shared heritage while showcasing Indonesia’s commitment to inclusive development, thereby transforming a diplomatic challenge into a channel for soft-power connection and regional leadership.

In conclusion, this pathway is neither simple nor quick, but it is necessary. It calls for a series of courageous, interconnected leaps from the status quo toward a system predicated on acknowledgment, partnership, and substantive self-determination.

By addressing historical grievances, redesigning autonomy, restructuring the economy, reforming security, guaranteeing political voice, and leveraging cultural diplomacy, Indonesia has the potential to resolve its most persistent internal conflict. The result would be a stronger, more unified nation, where stability is built not on force but on justice and the full recognition of its diverse peoples’ aspirations.

Hope for the Land of Papua
The fate of Papua is the ultimate test of Indonesia’s inclusive nationhood. It can no longer be managed through a narrow security lens or obscured by macroeconomic statistics. This is about people, identity, history, and a shared future.

Hope endures. It shines in the eyes of Papuan children, the dedication of local health workers and teachers, and the voices of community and religious leaders calling for peace. It is also present among those in Jakarta who recognise the need for a new approach.

Australia and New Zealand, with their colonial burdens, have begun their imperfect journeys. Indonesia, with its experience of resolving the Aceh conflict through dialogue, can do the same. The condition is a fundamental shift in perspective: seeing Papuans not as a problem to be managed, but as equal partners and full subjects of their own destiny within the Republic.

A just and prosperous Papua is not a threat to Indonesia. It would be the fulfilment of the nation’s founding ideals of unity in diversity, and the pinnacle of a truly inclusive national project.

The mirror from the Pacific shows both the depth of the challenge and the possibility of a different reflection. It is now a matter of choosing to look and having the courage to act.

Laurens Ikinia is a Papuan lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Pacific Studies, Indonesian Christian University, Jakarta. He is also an honorary member of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) in Aotearoa New Zealand and an occasional contributor to Asia Pacific Report.

As 2025 ticked over into 2026, New Zealand’s popular Parakai Springs near Helensville officially became Kaipātiki Hot Springs, the traditional indigenous name for the area which reflects the whakapapa of tangata whenua Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara.

The change comes as Te Poari o Kaipātiki ki Kaipara assumes management of the hot springs. The governors of Te Poari are appointed by Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara and Auckland Council in equal numbers.

Te Poari chairperson Mihi Blair said Kaipātiki literally translates to the abundance of pātiki, flounder, which the Kaipara area is quite famous for.

• READ MORE: Other Te Reo reports

The area was prized by Ngāti Whātua tūpuna for its abundance of healing, thermal waters, she said.

“The wai was always used for recovery for all our wounded warriors during cold and warm days, and also the abundance across the wetlands and the swamps and tidal areas was always rich with kai, manu, eel tuna, and lots of kuharu and, you know pātiki, of course.”

How Kaipātiki became Parakai
Blair said her whānau have a close history with Kaipātiki. In the early 1900s there was some confusion because there were two places called Kaipātiki in Auckland, one in Kaipara and one in Birkenhead, she said.

“So the mail used to get misdelivered quite a bit.”

“There was a community meeting held in the rohe of Kaipara and it was actually my great, great grandmother, Annie Emma Hamilton from Ngāti Maniapoto, who rightly got up and said, why don’t we just change Kaipara and switch it over and turn it to Parakai.

“So that decision itself has had a massive historical impact. It was a decision made on practicality, quite solutions focused she was, but it changed history. So from a whānau point of view, it’s something that we held dearly.”

It was a natural decision to return the name Kaipātiki to the area, she said.

“I was born and raised in the Kaipara area in Helensville and so from Ngāti Whātua, there was no stories being told in our rohe, within our playgrounds, within our schools and that.

“So we’re really taking this kōrero really seriously for the Kaipara area and we want to ensure that we bring not only our own uri along, but we also want to bring the community along that journey.”

Sharing the history
Blair said since 2011 when Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara and the Crown agreed to a settlement, the iwi has been focused on sharing the history of the area.

The Parakai Recreation Reserve, which surrounds the springs, had already been renamed Kaipātiki Reserve so it was a natural decision to rename the springs at the conclusion of the previous lease on 31 December 2025, she said.

Blair thanked the previous lease holders Parakai Springs Limited for their contribution to the economic growth of the area over the past three decades.

Te Poari o Kaipātiki ki Kaipara will now assume management of the springs in partnership with Belgravia Leisure, who also work in partnership with Rotorua iwi Ngāti Whakaue running the Wai Ariki Hot Springs, she said.

“[Belgravia] will bring in their expertise and they’ve done a really amazing job of supporting and ensuring that all our kaimahi there have been onboarded successfully and that actually the pools have remained open over this busy summer period.

“We had a very high, high influx of those who attended in the new year. So, you know, whānau going there to use the pools, having BBQs. So the only difference that actually happened was the name change.”

Blair said Te Poari are looking forward to seeing what could be developed and making sure the community was well involved in the design and the future of the pools.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

REVIEW: By Amit Sarwal of The Australia Today

Forty years after the bombing of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour, award-winning journalist and author David Robie has revisited the ship’s fateful last mission — a journey that became a defining chapter in New Zealand’s identity as a nuclear-free nation.

Robie’s newly updated book, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, is both a historical record and a contemporary warning.

It captures the courage of those who stood up to nuclear colonialism in the Pacific and draws striking parallels with the existential challenges the region now faces — from climate change to renewed geopolitical tensions.

• READ MORE: Other Rainbow Warrior reports
• Information about the Eyes of Fire book

“The new edition has a completely new 40-page section covering the last decade and the transition in global emphasis from ‘nuclear to climate crisis survivors’, plus new exposés about the French spy ‘blunderwatergate’. Ironically, the nuclear risks have also returned to the fore again,” Robie told The Australia Today.

“The book deals with a lot of critical issues impacting on the Pacific, and is expanded a lot and quite different from the last edition in 2015.”

In May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior embarked on a humanitarian mission unlike any before it. The crew helped 320 Rongelap Islanders relocate to a safer island after decades of radioactive contamination from US nuclear testing at Bikini and Enewetak atolls.

Robie, who joined the ship in Hawai’i as a journalist, recalls the deep humanity of that voyage.

Humanitarian voyage
“The fact that this was a humanitarian voyage . . .  helping the people of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, it was going to be quite momentous,” he told Pacific Media Network News.

“It’s incredible for an island community where the land is so much part of their existence, their spirituality and their ethos.”

The relocation was both heartbreaking and historic. Islanders dismantled their homes over three days, leaving behind everything except their white-stone church.

“I remember one older woman sitting on the deck among the remnants of their homes,” Robie recalls.

“That image has never left me.”

Their ship’s banner, Nuclear Free Pacific, fluttered as both a declaration and a demand. The Rainbow Warrior became a symbol of Pacific solidarity, linking environmentalism with human rights in a region scarred by the atomic age.

On 10 July 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was docked at Auckland’s Marsden Wharf when two underwater bombs tore through its hull. The explosions, planted by French secret agents, sank the vessel and killed Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.

Bombing shockwaves
The bombing sent shockwaves through New Zealand and the world. When French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius finally admitted that his country’s intelligence service had carried out the attack, outrage turned to defiance. New Zealand’s resolve to remain nuclear-free only strengthened.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark contributes a new prologue to the 40th anniversary edition, reflecting on the meaning of the bombing and the enduring relevance of the country’s nuclear-free stance.

“The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Fernando Pereira was both a tragic and a seminal moment in the long campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific,” she writes.

“It was so startling that many of us still remember where we were when the news came through.”

Clark warns that history’s lessons are being forgotten. “Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States is one of those storm clouds gathering,” she writes.

“New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific.”

Clark’s message in the prologue is clear: the values that shaped New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in the 1980s — diplomacy, peace and disarmament — must not be abandoned in the face of modern power politics.

Geopolitical threats
Robie adds that the book also explores “the geopolitical threats to the region with unresolved independence issues, such as the West Papuan self-determination struggle in Melanesia.”

Clark’s call to action, Robie told The Australia Today, resonates with the Pacific’s broader fight for justice.

“She warns against AUKUS and calls for the country to ‘link with the many small and middle powers across regions who have a vision for a world characterised by solidarity and peace, which can rise to the occasion to combat the existential challenges it faces — including of nuclear weapons, climate change, and artificial intelligence.’”

When Eyes of Fire was first published, it instantly became a rallying point for young activists and journalists across the Pacific. Robie’s reporting — which earned him New Zealand’s Media Peace Prize 40 years ago — revealed the human toll of nuclear testing and state-sponsored secrecy.

Today, his new edition reframes that struggle within the context of climate change, which he describes as “the new existential crisis for Pacific peoples.” He sees the same forces of denial, delay, and power imbalance at play.

“This whole renewal of climate denialism, refusal by major states to realise that the solutions are incredibly urgent, and the United States up until recently was an important part of that whole process about facing up to the climate crisis,” Robie says.

“It’s even more important now for activism, and also for the smaller countries that are reasonably progressive, to take the lead.”

For Robie, Eyes of Fire is not just a history book — it’s a call to conscience.

“I hope it helps to inspire others, especially younger people, to get out there and really take action,” he says.

“The future is in your hands.”

The Rainbow Warrior returned to Aotearoa in July to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing. Forty years on, the story of the Rainbow Warrior continues to burn — not as a relic of the past, but as a beacon for the Pacific’s future through Robie’s Eyes of Fire.

• Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, by David Robie. (Little Island Press, 2025, 245 pages).

The United Nations climate conference in Brazil this month finished with an “extremely weak” outcome, according to one Pacific campaigner.

Shiva Gounden, the head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said the multilateral process is currently being attacked, which is making it hard to reach a meaningful consensus on decisions.

“The credibility of COPs [Conference of Parties] is dropping somewhat but it can be salvaged if there’s a little bit of political will, that is visionary from across the world,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other COP30 reports

“The Pacific has showed leadership in this quite a bit in the last few COPs.”

Gounden said the outcomes of this COP and previous ones mean global temperature rise will not be limited to 1.5C — the threshold climate scientists say is needed to ensure a healthy planet.

“There are parties within the system who are attacking the science and the facts that show that we need to really be lot more ambitious than we are.

“If that continues there will be a lot more faith that’s lost by a lot of people across the world, and that can only be salvaged by political will and the unity of people across the world.”

No explicit cutting of fossil fuels
COP30 finished in Belém, Brazil, with an agreement that does not explicitly mention cutting fossil fuels. This is despite more than 80 countries pushing to advance previous commitments to transition away from oil, coal and gas.

“I feel the [outcome] was extremely weak,” Gounden said.

Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) international policy lead Sindra Sharma said the outcome had not made much progress.

“It feels like just a waste of time to be honest, that we haven’t been able to close the ambition gap in any significant way, when a lot of the two weeks was also spent on reminding us that we are in a really bad place.

“We’re going to overshoot 1.5C and we need to do something about it.”

The meeting did finish a call to a least triple adaptation finance which Sharma said was a good signal.

“But if you look at the language, then it’s actually quite non-committal and weak.”

Based in Türkiye next year
COP31 will take place at the coastal city Antalya, Türkiye, next year and Australia will be president of negotiations in the lead up and at the meeting. It gives Australia significant control over deliberations.

A pre-COP will also be hosted in the Pacific.

Gounden said he hoped the plan would become more clear in the next few months.

“This is a very complicated situation where you’ve got a negotiation president that is actually not a host of the presidency as well as the COP president across the whole year, so all of that stuff still needs to be clear and specified.”

He said three different groupings need to work together to make COP work — Türkiye, Australia and the Pacific.

Sharma said the co-presidency between Australia and Türkiye was unusual.

“There’s going to be a lot of work in terms of the push and pull of how those two presidencies are able to work together.”

Disconnect between Australia and Pacific
Meanwhile, Tuvalu’s Climate Minister Maina Talia said the disconnect between the words and deeds of Australia when it came to climate action was “disheartening”.

Talia’s comments are part of a new report from The Fossil Free Pacific Campaign, which argues Australia is undermining the regional solidarity on climate.

Talia said Australia was a long-time friend of Tuvalu, so it was “heartbreaking to see the Albanese government continue to proactively support the continued expansion of the fossil fuel industry”.

“Australia has dramatically increased the amount of energy it generates from clean, renewable sources. But at the same time, coal mines have been extended and the gas industry has been encouraged to continue polluting up to 2070,” Talia said.

“It’s a decision that is hard to reconcile with the government’s own net zero by 2050 target and is incompatible with a viable future for Tuvalu.”

In September, Australia extended the North West Shelf — one of the world’s biggest gas export projects.

The report said Australia’s climate and energy policies are not consistent with the action needed to secure a 1.5C world. It said Australia now had an obligation to align with the International Court of Justice advisory opinion in July which found states could be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions.

‘Real game changer’
University of Melbourne’s Dr Elizabeth Hicks, a legal academic who was featured in the report, told RNZ Pacific the advisory opinion was a “real game changer” for Australia’s legal obligations.

“We’ve seen that Australian executive government, both under Liberal and Labor, governments continue to approve new fossil fuel projects and industries receive significant subsidies,” Hicks said.

Australia is the leading donor to Pacific Island countries, making up 43 percent of official development finance.

Hicks said that Australia positioned itself as part of the Pacific family, with the nation giving aid and acting as a security partner.

But equally Australia was responsible for the vast majority of emissions coming from the Pacific and had done little to limit fossil fuel expansion, she said.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the International Court of Justice to hold each other to account.

The decision by the world’s top court had opened the possibility for countries to sue each other, sje said.

“This is placing Australia, right now in a very uncertain position. It would not be helpful for Australia’s domestic credibility on climate policy, or regionally in the Pacific context, to have proceedings brought against it.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific climate leaders are disappointed that Australia has lost the bid to host the United Nations Climate Conference, COP31, in 2026.

Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr said he was “deeply disappointed” by the outcome.

Australia had campaigned for years for the meeting to be held in its country, and it was to happen in conjunction with the Pacific.

• READ MORE:  COP30: ‘Ego manoeuvring’ behind scenes at UN climate talks, says Pacific delegate
• ‘Our land is not for sale’: Indigenous people protest at COP30 in Brazil
• Other COP30 reports

The new agreement put forward by Australia’s Climate Minister Chris Bowen is for Bowen to be the COP president of negotiations and for a pre-COP to be hosted in the Pacific, while the main event is in Türkiye.

Bowen told media at COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the new proposal would allow Australia to prepare draft text and issue the overarching document of the event, while Türkiye will oversee the operation side of the meeting.

In a statement, Whipps said the region’s ambition and advocacy would not waver.

“A Pacific COP was vital to highlight the critical climate-ocean nexus, the everyday realities of climate impacts, and the serious threats to food security, economies and livelihoods in the Pacific and beyond,” he said.

“Droughts, fires, floods, typhoons, and mudslides are seen and felt by people all around the world with increasing severity and regularity.”

No resolution with Türkiye
Australia and the Pacific had most of the support to host the meeting from parties, but the process meant there was no resolution from the months-long stand-off with Türkiye, the default city of Bonn in Germany would have hosted the COP.

It would also mean a year with no COP president in place.

Bowen said it would have been irresponsible for multilateralism, which was already being challenged.

“We didn’t want that to happen, so hence, it was important to strike an agreement with Turkiye, our competitor,” he said.

“Obviously, it would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all. This process works on consensus.”

Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s head of Pacific campaigns Shiva Gounden said not hosting the event is going to make the region’s job, to fight for climate justice, harder.

“When you’re in the region, you can shape a lot of the direction of how the COP looks and how the negotiations happen inside the room, because you can embed it with a lot of the values that is extremely close to the Pacific way of doing things,” he said.

Gounden said the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process had failed the Pacific.

“The UNFCCC process didn’t have a measure or a way to resolve this without it getting this messy right at the end of COP30,” Gounden said.

“If it wasn’t resolved, it would have gone to Bonn, where there wouldn’t be any presidency for a year and that creates a lot of issues for multilateralism and right now multilateralism is under threat.”

No safe ‘overshoot’
Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) international policy lead Sindra Sharma said the decision on the COP31 presidency in no way shifts the global responsibility to deliver on the Paris Agreement.

“There is no safe ‘overshoot’ and every increment of warming is a failure to current and future generations.

“We cannot afford to lose focus. We are in the final hours of COP30 and the outcomes we secure here will set the foundation for COP31.

“We need to stay locked in and ensure this COP delivers the ambition and justice frontline communities deserve.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

As you know, there’s a tiny group of Dame Jacinda Ardern haters in New Zealand who are easily triggered by facts and the ongoing success of the former prime minister on the world stage.

The tiny eeny weeny group is made to look bigger online by an automated army of fake profile bots who all say the same five or six things and all leave a space before a comma.

This automation is imported into New Zealand so many of the profiles are in other countries and simply are not real humans.

• READ MORE: Other Jacinda Ardern reports
• Other Gerard Otto | G News reports

Naturally this illusion of “flooding the zone” programmatically on social media causes the non-critical minded to assume they are a majority when they have no such real evidence to support that delusion.

Yet here’s some context and food for thought.

None of the haters have run a public hospital, been a director-general of health during a pandemic, been an epidemiologist or even a GP and many struggle to spell their own name properly let alone read anything accurately.

None of them have read all the Health Advice offered to the government during the covid-19 pandemic. They don’t know it at all.

Know a lot more
Yet they typically feel they do know a lot more than any of those people when it comes to a global pandemic unfolding in real time.

None of the haters can recite all 39 recommendations from the first Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19, less than three of them have read the entire first report, none have any memory of National voting for the wage subsidy and business support payments when they accuse the Labour government of destroying the economy.

Most cannot off the top of their heads tell us how the Reserve Bank is independent of government when it raises the OCR and many think Jacinda did this but look you may be challenged to a boxing match if you try to learn them.

The exact macro economic state of our economy in terms of GDP growth, the size of the economy, unemployment and declining inflation forecasts escape their memory when Jacinda resigned, not that they care when they say she destroyed the economy.

They make these claims without facts and figures and they pass on the opinions of others that they listened to and swallowed.

It’s only a tiny group, the rest are bots.

The bots think making horse jokes about Jacinda is amusing, creative and unique and it’s their only joke now for three years — every single day they marvel at their own humour. In ten years they will still be repeating that one insult they call their own.

Bots on Nuremberg
The bots have also been programmed to say things about Nuremberg, being put into jail, bullets, and other violent suggestions which speaks to a kind of mental illness.

The sources of these sorts of sentiments were imported and fanned by groups set up to whip up resentment and few realise how they have been manipulated and captured by this programme.

The pillars of truth to the haters rest on being ignorant about how a democracy necessarily temporarily looks like a dictatorship in a public health emergency in order to save lives.

We agreed these matters as a democracy, it was not Jacinda taking over. We agreed to special adaptations of democracy and freedom to save lives temporarily.

The population of the earth has not all died from covid vaccines yet.

There is always some harm with vaccines, but it is overstated by Jacinda haters and misunderstood by those ranting about Medsafe, that is simply not the actual number of vaccine deaths and harm that has been verified — rather it is what was reported somewhat subject to conjecture.

The tinfoil hats and company threatened Jacinda’s life on the lawn outside Parliament and burnt down a playground and trees and then stamp their feet that she did not face a lynch mob.

No doors kicked in
Nobody’s door was kicked in by police during covid 19.

Nobody was forced to take a jab. No they chose to leave their jobs because they had a choice provided to them. The science was what the Government acted upon, not the need to control anyone.

Mandates were temporary and went on a few weeks too long.

Some people endured the hardship of not being present when their loved ones died and that was very unfortunate but again it was about medical advice.

Then Director-General of Health Sir Ashly Bloomfield said the government acted on about 90 percent of the Public Health advice it was given. Jacinda haters never mention that fact.

Jacinda haters say she ran away, but to be fair she endured 50 times more abuse than any other politician, and her daughter was threatened by randoms in a café, plus Jacinda was mentally exhausted after covid and all the other events that most prime ministers never have to endure, and she thought somebody else could give it more energy.

We were in good hands with Chris Hipkins so there was no abandoning as haters can’t make up their minds if they want her here or gone — but they do know they want to hate.

Lost a few bucks
The tiny group of haters include some people who lost a few bucks, a business, an opportunity and people who wanted to travel when there was a global pandemic happening.

Bad things happen in pandemics and every country experienced increased levels of debt, wage subsidies, job losses, tragic problems with a loss of income, school absenteeism, increased crime, and other effects like inflation and a cost of living crisis.

Haters just blame Jacinda because they don’t get that international context and the second Royal Commission of Inquiry was a political stunt, not about being more prepared for future pandemics but more about feeding the haters.

All the information it needed was provided by Jacinda, Grant Robertson and Chris Hipkins but right wing media whipped up the show trial despite appearances before a demented mob of haters being thought a necessary theatre for the right wing.

A right wing who signed up to covid lockdowns and emergency laws and then later manipulated short term memories for political gain.

You will never convince a hater not to hate with facts and context and persuasion, even now they are thinking how to rebut these matters rather than being open minded.

Pandemics suck and we did pretty well in the last one but there were consequences for some — for whom I have sympathy, sorry for your loss, I also know people who died . . .  I also know people who lost money, I also know people who could not be there at a funeral . . .  but I am not a hater.

Valuing wanting to learn
Instead, I value how science wants to learn and know what mistakes were made and to adapt for the next pandemic. I value how we were once a team of five million acting together with great kotahitanga.

I value Jacinda saying let there be a place for kindness in the world, despite the way doing the best for the common good may seem unkind to some at times.

The effects of the pandemic in country by country reports show the same patterns everywhere — lockdowns, inflation, cost of living increases, crime increase, education impacts, groceries cost more, petrol prices are too high, supply chains disrupted.

When a hater simplistically blames Jacinda for “destroying the economy and running away” it is literally an admission of their ignorance.

It’s like putting your hand up and screaming, ‘look at me, I am dumb’.

The vast majority get it and want Jacinda back if she wants to come back and live in peace — but if not . . .  that is fine too.

Sad, ignorant minority
A small sad and ignorant minority will never let it go and every day they hate and hate and hate because they are full of hate and that is who they really are, unable to move on and process matters, blamers, simple, under informed and grossly self pitying.

I get the fact your body is your temple and you want medical sovereignty, I also get medical science and immunity.

It’s been nearly three years now, is it time to be a little less hysterical and to actually put away the violent abuse and lame blaming? Will you carry on sulking like a child for another three years?

It’s okay to disagree with me, but before you do, and I know you will, without taking onboard anything I write, just remember what Jacinda said.

In a global pandemic with people’s lives at stake, she would rather be accused of doing too much than doing too little.

Gerard Otto is a digital creator, satirist and independent commentator on politics and the media through his G News column and video reports. This article is republished with permission.

“Political and ego manoeuvring” is happening behind the scenes at COP30 in Brazil, as Australia and Türkiye wrestle to host the United Nations climate event next year.

Pacific Islands Forum’s climate adviser Karlos Lee Moresi, who is at the talks in Belém, said the negotiations for who would host COP31 was tough.

“We have Australia with the Pacific very adamant that we need — not only do we want — we need to have a COP in the Pacific. The Türkiye position is they’re not giving up,” Moresi said.

• READ MORE: ‘Our land is not for sale’: Indigenous people protest at COP30 in Brazil
• Other COP30 reports

“In all honesty, there’s a bit of political and ego manoeuvring happening behind the scenes.”

Moresi said he thought Türkiye was trying to influence European countries to host the event.

He said as a last resort, and if COP is hosted in Türkiye, the Pacific would want something from Türkiye in response.

“It is not something that we’re really entertaining actively as an option to put forward on the table for now.”

10 years since Paris
COP30 began in Belém on Monday. It has been 10 years since the landmark Paris Agreement was signed.

In his opening speech at the conference, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) executive secretary Simon Stiell said the science is clear, temperatures can be brought back down to 1.5C after any temporary overshoot.

“The emissions curve has been bent downwards because of what was agreed in halls like this, with governments legislating and markets responding, but I’m not sugarcoating it, we have so much more to go.”

The Pacific’s position throughout each COP — “1.5C to stay alive” — has not changed, along with improving access to climate finance.

Unique to this year’s summit is that it is the first time the world’s top court, the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion, can be used as a negotiating tool.

The advisory opinion found failing to protect people from the effects of climate change could violate international law.

“In the context of the phrase ‘everyone has an opinion’, but is it an informed opinion, what we are saying is the ICJ that’s in the highest court is the most informed opinion on this issue.”

Solutions for children
Save the Children New Zealand youth engagement coordinator Vira Paky said she wants to see different parties working together on solutions designed for children and young people.

“We know that children and young people are disproportionately affected by climate change and we want to be on the frontlines to advocate for children and youth voices to be considered.”

Faiesea Ah Chee, one of the youth delegates with Save the Children, wants climate finance to be more accessible for the Pacific.

“I’ve seen how severe weather impact has impacted us and how there’s a lack of funding to help with adaptation and mitigation projects back home in the islands. So, hoping to get a clear vision and understanding of where we can get access to all this climate finance,” Chee, who grew up in Samoa, said.

While world leaders are meeting, rescue workers in Papua New Guinea are scrambling to relocate about 300 people living on unstable earth.

Papua New Guinea’s Wabag MP office spokesperson Geno Muspak said they live around the site of a deadly landslide that flattened houses while people slept inside.

He said it is clear to him the climate crisis is to blame.

“As times are changing the weather is not good for us, especially for people who are living in the remote places,” Muspak said.

The pointy end of COP 30 is still a while off, with the conference running until the end of next week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Palau’s leader says the world needs to be working toward reducing emissions and “not dropping targets”, in response to New Zealand slashing its methane reduction goals.

Last month, the New Zealand government announced it would cut biogenic methane reduction targets to 14-24 percent below 2017 levels by 2050. The previous target was a reduction of 24-47 percent.

Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr, who is in Brazil for the annual United Nations climate change conference, COP30, said more work needed to go into finding solutions.

• READ MORE: Climate change minister defends weakened methane emissions target ahead of COP30
• COP30: NZ must commit to buying offshore credits to meet Paris target, climate experts say
• Pacific leaders to push 100 percent renewable energy plan at COP30 in Belém
• Indigenous activists storm COP30 climate summit in Brazil, demanding action
• Other COP30 reports

“[It’s] unfortunate because we all need to be working toward reduction, not dropping targets,” Whipps said.

“Countries struggle because it’s about making sure that their people have their jobs and maintain their industry. I can see the reason why maybe those targets were dropped, but that means we just need to work harder.”

Whipps said it probably meant the government needed to “step up” and help farmers reduce emissions.

Tuvalu’s climate minister also told RNZ Pacific he was disheartened by the new goal.

New Zealand Climate Minister Simon Watts previously told RNZ Pacific in a statement that methane reduction was limited by technology and the only alternative would have been to cut agriculture production.

“New Zealand has some of the most emissions-efficient farmers in the world, and we export to meet global demand,” Watts said.

“If we cut production to meet targets, we risk shifting production to countries who are not as emissions-efficient, which would add to global warming and have a greater impact on the Pacific.”

NZ ‘doesn’t care about Pacific’ – campaigner
Pacific Islands Climate Action Network campaigner Sindra Sharma said she wanted to know what scientists Watts spoke with.

“I’d like to see what the data is behind New Zealand having the most emissions-efficient farmers. It blows my mind that that is something he would say.”

Sharma said it was especially disappointing given New Zealand was a member of the Pacific Islands Forum.

“I think the signal that sends is extremely harmful. It shows we don’t care about the Pacific.”

Speaking to RNZ Morning Report on Thursday, Watts said the country had not weakened its ambitions on climate change.

“We’ve actually delivered upon what has been asked of us. We’ve submitted our NDC (Nationally Determined Contributions) plan for 2035 on time,” he said.

“We’ve done what we believe is possible in the context of our unique circumstances.

“We’ve taken a position around ensuring that we are ambitious with balancing that with economic challenges.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Greenpeace has heralded the Cook Islands delay on a decision over whether seabed mining can go ahead until at least 2032 as “evidence of the growing opposition” to the destructive industry in the Pacific.

Greenpeace Aotearoa campaigner Juressa Lee said the decision was “a win for the moana and the Pacific Peoples” and communities fighting against this emerging threat that would risk their way of life.

Resistance to seabed mining in the Cook Islands was strong and persistent, she said in a statement today.

• READ MORE: Cook Islands delays seabed mining decision, extends exploration to 2032
• Other seabed mining reports

“We are pleased to see that the government is feeling the pressure and acknowledging that a five-year exploration period is nothing more than tokenistic when it comes to understanding this industry’s impacts.

Last month, Cook Islands activists confronted the Nautilus, a US-funded deep sea mining exploration ship, as it returned to port in Rarotonga.

Four protesters in kayaks met the ship, holding banners that read: “Don’t mine the moana”.

Not be silenced
“Pacific Peoples will not be sidelined or silenced by corporations and powerful countries that continue to try and impose this new form of extractive colonialism where it is not wanted.

“Seabed mining is not welcome in the Cook Islands or the Pacific and we will resist.”

Seabed mining is an emerging extractive industry that has not yet started on a commercial scale anywhere in the world. Miners want to extract polymetallic nodules from the seafloor to extract metals.

Three companies — Moana Minerals Limited (a subsidiary of US company Ocean Minerals), Cobalt (CIC) Limited, and CIIC Seabed Resources Limited (a partnership between Cook Islands government and Belgian company GSR) — currently hold licences for seabed mining exploration in the Cook Island waters.

Several barangays in Camarines Norte were heavily battered by the powerful winds and rains from Typhoon Uwan — Typhoon Fung-Wong — in the Philippines, destroying homes and downing power lines that also affected the power supply in the province.

In Darlene Cay’s report in “24 Oras” yesterday, Leonora Tumala emotionally shared her frustration after their homes in Daet were crushed by a tree that was uprooted by the strong winds.

“Siyempre malungkot, dalawang bahay ang nawala… Okay na rin buhay kaming mag-anak,” Tumala tearfully said. (Of course, we are really sad because we lost two homes … It’s okay, at least we are all alive.)

• READ MORE: Philippines assesses damage after deadly Typhoon Fung-wong (Uwan)
• Other Philippines typhoon reports

The weakening typhoon has departed the Philippines after killing at least 18 people, displacing 1.4 million, and destroying homes and roads across the country’s most populous island Luzon.

The typhoon – which packed winds of 185km/h and gusts up to 230km/h – made landfall on Aurora province on Sunday evening, unleashing heavy rains and knocking out power to thousands of people.

Evacuation centre
Tumala and her family were staying at an evacuation center when the Daet accident happened.

They returned to their destroyed homes to check if they can still salvage some items that they could still use.

“Humihingi po ako ng tulong sa inyo para po magawa ng maliit man lang na kubo, para may matuluyan ang aking dalawang anak,” she said. (I’m asking for your help so we can build a small hut for my two children.)

Others braved the strong winds from Uwan just to repair the roofs of their houses.

GMA News video of the typhoon in Daet, Camarines Norte.

Jun Lladoc, for his part, collected parts of the roof from the auto repair shop that he works for.

“Hindi rin naman basta-basta makapag-operate, kasi wala pa naman kuryente eh,” he said. (We cannot still operate because we don’t have electricity yet.)

The powerful winds from Uwan knocked down the electric posts in Daet town — causing not just a power outage but blocked practically half of the road. There is no power supply in the entire province.

In Mercedes town, residents of Purok 1-A in Barangay 7 worked together in lifting a house that was tilted to one side by the strong winds.

Powerful surge
However, the situation in neighbouring Purok 1-B was worse as the powerful storm surge and winds downed and washed out almost all of the homes by the coast.

Arnel Dela Pacion was wounded after his home was washed away by the waves. He salvaged wood from what remained of his house which he could later use.

“Walang magagawa at malakas yung bagyo. Siyempre kabado din at iniisip mo ang tinitirhan mo,” he said. (I cannot do anything because the typhoon was so strong. But I was also worried because I kept thinking about my house.)

A seawall could have mitigated the impact of the destructive storm surges, but the seawall is still being constructed and unfinished when Uwan hit.

Unfortunately, the construction materials were swept away by the storm surge and out into the sea.

“Masakit talaga po. Itong, Nakita mo ang mga basura. Sino ang kailangan, paano kami?… Nasaan ang mga tulong?” said resident Ronaldo Butial. (It pains us so much. You can see the trash around. How about us now? Where is the help?)

The report said the Department of Public Works and Highways was already investigating the construction of the seawall.

Clearing operations are already ongoing in Camarines Norte.

Uwan (Fung-Wong) arrived mere days after Typhoon Kalmaegi tore through the Philippines’ central provinces and killed at least 224 people. Kalmaegi then struck Vietnam’s central and highland regions, leading to the deaths of at least five people.

Republished from GMA Integrated News.

Pacific nations are at the world’s biggest climate talks making the familiar plea to keep global warming under 1.5C to stay alive, as scientists say the world will now certainly surpass the limit — at least temporarily.

At the opening of the COP30 climate summit in Belém Brazil, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made the same call that Pacific nations have for years.

“Let us be clear, the 1.5-degree limit is a red line for humanity. It must be kept within reach and scientists also tell us that this is still possible,” Guterres said.

• READ MORE: ‘We are moving in the right direction, but at the wrong speed,’ warns Lula at the opening of COP30
• Other COP30 reports

“If we act now at speed and scale, we can make the overshoot as small, as short and as safe as possible.”

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) confirmed in its State of the Climate update that greenhouse gas emissions, which are heating the planet, have risen to a record high, with 2025 being on track to be the second or third warmest year on record.

“It will be virtually impossible to limit global warming to 1.5C in the next few years without temporarily overshooting this target,” WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo said.

“But the science is equally clear that it’s still entirely possible and essential to bring temperatures back down to 1.5C by the end of the century.”

Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) climate justice campaigner India Logan-Riley said the world was now in “deeply unstable territory” with the “very existence” of some Pacific communities now at risk.

COP31 – a Pacific COP?
As this COP starts, there is still uncertainty over where COP31 in 2026 will be hosted.

Both Australia — in conjunction with the Pacific — and Türkiye have bid to host the event.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has written twice to his counterpart looking for a compromise to break the deadlock.

Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr, who is in Belém, said it was important for Australia to be successful in its bid.

“We’re here in Brazil and the Amazon, and the focus next year needs to be a ‘Blue COP’, we need to focus on the oceans,” President Whipps said.

“One of the things I always tell people is, in some countries they only face droughts, or they may face a storm but in the Pacific we suffer from all of them; sea-level rise, storms, droughts, extreme heat.

“Other people, they can’t relate or they think it may be unreal.”

One of those people, US President Donald Trump, told the UN last month the climate crisis is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.

Palau has a particularly close relationship with the US as one of the Compact of Free Association (COFA) nations. The agreement gives the US military access to Palau, which in return is given financial assistance and for Palauans the right to work in the US.

Whipps said Trump’s comments were unfortunate, and more reason for COP to come to the Pacific.

“I would invite President Trump to come to the Pacific. He should visit Tuvalu, and he should visit Kiribati and Marshall Islands.”

100% renewable Pacific
The Pacific is aiming to be the first region in the world to be completely reliant on renewable energy, a campaign which being led by Whipps.

“Leading the energy transition not only helps the planet by reducing our carbon footprint, but also gives us energy independence, [it] allows us to create jobs locally, and it keeps the money circulating.”

Whipps wants Palau to be running completely off renewable energy by 2032.

Meanwhile, the UN emissions gap report shows the world is on track for 2.3C to 2.5C global warming, if nations stick to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

However, it is an improvement from last year’s report, which predicted 2.6C to 2.8C of warming.

Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) policy advisor Sindra Sharma said the report laid bare the fact that global ambition is nowhere near where it needs to be.

“[The new forecast] still is quite unacceptable for vulnerable communities and small island states in particular, because we’ll feel the effects the fastest with crossing anywhere beyond 1.5 even 1.51 it’s going to have significant implications.

“We’ve always had all the solutions to be able to do so and it’s just a lack of political will. It’s a choice that’s being made consistently and that choice is going to affect every single one on this earth.”

Sharma is hopeful there will be positive outcomes at this year’s COP, despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, which are in part driven by it being hosted close to the Amazon Rainforest — often referred to as the lungs of the earth — and marking 10 years since the Paris Agreement was signed.

It is also the first time Pacific nations have confirmation from the world’s top court that failing to protect people from the effects of climate change could violate international law.

“The advisory opinion that we have now is the first time that we’re going into COP with this kind of legal clarity and the legal clarity is telling us that there’s due diligence in terms of limiting warming to 1.5C.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific civil society groups say 2025 has been a big year for the ocean.

Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) representative Maureen Penjueli said the Pacific Ocean was being hyper-militarised and there was a desire for seabed minerals to be used to build-up military capacity.

“Critical minerals, whether from land or from the deep ocean itself, have a military end use, and that’s been made very clear in 2025,” Penjueli said during the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) 2025 State of the Ocean webinar.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific Ocean militarisation reports

“They’re deemed extremely vital for defence industrial base, enabling the production of military platforms such as fighter aircraft, tanks, missiles, submarines.

“2025 is the year where we see the link between critical minerals on the sea floor and use [in the] military.”

PANG’s Joey Tau said one of the developments had been the increase in countries calling for a moratorium or pause on deep sea mining, which was now up to 40.

“Eight of which are from the Pacific and a sub-regional grouping the MSG (Melanesian Spearhead Group) still holds that political space or that movement around a moratorium.”

Deep-sea mining rules
Tau said it came as the UN-sanctioned International Seabed Authority tried to come to an agreement on deep-sea mining rules at the same time as the United States is considering its own legal pathway.

“It is a bad precedent setting by the US, we hope that the ISA both assembly and the council would hold ground and warn the US.”

He said unlike US, China spoke about the importance of multilateralism and it for global partners to maintain unity within the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) agreement which has not been ratified by the United States.

Also in February was the deep sea minerals talanoa, where Pacific leaders met to discuss deep sea mining.

“Some of our countries sit on different sides of the table on this issue. You have countries who are sponsoring and who are progressing the agenda of deep-sea mining, not only within their national jurisdiction, but also in the international arena,” Tau said.

In May, UN human rights experts expressed concern about the release of treated nuclear wastewater.

Japan’s government has consistently maintained the release meets international safety standards, and monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency shows there is no measurable impact beyond Japan’s coastal waters.

Legal and moral problem
However, Ocean Vision Legal’s Naima Taafaki-Fifita said as well as being an environmental issue, it was also a legal and moral problem.

“By discharging these radioactive contaminants into the Pacific, Japan risks breaching its obligations under international law,” she said.

“[The UN special rapporteurs] caution that this may pose grave risks to human rights, particularly the rights to life, health, food and culture, not only in Japan, but across the Pacific.”

Taafaki-Fifita said it was a “deeply personal” issue for Pacific people who lived with the nuclear legacy of testing.

In September, what is known as the “High Seas Treaty” received its 60th ratification which means it will now be legally effective in January 2026.

The agreement allows international waters — which make up nearly two-thirds of the ocean — to be placed into marine protected areas.

Taafaki-Fitita said it was important that Pacific priorities were visible and heard as the treaty became implemented.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

In an open letter released at the Belém Climate Summit, special envoys for strategic regions have expressed their support for the COP30 presidency and for all leaders committed to advancing climate crisis action.

Former New Zealand prime minister Dame Jacinda Ardern, the “voice” for Oceania, was among the seven climate envoys signing the letter.

The document acknowledges the progress achieved through the Paris Agreement and the Dubai Consensus, while underscoring the need for further advances “in light of the Global Stocktake” and warning of the growing challenge posed by climate disinformation.

• READ MORE: COP30 climate summit hears from countries suffering global warming harms
• The open letter from the climate special envoys
• Other COP30 climate reports

The text calls for unity and concrete action to bridge the “triple gap” between climate finance, adaptation, and mitigation.

These bottlenecks, it emphasised, could not be resolved solely through revisions to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), but required tangible policy measures.

The Baku to Belém Roadmap is highlighted as a vehicle for developing innovative solutions to unlock large-scale investments while reducing financing costs.

In addressing the spread of climate disinformation, the special envoys underlined the need for coordinated responses, collective strategies, and reinforced regulatory frameworks.

The letter was signed by Special Envoys Adnan Z. Amin (Middle East), Arunabha Ghosh (South Asia), Carlos Lopes (Africa), Jacinda Ardern (Oceania), Jonathan Pershing (North America), Laurence Tubiana (Europe), and Patricia Espinosa (Latin America and the Caribbean).

The open letter to leaders in Belém and to the COP30 presidency from the special envoys for strategic regions

We, the Special Envoys for our respective regions, wish to express our strong support for the Brazilian Presidency and all leaders committed to climate action at Belém.

COP30 presents both a significant opportunity and a profound challenge. To remain aligned with the ambition of the Paris Agreement amidst an increasingly complex geopolitical environment, we must demonstrate decisive progress. Multilateralism, grounded in international law and guided by the Paris Agreement, remains our most effective framework.

A clear signal from COP30 that the international community stands united in its determination to confront climate change will resonate globally. Our shared commitment to fully implement the Paris Agreement is the strongest collective response to a crisis that is disproportionately affecting vulnerable households and countries, devastating lives, livelihoods, and the ecosystems upon which we all depend.

We should also recognise the progress achieved since the Paris Agreement in 2015. The rapid growth of clean solutions is bending the trajectory of global emissions; where we had been on track to exceed a devastating temperature increase of more than 4°C, we are now able to project a level of less than 2.5°C.

But we need greater progress. We are not on track to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, and in particular, we are taking insufficient action to keep 1.5°C within reach, or even enough to keep warming well below 2°C. And every tenth of a degree of additional warming will mean harsh consequences for the world.

COP30 must acknowledge and address the “triple gap” in mitigation, adaptation and finance. Doing so requires an accelerated effort across the next decade, mobilising the full range of tools, resources, and partnerships available to us. This is at the heart of the goal of COP30: to advance the full implementation of both the Paris Agreement and the UAE Consensus, informed by the Global Stocktake presented at COP28 in Dubai.

To accelerate progress, we must maintain a laser focus on concrete, coordinated action.

The Action Agenda is a powerful reservoir of those actions, which must be structured, monitored, and supported for effective delivery. Addressing the gap should not be understood solely as revising Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), but rather as translating ambition into policies that enable each country to overperform on its existing commitments. And the policies we take, as has been amply demonstrated in our successes to date, can marry not only climate benefits, but also contribute to growing our economies, promote our national security, improve the welfare of our citizens, and promote a healthy environment.

Tripling global renewable energy capacity is a goal within reach. Collectively, we have the
technology and resources: what is required now is scaled investment in all regions. The Baku to Belém roadmap to mobilise US$1.3 trillion annually for developing countries outlines both established and innovative solutions to deliver investment at scale at reduced costs of finance. To operationalise it, clear milestones, mandates, and responsibilities are needed.

Ministers of finance should take the lead in defining the priorities. Creating fiscal space, minimizing debt burdens, effectively mobilising domestic and international finance, and
ensuring enabling policy environments, alongside increased investment in the Global South,
are all essential to making this roadmap credible and implementable.

Strengthening resilience and adaptation are equally critical. Climate impacts are increasingly a major barrier to sustainable economic and social development. We must work together to define the indicators that do not impose resource-intensive reporting burdens but instead help our economies and societies adapt to their local circumstances and become resilient.

We must engage the insurance sector, central banks, and private investors to close the
protection gap that threatens long-term developmental gains.

Countries pursuing the transition away from fossil fuels should define roadmaps, in line with their national circumstances, while fostering dialogue between producers and buyers of fossil fuels. Roadmaps to end deforestation and restore ecosystems are equally necessary. Taken together, these pathways can allow countries to implement the long-term strategies submitted in previous years.

For the first time, COP30 will also confront the challenge of climate disinformation: a growing threat that undermines public trust and policy implementation. Combatting this challenge requires coordinated approaches, shared strategies, and strengthened regulatory
cooperation. We must shine the spotlight on our collective progress, in general, but also cases in particular where countries have met their climate targets ahead of schedule,
demonstrating a positive bias for action.

Lastly, we need an evolution of the climate regime that makes implementation more effective and inclusive. Progress depends on joining forces with the local authorities, economic sectors, governments, and civil society. Subnational leaders, from governors, to regional authorities, mayors, and community representatives, must be empowered to reinforce and complement NDCs and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). COP30 is the moment to have them at the table and to craft a new approach that brings all relevant actors together in a global effort to safeguard our common future.

It is the moment to remind ourselves of the need for solidarity, and to recognise our agency — we have it within our power to change the future for the better.

Signed:

Adnan Z. Amin (Special Envoy for Middle East), chair, World Energy Council; CEO of COP28; former director-general, International Renewable Energy Agency

Arunabha Ghosh (Special Envoy for South Asia), founder-CEO, Council on Energy, Environment and Water

Carlos Lopes (Special Envoy for Africa), chair, Africa Climate Foundation; former executive
secretary, UN Economic Commission for Africa

Jacinda Ardern (Special Envoy for Oceania), former Prime Minister of New Zealand

Jonathan Pershing (Special Envoy for North America); former US Special Envoy for Climate Change

Laurence Tubiana (Special Envoy for Europe), dean, Paris Climate School; CEO, European
Climate Foundation; former French Special Envoy for Climate Change

Patricia Espinosa (Special Envoy for Latin America and the Caribbean), former executive
secretary, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

SPECIAL REPORT: By Elis Gjevori

Israel’s war on Gaza has not only razed entire neighbourhoods to the ground, displaced families multiple times and decimated medical facilities, but also poisoned the very ground and water on which Palestinians depend.

Four weeks into a fragile ceasefire, which Israel has violated daily, the scale of the environmental devastation is becoming painfully clear.

In Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, what was once a lively community has become a wasteland. Homes lie in ruins, and an essential water source, once a rainwater pond, now festers with sewage and debris.

• READ MORE: Israeli killings continue in Gaza, West Bank — Hamas recovers captive’s body
• Other Gaza reports

For many displaced families, it is both home and hazard.

Umm Hisham, pregnant and displaced, trudges through the foul water with her children. They have nowhere else to go.

“We took refuge here, around the Sheikh Radwan pond, with all the sufferings you could imagine, from mosquitoes to sewage with rising levels, let alone the destruction all around. All this poses a danger to our lives and the lives of our children,” she said, speaking to Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Alkhalili.

The pond, designed to collect rainwater and channel it to the sea, now holds raw sewage after Israeli air attacks destroyed the pumps. With electricity and sanitation systems crippled, contaminated water continues to rise, threatening to engulf nearby homes and tents.

Grave impacts
“There is no doubt there are grave impacts on all citizens: Foul odours, insects, mosquitoes. Also, foul water levels have exceeded 6 metres high without any protection; the fence is completely destroyed, with high possibility for any child, woman, old man, or even a car to fall into this pond,” said Maher Salem, a Gaza City municipal officer speaking to Al Jazeera.

Local officials warn that stagnant water could cause disease outbreaks, especially among children. Yet for many in Gaza, there are no alternatives.

Gaza contaminated water risk            Video: Al Jazeera

“Families know that the water they get from the wells and from the containers or from the water trucks is polluted and contaminated … but they don’t have any other choice,” said Al Jazeera journalist Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City.

Destroyed water infrastructure
At the COP30 Climate Summit in Brazil,  described the crisis as an environmental catastrophe intertwined with Israel’s genocide.

“There’s no secret that Gaza is suffering because of the genocide that Israel continues to wage, a war that has created nearly a quarter of a million victims and produced more than 61 million tonnes of rubble, some of which is contaminated with hazardous materials,” he said.

“In addition, the deliberate destruction of sewage and water networks has led to the contamination of groundwater and coastal waters. Gaza now faces severe risks to public health, and environmental risks are increasing,” al-Zeben added.

Agricultural land ‘destroyed’
Israel’s attacks have also “destroyed” much of the enclave’s agricultural land, leaving it “in a state of severe food insecurity and famine with food being used as a weapon,” he said.

In September, a UN report warned freshwater supplies in Gaza are “severely limited and much of what remains is polluted”.

“The collapse of sewage treatment infrastructure, the destruction of piped systems and the use of cesspits for sanitation have likely increased contamination of the aquifer that supplies much of Gaza with water,” the report by the United Nations Environment Programme noted.

Back in Sheikh Radwan, the air hangs thick with rot and despair. “When every day is a fight to find water, food, and bread,” journalist Mahmoud said, “safety becomes secondary.”

COMMENTARY: By Dr Satyendra Prasad

As Pacific’s leaders and civil society prepare for the United Nations Climate Conference in Brazil (COP30) next week, they also need to keep a line of sight to the subsequent Pacific’s COP31.

As they engage at COP30, they will have in their thoughts the painful and lonely journey ahead in Jamaica and across the Caribbean as they rebuild from Hurricane Melissa.

The Blue Pacific needs to build a well-lit pathway to land Pacific’s priorities at COP30 and COP31. The cross winds are heavy and the landing zone could not be hazier.

• READ MORE: EU waters down climate target in last-ditch deal before COP30 in Brazil
• Other COP30 reports

At the recent Pacific Islands Forum Meeting in Honiara, Pacific leaders called for accelerating implementation of programmes to respond to climate change. They said that finance and knowhow remained the binding constraints to this.

The Pacific’s leaders were unanimous that the world was failing the Pacific.

Climate-stressed infrastructure
Pacific leaders spoke about their infrastructure deficit. The region today needs well in excess of $500 million annually to maintain infrastructure in the face of rising seas and fiercer storms.

There are more than 1000 primary and secondary schools, dozens of health centres across coastal areas in Solomon Islands, PNG, Vanuatu and Fiji that need to be repaired rehabilitated or relocated.

The region needs an additional $300-500 million annually over a decade to build and climate proof critical infrastructure — airports, wharves, jetties, water and electricity and telecommunications.

The Blue Pacific’s infrastructure distress is a cocktail that poisons its human development progress. This has lethal consequences for our elderly, for children and the most vulnerable.

As a region has fallen short in convincing the international community that the region’s infrastructure distress is quintessentially a climate distress. This must change.

The constant cycle of catastrophe, recovery and debt are on autoplay repeat across the world’s most climate vulnerable region. The heart-braking images coming out of Jamaica and the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricane Melissa makes this same point.

The Blue Pacific as a region attracts a woefully insufficient share of existing climate finance. Less than 1.5 percent of the total climate finances reaches the world’s most climate vulnerable region today. This is unacceptable of course.

Is our planet headed for a 3.0C world?
At COP30, the world will see what the new climate commitments (NDCs) add up to. Our best estimates today suggest that the planet is headed for a 3.0C plus temperature rise. Anything above 1.5C will be catastrophic for the Blue Pacific.

Life across our coral reef systems will simply roast at 3.0C temperature increase. The regions food security will be harmed irreparably. This will have massive consequences for tourism dependent economies. Bleached reefs bleach tourism incomes.

The health consequences arising from climate change are set to worsen rapidly. As will the toll on children who will fall further behind in their learning as schools remain inaccessible for longer periods; or children spend long hours in hotter classrooms.

For Pacific’s women, the toll of runaway temperature increase will be heavy — on their health, on their livelihoods and on their security. It will be too heavy.

A deal for the Pacific at COP30
The world of climate change is becoming transactional. Short termism and deal making have become its norm.

As Pacific leaders, its civil society, its science community and its young engage at COP30 in Brazil, they are reminded that the Blue Pacific needs more than anything else, a settled outlook climate finance that will be available to the region. Finance must be foremostly predictable.

The region should not feel like it is playing a lottery — as is the case today. Tonga must know broadly how much climate finance will be available to it over the next five years and so must Papua New Guinea.

At Bele’m, the world will need to agree to a road map for how the climate financing short fall will be met. This is a must to restore trust in the global process.

The weight on the shoulders of host Brazil is extraordinarily heavy. Brazil is the home of the famous Rio Conference in 1992 where the small island states first succeeded in placing climate change, biodiversity loss on the global agenda.

The Small Islands States grouping is chaired by Palau. President Whipps Jnr will lead the islands to Brazil. He will no doubt remind the host that the world has failed the small states persistently since that moment of great hope at the Rio Conference in 1992.

Pace of climate finance
There are three principal reasons why climate finance must flow to the Pacific at speed.

First, is that most countries in our region have less than a decade to adapt. Farms and family gardens, small businesses, tourist resorts, villages and livelihoods need to adapt now to meet a climate changed world.

Second, if adaptation is pushed into the future because of woefully insufficient finances — the window to adapt will close.

As more sectors of our economy fall beyond rehabilitation, the costs of loss and damage will rise. Time is of the essence. And on top of that loss and damage remain poorly funded. This too must change.

The Pacific needs to do many things concurrently to build its resilience. Everything for the Blue Pacific rests on a decent outcome on financing.

The region needs to make its clearest argument that its share of climate finance must be ring-fenced. That its share of climate finance will remain available to the region even if demand is slow to take shape.

The Pacific’s rightful share of climate finance over the next decade is between 3-5 per cent of the total across all financing windows. This is fundamentally because based the adaptation window is so short in such a uniquely specific way.

This should mean that the Blue Pacific has access to a floor of US$1.5 billion annually through to 2035. This is very doable even if global currents are choppy.

TFFF and Brazil’s leadership
Brazil has already demonstrated that it can forge large financing arrangements through its leadership and creativity. It will launch the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) at COP. PNG’s Prime Minister has played an important role on this. We hope that forested Pacific states will be able to access this new facility to expand their conservation efforts with much higher returns to landowners.

Beyond Bele’m
COP30 in Brazil is an opportunity for the Pacific to begin to frame a larger consensus — well in time for COP31. It is my hope that Australia and Pacific’s leaders will have done enough to secure the hosting rights for COP31.

A ‘circuit-breaker’ COP31
Fiji’s former Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad and Australia’s Climate Minister Chris Bowen recently said that COP31 must be “a circuit breaker moment” for the Blue Pacific.

The reversals in our development story arising from the climate chaos have become too burdensome. Repeated recoveries means that every next recovery becomes that much harder.

Ask anyone in Jamaica and Caribbean today and you will hear this same message. Their finance ministers know too well that in no time they will be back at the mercy of international financial institutions to rebuild roads and bridges that have been washed away and water systems that have been destroyed by Hurricane Melissa.

Climate finance by its very nature therefore must involve deep changes to the architecture of international development and finance. The rich world is not yet ready to let go of privilege and power that it wields through an archaic financial international system.

But fundamental reform is a must. Fundamental reform is necessary if small states are to reclaim agency and begin to drive own destinies.

Future proofing our societies
The risks arising from climate change are so multi-faceted that economic, social and political stability cannot no longer be taken for granted.

Conflicts over land lost to rising seas, the strain on education, health and water infrastructure, deepening debt stress take their toll on institutions through which stability is maintained in our societies.

The Blue Pacific needs to work with this elevated risk of fragility and state failure. This reality must shape the Blue Pacific expectations from a Pacific COP.

Building on the excellent work underway in climate ministries in Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, PNG and across the region through the SPC, SPREP, OPOC, I have outlined what the Pacific’s expectations could be from a Pacific COP31.

COP31 must be about transformation and impact. The Blue Pacific’s leaders should seek a consensus that includes both the rich industrial World and large developing countries such as China and India in support of a Pacific Package at COP31.

A Pacific COP 31 package
The core elements of a Pacific package at COP31 are:

1. Ensuring that the Loss and Damage Fund has become fully operational with a pipeline of investment ready projects from across the Blue Pacific.
2. Securing the Pacific Regional Infrastructure Facility (PRIF) as a fully funded and disbursement ready financing facility with a pipeline of investment ready projects.
3. Securing ring-fenced climate finance allocations for the Blue Pacific at the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and across international financial institutions.
4. Securing support for Blue Pacific’s “lighthouse” multi-country (region wide) transformative programs to advance marine and terrestrial biodiversity protection and promote sustainability across the Blue Pacific Ocean.
5. A COP decision that is unambiguous on quality and speed of climate and ocean finance that will be available to small states for the remainder of the decade.
6. Securing sufficient resources that can flow directly to communities and families to rapidly rebuild their resilience following disasters and catastrophes including through insurance and social protection vehicles.
7. Ensuring that knowhow, resources and mechanisms for disaster risk reduction are in place, are fully operational and are sustainable.

An Ocean of Peace for a climate changed world
Fiji’s Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has championed the Blue Pacific as an Ocean of Peace. Its acceptance by Pacific leaders opens up opportunities for the region’s climate diplomacy.

The Pacific’s leaders accept that the Ocean of Peace anchors its stewardship of our marine environment to the highest principles of protection and conservation. An Ocean of Peace super-charges the Pacific’s efforts to take forward transboundary marine research and conservation, end plastic and harmful waste disposal, end harmful fisheries subsidies and decarbonise shipping.

It boosts the Pacific’s efforts to main-frame the ocean-climate nexus into the international climate change frameworks by the time a Pacific COP31 is convened.

A window of hope
Between COP30 and COP31 lies a rare window of hope. The Blue Pacific must leverage this.

Both a Brazilian and an Australian Presidency offer supportive back-to-back opportunities and spaces to take forward the regions desire to project a solid foundation of programs that are necessary to secure its future.

Uniquely the ball may be in the Pacific’s court on how successfully we can harness this rare opening in the international environment.

Dr Satyendra Prasad is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Fiji’s former ambassador to the UN. He is the Climate Lead for About Global. This article was first published by Wansolwara Online and is republished by Asia Pacific Report in partnership with USP Journalism.

Not enough is yet known about the seafloor to decide if deep sea mining can start in the Cook Islands, says an ocean scientist with the government authority in charge of seabed minerals.

The Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority (SBMA) returned last week from a 21-day deep-sea research expedition on board the United States exploration vessel EV Nautilus.

The trip was also funded by the United States and supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

• READ MORE: Pacific protesters against deep sea mining challenge US exploration ship
• Other deep sea mining reports

The Nautilus in the Cook Islands.             Video: RNZ Pacific

High-resolution imagery and data were collected in a bid to better understand what lives on the seafloor.

SBMA knowledge management officer Dr John Parianos said the findings would guide decisions about seabed mining.

“One day someone will have to make a decision about what to do and it’s clear today we don’t know enough to make a decision,” Parianos said.

On its return, EV Nautilus was confronted by a group of Greenpeace Pacific protest kayakers holding signs that read: “Don’t mine the moana”.

One of the protesters, Louisa Castledine told RNZ Pacific she was conscious both NOAA and Nautilus had a reputation for being “environmentally friendly” but was concerned about research being “weaponised”.

“This research is being used to help enable and guide decision making towards deep-sea mining,” said Castledine, who is the spokesperson for Ocean Ancestors.

“It’s the guise in which this research is being used, and it’s who sent them is the challenge, because who sent them is quite clear on their intent in mining.

In August, the US and the Cook Islands agreed to work closer in the area of seabed minerals to “advance scientific research and the responsible development of seabed mineral resources”.

It came off the back of the Cook Islands signing a five-year agreement with China to cooperate in exploring and researching seabed minerals.

Jocelyn Trainer, a geopolitical analyst with Terra Global Insights, said both countries were interested in the metals to enhance military capabilities but it was not the primary market.

“Volumes are greater for other industries such as the renewable energy sectors and in China there’s huge demand for electric vehicles.”

Trainer said China was ahead of the US in obtaining critical minerals through land mining and mineral processing.

“The US is seeming to choose to start with the supply side of things, get the minerals, and then perhaps work up the knowledge of production and refining.”

Castledine said the region was in the middle of a “geopolitical storm” with the US and China vying for control over deep-sea minerals.

“The USA is building their military might within the Pacific and this is one of those ways in which their reach is moving more into the Pacific and more specifically into Cook Islands waters.”

The Nautilus expedition focused on discovery and the chance to test new deep-sea technology.

Expedition lead Renato Kane said bad weather threatened the mission. However, it cleared up in time to send their ROVs down.

“We’ve had six really successful dives to the sea floor. We’re diving these vehicles down to over 5000 meters depth and the length of these dives were on average, about 30 hours each.

“So we’ve got a lot of high definition video footage for scientific observation on the sea floor.”

Central to the expedition’s success was the testing of a new, ultra-high-resolution camera, the MxD SeaCam, designed for deep-sea research at depths of up to 7000 metres.

The camera combines a compact broadcast camera with custom-built titanium housing to capture 4K images with remarkable clarity.

Dr John Parianos said it was some of the best footage ever recorded several kilometres below the surface.

He said footage would help create the Cook Islands first public catalogue of deep-sea life.

“We’ve benefited from probably the highest resolution images ever taken at these depths in the whole world ever,” he said.

“We need to make a catalogue of the types of life in the Cook Islands seabed so that researchers in the future can reference it. Having such high-quality images means that the catalogue will be even better quality than what exists internationally today.”

Tanga Morris, who was responsible for logging data of both biological and geological discoveries on the expedition, said she was in awe of the various life forms they observed.

“One of the main ones that’s quite dominant down in the deep sea would be deep-sea sponges. We’ve seen them in different species, morphotypes, and sizes, even a whole garden of them.”

Other creatures found were sea stars, anemones, octopi and eels — some of which have possibly never been seen before.

“A few people have asked questions like, ‘have you guys spotted any unidentified species?’ And I think we have come across a few, but then it will take a while to really be sure.

“But if so, what a great milestone it is for us to acknowledge that within our Cook Island waters.”

Dr Antony Vavia, a senior research fellow at Te Puna Vai Marama, the Cook Islands Centre for Research, said the opportunity to go onboard and study deep-sea organisms firsthand was an eye-opening experience.

“Everything that I’ve seen down there has been a bit of a wow for me. [I’m] just amazed at how much life is down there. I was talking to my former supervisor, and he described us as the ‘astronauts of the sea’.”

A notable feature of the EV Nautilus was its 24/7 online livestream.

He said people from around the world tuned in during dives to see the deep-sea discoveries for themselves.

“Being able to show what our ROV — what is ROV, the little Hercules, is seeing in real time, and so having the wholesome thought that we’re not on this exploration journey alone.

“But the fact that we can broadcast it to anyone that is interested and invested in learning more about our deep sea environments is incredibly rewarding, because you feel like you’re pulling in others to be a part of this discovery.”

Dr Vavia who is also a lecturer at Auckland University of Technology, said many schools and university groups had got involved, broadcasting the deep-sea right into their classrooms.

“The opportunities to reach out to schools from a primary school level all the way up to university has been a great opportunity to showcase the science that we’re doing here, and hopefully to inspire younger generations and those that are already in the pursuit of careers in marine science or doing work on board research vessels such as the EV Nautilus.”

The EV Nautilus crew said this element of the voyage helped to answer the public’s questions on what life is found on the seabed.

Crew member and journalist Madison Dapcevich said they hoped their passion inspired future scientists.

“Something that’s really great about Nautilus is we do have this like childlike wonder. We do get really excited about sponges, which most people are not that excited about.

“And then it’s also a great pathway for early career professionals. So we do have an internship and fellowship programme, and those applications are open right now through to the end of the year.”

The teams findings that will form their first public catalogue of deep-sea life will be a foundation for future research and one day, the difficult decisions about what lies beneath.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A feature story authored by a student journalist highlighting the harm plastic pollution poses to human health in Fiji — with risks expected to rise significantly if robust action is not taken soon — has won the Online category of the 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards — Cleaner Pacific.

Riya Bhagwan, a Fiji national studying journalism at The University of the South Pacific (USP), won the prize with her Wansolwara story, titled Behind the stalled progress in Fiji’s plastic pollution battle, reports the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

USP student journalists won two out of four categories in the awards.

• READ MORE: The 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Award winners

Launched during the 7th Pacific Media Summit by Niue’s Prime Minister, Dalton Tagelagi, the awards celebrate excellence in environmental news reporting across the Pacific Island region.

The theme, Cleaner Pacific, spotlights the urgent need to tackle plastic pollution, one of the triple planetary crises threatening the planet, alongside climate change and biodiversity loss.

A story titled Managing Solid Waste in Gizo, a tough task, by award-winning Solomon Islands journalist, Moffat Mamu, of the Solomon Star, and also a USP graduate, won the Print category.

Coverage of the Vatuwaqa Rugby Club’s efforts to keep their community clean, by Fijian journalist Joeli Tikomaimaleya of Fiji TV, picked up the Television category.

Student award winner
The Student Journalism Award was won by Niko Ratumaimuri, of USP, for his story in Wansolwara highlighting a call by young Fijians to keep the country plastic free.

The 2024 Vision Pasifika Media Awards is a partnership facilitated by SPREP with the Australian government through support for Pacific engagement in the INC on plastic pollution and the Pacific Ocean Litter Project (POLP), Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner (OPOC) and the Pacific Islands News Association (PINA).

SPREP Director-General Sefanaia Nawadra said: “We are drowning under a sea of waste! The Pacific media is critical in ensuring we in the Pacific understand the challenges of waste and pollution and share ways we can work towards its effective management.

“Many of our waste issues originate from outside our region and our Pacific media must help our countries advocate for global action on waste especially plastic.”

A Marshall Islands lawmaker has called on Pacific legislatures to establish and strengthen their national human rights commissions to help address the region’s nuclear testing legacy.

“Our people in the Marshall Islands carry voices of our lives that are shaped by this nuclear legacy,” Senator David Anitok said during the second day of the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures (APIL) general assembly in Saipan this week.

“Decades later, our people still endure many consequences, such as cancer, displacement, environmental contamination, and the Micronesian families seeking safety and care abroad. Recent studies and lived experience [have shown] what our elders have always known-the harm is deeper, broader, and longer lasting than what the world once believed.”

• READ MORE: Other nuclear testing reports

Anitok said that once established, these human rights commissions must be independent, inclusive, and empowered to tackle not only the nuclear testing legacy but also issues of injustice, displacement, environmental degradation, and governance.

“Let’s stand together and build a migration network of human rights institutions that will protect our people, our lands, our oceans, our cultures, our heritages, and future generations,” he said.

“Furthermore, we call upon all of you to engage more actively with international human rights mechanisms. Together, it will help shape a future broadened in human rights, peace, and dignity.”

To demonstrate the Marshall Islands’ leadership on human rights, Anitok noted that the country has been elected to the UN Human Rights Council twice under President Dr Hilda Heine — an honour shared in the Pacific only once each by Australia and Tahiti.

Pohnpei Senator Shelten Neth echoed Anitok’s call, demanding justice for the Pacific’s nuclear testing victims.

“Enough is enough. Let’s stop talking the talk and let’s put our efforts together — united we stand and walk the talk.

“Spreading of the nuclear waste is not only confined to the Marshall Islands, and I’m a living witness. I can talk about this from the scientific research already completed, but many don’t want to release it to the general public.

“The contamination is spreading fast. [It’s in] Guam already, and the other nations that are closer to the RMI,” Neth said.

He then urged the United States to accept full responsibility for its nuclear testing programme in the Pacific.

“I [want to tell] Uncle Sam to honestly attend to the accountability of their wrongdoing. Inhuman, unethical, unorthodox, what you did to RMI. The nuclear testing is an injustice!” Neth declared.

Anitok and Neth’s remarks followed a presentation by Diego Valadares Vasconcelos Neto, human rights officer for Micronesia under the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who discussed how UN human rights mechanisms can support economic development, health, and welfare in the region.

Neto underscored the UN’s 80-year partnership with the Pacific and its continuing commitment to peace, human rights, and sustainable development in the wake of the Second World War and the nuclear era.

He highlighted key human rights relevant to the Pacific context:

• Right to development — Economic progress must go beyond GDP growth to include social, cultural, and political inclusion;
• Right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment — Ensuring access to information, public participation, and justice in environmental matters; and
• Political and civil rights — Upholding participation in governance, freedom of expression and association, equality, and self-determination.

Based in Pohnpei and representing OHCHR’s regional office in Suva, Fiji, Neto outlined UN tools available to assist Pacific legislatures, including the Universal Periodic Review, special procedures (such as thematic experts on water, sanitation, and climate justice), and treaty bodies monitoring state compliance with human rights conventions.

He also urged Pacific parliaments to form permanent human rights committees, ratify more international treaties, and strengthen legislative oversight on human rights implementation.

Neto concluded by citing ongoing UN collaboration in the Marshall Islands-particularly in addressing the human rights impacts of nuclear testing and climate change-and expressed hope for continued dialogue between Pacific lawmakers and the UN Human Rights Office.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Māori and Pasifika leaders are leading climate adaptation, guided by ancestral knowledge and Indigenous principles to build resilience and shape global solutions.

Last week, they played a key role in launching a new Indigenous climate adaptation network at a wānanga ahead of Adaptation Futures 2025, held on October 13-16 in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

The network aims to build a global movement grounded in Indigenous knowledge, centred on decolonising systems and financial mechanisms, and ensuring Indigenous peoples have direct access to climate finance, the funding that supports actions to address and adapt to climate change.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific climate crisis reports

The wānanga was led by Lisa Tumahai (Ngāi Tahu), New Zealand patron for Adaptation Futures 2025 and deputy chair of the NZ Climate Commission, and Tagaloa Cooper (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi, Niue), director of the Climate Change Resilience Programme at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) in Apia, Samoa.

“The Indigenous Forum came from what we learnt at the previous two adaptation conferences. The recommendations from Indigenous peoples were to step it up a bit at this conference and create an intentional day and space for Indigenous voices,” says Tumahai.

“For the first time, people are really seeing the commonalities we share with other Indigenous populations, whether they’re from Canada, Africa, or the Amazon.”

Kotahitanga across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa
Cooper said many of the Pasifika in attendance felt “at home” in Aotearoa and welcomed the opportunity to have a major conference hosted in the region, as international events are often inaccessible due to high costs.

“I’d like to have more of these types of conversations with our cousins in New Zealand where we can exchange knowledge, learn from each other, and also be innovative about how we do adapt,” she says.

She added that, in speaking with Pacific participants, there was a strong call for deeper engagement with iwi across Aotearoa, particularly in rural communities facing similar challenges to small island nations, to create more opportunities for sharing and exchanging traditional knowledge.

The value of Indigenous knowledge
Cooper emphasised that Indigenous peoples hold a vast body of knowledge that has long been marginalised.

“Science now is telling us what we’ve always known as Indigenous people,” Cooper says.

“We must remember our ancestors navigated the vast oceans to get here and then grew nations in very difficult places. There is a lot to learn from our people because we have adapted to live in new lands and we’re still here.”

As Indigenous observer for the World Bank’s Climate Investment Funds, lawyer Taumata Toki (Ngāti Rehua) says this is a growing area that deserves attention, given the value Indigenous peoples bring and how their knowledge can strengthen climate adaptation projects.

He says he is continually inspired by Indigenous leaders around the world who are not only experts in Western knowledge systems but also grounded in Indigenous principles that are transforming how climate change is addressed.

Toki says the guiding aim of tikanga is balance, a core concept that aligns with many other Indigenous worldviews and shapes how they approach climate change and sustainability.

Barriers to climate finance
Indigenous peoples globally have often had limited access to UN climate change negotiation spaces.

Tumahai said barriers include accreditation requirements or registered body status to access climate finance.

Cooper added that smaller nations and small administrations often lack the capacity, time, and personnel to develop complex project proposals, causing delays and frustration in the flow of funds.

When asked whether Māori face additional barriers to accessing climate adaptation funding as Indigenous peoples within a developed nation, Toki says that, on a global scale, Māori are at the forefront of sovereignty over what development looks like.

However, he acknowledges that when this is set against the wider context of what is happening in Aotearoa, “it doesn’t look the best,” pointing to the ongoing challenges Māori face at home despite their strong global standing.

Māori-led adaptation and succession planning
“When it comes to Māori-led adaptation, it needs to start in our court,” he says. “We need to have our own really thought-out discussion in terms of how we develop these projects to be both tikanga-aligned, but also wider Indigenous peoples’ principles aligned.”

Once internal cohesion across iwi is established, state support will play an important role.

Despite the challenges, Toki says the potential ahead is immense, both economically and environmentally, and Aotearoa has the opportunity to be world-leading in this space.

Tumahai agrees that the work has to start at home, and her passion, which she has long championed, is succession planning to bring rangatahi into the work.

“And with that succession planning, it’s not to be dismissive of the pakeke or kaumatua who are really that korowai and the knowledge holders,” she says.

“We have our own systems that ensure the conversations are held and led where the knowledge is sitting.”

Te Aniwaniwa is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News and contributes to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by Te Ao Māori News and is republished with permission.

Cook Islanders holding a banner reading “Don’t Mine the Moana” have confronted an exploration vessel as it returned to Rarotonga port today, protesting the emerging threat of seabed mining.

Four activists in kayaks paddled alongside the Nautilus, which has spent the last three weeks on a US-funded research expedition surveying mineral nodule fields around the Cook Islands in partnership with the Cook Islands government.

The Nautilus expedition comes just six months after President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order to expedite deep sea mining, tasking the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to fast track the licensing process.

• READ MORE: Other seabed mining reports

The research conducted on the Nautilus expedition was funded by NOAA’s Ocean Exploration Cooperation Institute.

Campaigners against seabed mining are calling the expedition one of the first steps in the Cook Island-US partnership on their critical minerals deal which was announced in August, and say it demonstrates the political motive behind the expedition is to advance seabed mining.

Louisa Castledine, Cook Island activist and spokesperson for the Ocean Ancestors collective, said the Pacific movement against seabed mining was strong and mining enablers were not welcome.

“Right now global superpowers like the US are vying for control of deep sea minerals throughout the Pacific, in an attempt to assert their military might,” she said.

Traditional life ‘at risk’
“Seabed mining will lead to the destruction of our home environments and put our Indigenous rights, cultural ways of living, and wellbeing at risk. Any government or corporate looking to exploit us in this way is no true partner of ours.”

Castledine said Cook Islanders needed to open their eyes to the threats imposed by the seabed mining industry and stop the corporate takeover of our ocean.

“We have long endured environmental and political injustices, brought about by colonialism, that forcefully displace and compromise our way of living and survival.

“We are taking a stand against the exploitation of our people and resources. As Indigenous peoples and custodians of the ocean we say NO to seabed mining.”

In August, the US and Cook Islands governments announced their official partnership on developing seabed mineral resources. A senior official at the Cook Islands Seabed Minerals Authority described this research vessel expedition as “a first step in our collaboration”.

Two of the three deep sea mining exploration licences in the Cook Islands’ EEZ waters are held by US companies.

Seabed mining is an emerging destructive industry that has not started anywhere at commercial scale. If it goes ahead, seabed mining within Cook Islands waters could pave the way for mining throughout the Pacific.

Pacific ‘blue line’
Greenpeace Aotearoa is also campaigning to stop seabed mining before it starts.

Campaigner Juressa Lee said:”We’re here today, standing alongside our allies in the Cook Islands, who like many across the region want a Pacific blue line drawn against this destructive industry.

“Just like Greenpeace stood with Pacific peoples in the fight against nuclear testing, we will continue to ally with them against this reckless industry that is gambling with our future.

“The Nautilus, which was confronted today, is doing exploration for the US. Pacific people will not be sidelined by corporations and powerful countries that try to impose this new form of extractive colonialism on the region.”

Further south in the Pacific in Aotearoa, Trans-Tasman Resources is seeking consent to mine the seabed off Taranaki, despite fierce opposition from local iwi, community groups, NGOs and more than 50,000 New Zealanders.

“People here in the Cook Islands face the same fight we’re up against in Aotearoa. In both cases, Indigenous peoples are leading the resistance against seabed miners, to protect ancestral territories and waters for future generations. Together we will resist them every step of the way,” Lee said.

More than 940 leading marine science and policy experts from over 70 countries have raised concerns about deep sea mining, and are calling for a precautionary pause on the start of deep sea mining to allow time to gather more scientific information on deep-sea biodiversity and ecosystems.

The future of the Manawanui wreckage and potential compensation payments remain a major talking point in Samoa.

The Royal New Zealand Navy vessel ran aground on a reef off the south coast of Upolu in October last year and sank.

New Zealand paid NZ$6 million to the Samoan government over it — however communities are yet to see any money.

• READ MORE: Other Manawanui shipwreck reports

Tafitoala village has been directly affected by the maritime disaster.

Resident Fagailesau Afaaso Junior Saleupu said the New Zealand High Commission and Samoa government held a short meeting regarding potential compensation options this week.

Three options were tabled around the distribution process. One involved the Samoa government being responsible for the distribution of payments among families and affected businesses. Another involved the district authority being responsible for distributing payments.

The Samoa government has previously said it intends to finalise the compensation process once it passes a budget, which it reportedly intends to do at the end of this month.

Tight timeframe
Fagailesau said this week’s meeting, which involved representatives from Samoa’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, seemed to be on a tight timeframe.

“It’s not enough time for us to raise questions and . . . give them our opinion about the problem.”

He believed the Samoa government should be responsible for distributing the money directly to those affected and said many people were concerned that the wreckage remained on the reef.

“I don’t think it’s good for us in the long run.”

Fagailesau also said many locals feared the compensation amount — which equates to WST$10 million — simply was not enough to manage the long-term impacts of the wreckage on the environment.

He also said families in Tafitoala had been severely limited by the 2km prohibition zone around the wreckage.

“My village — we are fighting for a big amount for us because we are the . . .  people that are really affected.

“The 2km zone — it covers the area that we access for fishing every day. We’re eating tinned fish.”

More meetings
Fagailesau also said the Samoa government told locals it intended to hold more meetings over compensation in the future.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said he had not been aware of any locals eating tinned fish due to the wreckage.

Peters spoke to RNZ Pacific Waves about the Manawanui. He reiterated that the Sāmoa government was leading the ongoing process around compensation and the wreckage, which included any discussion around its removal.

He also denied there was any cover-up over the environmental impacts of the wreckage.

To date, no environmental report on the impacts of Manawanui sinking has been made public.

“It’s not a matter of being covert or secretive about it,” Peters said.

“It’s analysing what we’re dealing with, and I think that probably better explains what’s happening here.”

Open and transparent
Peters said the New Zealand government had been open and transparent in it’s dealing and continued to work with the Sāmoa government over the Manawanui incident.

“This terrible tragedy happened, which we massively regret — no one more than me.”

But Samoa surf guide Manu Percival said the New Zealand government’s behaviour had not been good enough.

For months, Percival had been in contact with the New Zealand High Commission about compensation for the boat fuel he used in the immediate aftermath of the disaster to assist with clean-up.

“It’s real crazy. No one’s got any compensation.”

He also said it had been difficult to get any concrete answers from the Sāmoa government over the future of the wreckage and compensation.

“It’s kind of getting tossed between two different government departments.”

Percival believed New Zealand should remove its wreckage and that the compensation amount paid to the Samoa government was “an absolute joke”.

However, Peters said the NZ$6 million was the amount requested by the Samoa government.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Pacific leaders believe climate experts are missing an opportunity to incorporate indigenous knowledge into adaptation measures.

The call has been made as hundreds of scientists, global leaders, and climate adaptation experts around the globe gather at the Adaptation Futures Conference in Christchurch.

At the conference’s opening session, Tuvalu’s Environment Minister Maina Talia explained how sea level rise was damaging agricultural land and fresh groundwater is becoming saline.

• READ MORE: Amnesty International wants NZ visa for climate-hit Pacific islanders

“The figures are alarming, this is not just for Tuvalu and this is not a Tuvaluan problem, it’s not even a small island developing states problem, it’s a global economic bomb,” he said.

Incorporating indigenous knowledge into climate adaptation has been a major focus of the event.

Talia told RNZ Pacific he feels adaptation is generally presented in a Western lens.

“We need to decolonise our mind, decolonise our soul, in order to integrate community-based adaptation measures.”

Flagship adaptation projects
The highest elevation in Tuvalu is only four and a half metres. A 2023 report from NASA found much of Tuvalu’s land would be below the average high tide by 2050.

To combat rising seas the government has started reclaiming land, which is one of the island nation’s flagship adaptation projects.

Talia said a “decolonisation approach” gave communities ownership of the work being done.

“It’s all informed by our elders, informed by our youth, informed by our women in society, we cannot come with the idea that this is how your adaptation measures should look like.”

Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) director-general Sefanaia Nawadra, on a similar line, said the “biggest difference” of incorporating indigenous-led solutions was giving people a sense of ownership.

“It’s management by compliance rather than management by regulation, where you’re using a stick to say, ‘ok, if you don’t do this, you will be penalised’.”

‘Like a cheat code’
Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change president Cynthia Houniuhi said those on the front line of the adverse effects of climate change are often indigenous people, which is almost always the case in the Pacific.

“Who knows the place better than the ones that have lived there, so imagine that experience informs the solution, that’s the best way, it’s kind of like a cheat code.”

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) head of adaptation Youssef Nassef said it is not always clear how national adaptation plans included input from indigenous people.

He also said climate knowledge is not always accessible to those who need it most.

“We create knowledge, we put them in peer-reviewed publications but are the people who are actually needing it on the frontlines of climate change impacts really receiving that knowledge.”

Pacific climate activists are coming off a high after a top UN court found failing to protect people from the adverse effects of climate change could violate international law.

ICJ advisory opinion
Houniuhi was one of the students who got the advisory opinion in July from the International Court of Justice.

But she told those attending the conference it meant nothing if not acted upon.

“We must continue this same energy, momentum and drive into the implementation of the ruling. As one of our mentors rightly said, ‘the law has now caught up to the science, what we now need is for policy to catch up to the law’.”

Houniuhi said the advisory opinion provided “more weight to influence demands”. She expected the advisory opinion to be used as a negotiating tool by Pacific leaders at COP30 in Brazil next month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Amnesty International is asking the New Zealand government to create a new humanitarian visa for Pacific people impacted by climate change.

Kiribati community leader Charles Kiata said life on Kiribati was becoming extremely hard as sea levels rose and the country was hit by more severe storms, higher temperatures and drought.

“Every part of life, food, shelter, health, is being affected and what hurts the most is that our people feel trapped. They love their home, but their home is slowly disappearing,” Kiata said.

• READ MORE: ‘Humanitarian’ visa must be created for Pacific Islanders

Crops are dying and fresh drinking water is becoming increasingly scarce for the island nation.

Kiata said in New Zealand, overstayers were anxious they would be sent back home.

“Deporting them back to flooded lands or places with no clean water like Kiribati is not only cruel but it also goes against our shared Pacific values.”

Amnesty International is also asking the government to stop deporting overstayers from Kiribati and Tuvalu, who would be returning to harsh conditions.

Duty of care
The organisation’s executive director, Jacqui Dillon said she wanted New Zealand to acknowledge its duty of care to Pacific communities.

“We are asking the New Zealand government to create a new humanitarian visa, specifically for those impacted by climate change and disasters. Enabling people to migrate on their terms with dignity.”

She said current Pacific visas New Zealand offered, such as the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) and the Pacific Access Category (PAC), were insufficient.

“Those pathways are in effect nothing short of a discriminatory lottery, so they don’t offer dignity, nor do they offer self-agency.”

Dillon said current visa schemes were also discriminatory because people could only migrate if they had an acceptable standard of health.

The organisation interviewed Alieta — not her real name — who has a visual impairment. She decided to remove her name from the family’s PAC application to enable her husband and six-year-old daughter to migrate to New Zealand in 2016.

It has meant Alieta has only seen her daughter once in the past 11 years.

“I would urge all of us to think about that and say, if our feet were in those shoes, would we think that that was right? I don’t think we would,” Dillon said.

Tuvalu comparison
Tuvaluan community leader Fala Haulangi, based in Aotearoa, wants the country to adopt something like the Falepili Union Treaty which the leaders of Tuvalu and Australia signed in 2023.

It creates a pathway for up to 280 Tuvalu citizens to go to Australia each year to work, live, and study.

This year over 80 percent of the population applied to move under the treaty.

Haulangi said the PAC had too many restrictions.

“PAC (Pacific Access Category Visa) still comes with conditions that are very, very strict on my people, so if [New Zealand has] the same terms and conditions that Australia has for the Falepili Treaty, to me that is really good.”

In the past, Pacific governments have been worried about the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme causing a brain drain.

Samoa paused scheme
In 2023, Samoa paused the scheme, partially because of the loss of skilled labour, including police officers leaving to go fruit picking.

Haulangi said it’s not up to her to tell people to stay if a new and more open visa is available to Pacific people.

“Who am I to tell my people back home ‘don’t come, stay there’ because we need people back home.”

Dillon said some people will stay.

“All we’re simply saying is give people the opportunity and the dignity to have self-agency and be able to choose.”

Charles Kiata from Kiribati said a visa established now would mean there would be a slow migration of people from the Pacific and not people being forced to leave as climate refugees.

He said people from Kiribati had strengths they could be proud of and could partner with New Zealand.

“It’s a win-win for both of us; our people come to New Zealand to contribute economically and to society.”

RNZ Pacific has approached New Zealand’s Minister of Immigration Erica Stanford for comment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

“Speak Up Kōrerotia” — a radio show centred on human rights issues — has featured a nuclear-free Pacific and other issues in this week’s show.

Encouraging discussion on human rights issues in both Canterbury and New Zealand, Speak Up Kōrerotia offers a forum to provide a voice for affected communities.

Engaging in conversations around human rights issues in the country, each show covers a different human rights issue with guests from or working with the communities.

• READ MORE: Other Speak Up Kōrerotia programmes

Analysing and asking questions of the realities of life allows Speak Up Kōrerotia to cover the issues that often go untouched.

Discussing the hard-hitting topics, Speak Up Kōrerotia encourages listeners to reflect on the issues covered.

Hosted by Dr Sally Carlton, the show brings key issues to the fore and provides space for guests to “Speak Up” and share their thoughts and experiences.

The latest episode today highlights the July/August 2025 marking of two major anniversaries — 80 years since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, and 40 years since the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior here in Aotearoa.

What do these anniversaries mean in the context of 2025, with the ever-greater escalation of global tension and a new nuclear arms race occurring alongside the seeming impotence of the UN and other international bodies?

Anti-nuclear advocacy in 2025           Video/audio podcast: Speak Up Kōrerotia

Guests: Disarmament advocate Dr Kate Dewes, journalist and author Dr David Robie, critical nuclear studies academic Dr Karly Burch and Japanese gender literature professor Dr Susan Bouterey bring passion, a wealth of knowledge and decades of anti-nuclear advocacy to this discussion.

Dr Robie’s new book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior was launched on the anniversary of the ship’s bombing. This revised edition has extensive new and updated material, images, and a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark.

• LISTEN: Speak Up Kōrerotia podcast
• Video/audio podcast vat Café Pacific on YouTube

Author David Robie left his cabin on the Rainbow Warrior three days before it was blown up by the Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency

The ship was destroyed at Marsden Wharf on 10 July 1985 by two limpet mines attached
below the waterline.

As New Zealand soon learned to its shock, the second explosion killed crew member and photographer Fernando Pereira as he tried to retrieve his cameras.

• READ MORE: Other Eyes of Fire reports

“I had planned to spend the night of the bombing onboard with my two young sons, to give them a brief taste of shipboard life,” Dr Robie writes. “At the last moment I decided to leave it to another night.”

He left the ship after 11 weeks documenting what turned out to be the last of her humanitarian missions — a voyage which highlighted the exploitation of Pacific nations
by countries who used them to test nuclear weapons.

Dr Robie was the only journalist on board to cover both the evacuation of the people
of Rongelap Atoll after their land, fishing grounds and bodies were ravaged by US nuclear fallout, and the continued voyage to nuclear-free Vanuatu and New Zealand.

Eyes of Fire is not only the authoritative biography of the Rainbow Warrior and her
missions, but a gripping account of the infiltration of Greenpeace by a French spy, the bombing, its planning, the capture of the French agents, the political fallout, and ongoing
challenges for Pacific nations.

Dr Robie corrects the widely held belief that the first explosion on the Rainbow Warrior
was intended as a warning, to avoid loss of life. No, it turns out, the French state really
did mean to kill people.

“It was remarkable,” he writes, “that Fernando Pereira was the only person who
died.”

The explosives were set to detonate shortly before midnight, when members of the
crew would be asleep. (One of them was the ship’s relief cook, Waihekean Margaret Mills. She awoke in the nick of time. The next explosion blew in the wall of her cabin).

“Two cabins on the main deck had their floors ruptured by pieces of steel flying from
the [first] engine room blast,” writes Dr Robie.

“By chance, the four crew who slept in those rooms were not on board. If they had been,
they almost certainly would have been killed.”

Eyes of Fire was first published in 1986 — and also in the UK and USA, and has been reissued in 2005, 2015 and again this year to coincide with the 40th anniversary
of the bombing.

If you are lucky enough to own the first edition, you will find plenty that is new here; updated text, an index, new photographs, a prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark and a searing preface by Waihekean Bunny McDiarmid, former executive director
of Greenpeace International.

As you would expect from the former head of journalism schools at the University
of Papua New Guinea and University of the South Pacific, and founder of AUT’s Pacific Media Centre, Eyes of Fire is not only a brilliant piece of research, it is an absolutely
fascinating read, filled with human detail.

The bombing and its aftermath make up a couple of chapters in a book which covers an enormous amount of ground.

Professor David Robie is a photographer, journalist and teacher who was awarded an MNZM in 2024 for his services to journalism and Asia-Pacific media education. He is founding editor of the Pacific Journalism Review, also well worth seeking out.

Eyes of Fire is an updated classic and required reading for anyone interested in activism
or the contemporary history of the Pacific.

• Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, by David Robie; prologue by former NZ prime minister Helen Clark (Little Island Press). There is a linked microsite Eyes of Fire: 40 Years On. Reviewer Jenny Nicholls is subeditor of the Waiheke Weekender, where this review was first published.
• Available at Baka Books in Fiji
• The Legends of the Pacific: Stories of a Nuclear-Free Moana exhibition curated by the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN) is currently on at the Waiheke Library until September 11.

Greenpeace says moves to weaken ocean protection through dodgy fisheries “reforms” will be met with strong opposition, as Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announces he wants to proceed with a raft of proposed changes to fisheries laws.

The controversial changes are some of the largest in decades, and would restrict public access to cameras on boats footage, remove the requirement for fishers to land all their catch, and stop legal challenges to catch limits that have been successful in protecting species in recent years.

The reforms will also give the minister the ability to set catch limits for five years.

• READ MORE: Other fisheries protection reports

Greenpeace oceans campaigner Ellie Hooper said these proposals would give the industry carte blanche on ocean destruction, weaken transparency and block the public from having input into fisheries decisions.

“These changes spell disaster for the already struggling ocean around us,” she said.

‘More destruction’
“These reforms will mean more destruction, more decline in fish populations, and will allow the industry to go back to operating in the dark — hiding the impact they have.”

“There are far more people in this country than just the commercial fishing industry who have a right to know how the ocean is being impacted, and have a say on what happens about protecting it.”

“During a biodiversity and ocean crisis, we will strongly oppose moves to expedite destruction at the hands of the commercial fishing industry, as will the tens of thousands of New Zealanders who also back ocean protection.”

Republished from Greenpeace News.

COMMENTARY: By Peter Murphy

I acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation as the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we are gathered and pay respect to their Elders past and present. I also acknowledge the Pitjantjatjara and other peoples of the APY lands who suffered the direct impact of nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga and nearby in the 1950s and early 1960s.

I am standing in here for Michael Wright, the national secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, who was unable to take up our invitation to be here today.

The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) has a very solid record for opposing the nuclear industry and nuclear weapons, and really campaigned hard on this issue against Peter Dutton and the Coalition in the May federal elections.

• READ MORE: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange joins Sydney Gaza humanitarian protest as thousands cross bridge
• Israel backing Gaza ‘gangs’ to create unlivable chaos, says academic
• NZ ‘lagging behind’ world by failing to recognise Palestinian statehood, says former PM Helen Clark
• What would New Zealand recognising Palestinian statehood mean?
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

The ETU campaigned in Dutton’s seat of Dickson and he lost his seat to Labor’s Ali France. You have to conclude that among the many reasons that Australian voters deserted the Coalition and Dutton, the Coalition’s nuclear energy policy was a big one.

Since the election, the Coalition has continued to entertain the idea of a nuclear-powered Australia, showing that they just refuse to listen to the Australian people. But they are only too happy to listen to and take the money of the fossil fuel corporations and the nuclear power companies like Westinghouse, who are the ones who benefit from government policies to foster nuclear power.

They are determined to delay the transition to renewable energy as long as possible, whatever the cost to all of us in runaway climate disasters.

The ETU’s official policy against the nuclear industry dates back to the 1950s, resulting from the shared experiences of ETU members who returned from Japan after the Second World War. In the decades since, the ETU has regularly revisited this policy to learn more about the nuclear fuel cycle, changes and advances to technologies, technical interaction with the network and economic viability.

Opposed nuclear industry
Let’s honour those long-gone ETU members who recognised the crimes that took place at Nagasaki and Hiroshima 80 years ago by vigorously opposing the nuclear industry and nuclear weapons today. And let’s remember some other Australians who were there then — Tom Uren saw the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki from the copper mine where he was working as a prisoner of war; and Wilfred Burchett, the journalist, who first told the world from Hiroshima about radiation sickness.

Nuclear power stations generate radioactive waste such as spent reactor fuel, reprocessing effluents, and contaminated tools and work clothing. These materials can remain radioactive and hazardous to human health for tens of thousands of years.

And this is the kind of waste that comes from nuclear-powered submarines, during regular maintenance, and at the end of their life — 30 years we have been told for the AUKUS submarine nuclear reactors.

This waste will need to be trucked across the country on public roads to be disposed of in a nuclear waste facility.

But, Australia does not have a dedicated national radioactive waste facility. And the Albanese government is refusing to say where they plan to put that waste.

The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and those at the nuclear tests sites in Nevada, the Marianas, French Polynesia, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and the Monte Bello Islands, Emu Fields, Maralinga in Australia have been living with these nuclear wastes in their environment for up to 80 years.

We don’t want this to go any further in Australia or anywhere else in the world.

Democratic failure over AUKUS
How dare the Albanese government commit future generations to somehow keep that deadly nuclear waste safe for tens of thousands of years.

The ETU stood up at the August 2023 ALP National Conference and opposed the AUKUS project, spelling out these concerns and also the democratic failure of Labor to consult the public and the Parliament before committing to the AUKUS deal.

The Albanese leadership tried very hard to make sure that AUKUS was not debated at that ALP National Conference. So it was a victory first of all to have the debate and openly discuss the big problems with AUKUS.

The pro-AUKUS case was so weak that the Defence Industry Minister at the time, Pat Conroy, defended it by accusing the critics of being like the appeasers of the Nazis in the 1930s. In doing so he was saying that China is a fascist state and it is the enemy we have to fight with these hopeless submarines.

The grotesque comparison of us and of China to Nazis is ironically more appropriate for Trump and the USA, who are right now purging people of colour from the streets and workplaces of the United States and supporting a genocide in Gaza.

AUKUS is one building block in the US plan to wage war on China to remove its capacity to challenge US primacy in this region and world-wide. A conga line of US military commanders and cabinet secretaries have made this clear.

It is imperial madness writ large.

The deeper reason
And this is the deeper reason why we must oppose AUKUS, because we have to stop this deadly drive for a war between nuclear-armed superpowers. Such a war would almost certainly go nuclear, the world would go into nuclear winter, there would be no winners and huge huge casualties.

Japan, the Philippines, and Australia would be very early targets in such a war.

We remember that 200,000 people, almost all civilians, men women and children of all ages, were killed by those two nuclear bombs 80 years ago, and endless suffering has continued down to this day.

So we recommit to opposing nuclear weapons and the nuclear industry which produces them. We commit to getting Australia’s signature on the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons.

We commit to stopping AUKUS. We commit to stopping the active US and Australian plan for a war with China.

This is edited from Peter Murphy’s speech at the 80th anniversary Horoshima Day rally for the Sydney Peace and Justice Coalition and Sydney Anti-AUKUS Coalition on 3 August 2025.

Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jamie Tahana for RNZ Pacific

Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.

It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.

The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Other climate justice reports

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.

It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.

It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.

Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.

Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.

Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.

On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.

“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”

The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.

So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.

“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.

“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?

Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.

Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.

But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.

“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”

In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.

“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.

“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”

The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.

“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.

“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.

“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”

What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.

To rally support, they decided to start close to home.

Hope and disappointment
The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.

Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.

But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.

“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”

Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But small island countries left angry after a small bloc derailed any progress, despite massive protests.

That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.

“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.

“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”

By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.

“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.

“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”

Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.

International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?

They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.

In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.

“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”

He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.

“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.

“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”

Preparing the case
If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.

But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.

“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.

On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.

“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.

“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”

They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.

Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.

“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.

“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”

By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.

“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”

They were off to The Hague.

A tense wait
Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”

Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.

In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.

It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”

The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.

The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.

“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.

“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.

“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”

Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.

“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”

He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.

When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.

“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.

“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”

Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.

“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

One of the first women to hold an open seat in Bougainville, Theonila Roka Matbob, is confident she can win again.

Bougainville goes to the polls in the first week of September, and Roka Matbob aims to hold on to her Ioro seat in central Bougainville, where she is up against nine men.

The MP, who is also the Minister of Community Government, recently led the campaign that convinced multinational Rio Tinto to clean up the mess caused by the Panguna Mine.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville election reports

RNZ Pacific asked her if she is enjoying running for a second election campaign.

THEONILA ROKA MATBOB: Very, very much, yes. I guess compared to 2020, it is because it was my first time. I had a lot of butterflies, I would say. But this time has been very different. So I am more relaxed, more focused, and also I am more aware of issues that I can actually concentrate on.

DON WISEMAN: And one of those issues you’ve been concentrating on is the aftermath of the Panguna Mine and the destruction and so on caused both environmentally and socially. And I guess that sort of work is going to continue for you?

TRM: Yes, so the work is continuing. I had three platforms when I was contesting in 2020: leadership, governance, institutional governance and the accountability on the issues, legacy issues of Panguna Mine. I thought that the third one was going to be very challenging, given that it involved international stakeholders.

But I would say that the one that I thought was going to be very challenging was actually the one that got a lot of traction, and it’s already in motion while I’m like back on the trail, defending my seat.

DW: In terms of the work that has been undertaken on an assessment of the environmental damage, the impact that the process had had, and the report that has come out, and the obligations that this now places on Rio Tinto?

TRM: The recommendations that were made by the report was on a lot of like imminent survey areas that is like on infrastructure that were built by the company back then in the operation days that is now tearing down.

And also a lot more than that, there was a call for more intrusive assessment to be done on health and bloodstreams as well for the people, but those other things and also now to into the remediation vehicle, what is it going to look like?

These are clear responsibilities that are at the overarching highest level of engagement through the what we call this process, the CP process. It has put the responsibility on Rio Tinto to now tell us, what does the remediation vehicle look like.

At the moment, Rio Tinto is looking into that to be able to engage expertise in communication with us, to see how the design for the remediation vehicle would look. It is from the report that the build-up is now coming up, and there is more tangible or visible presence on the ground as compared to the time we started.

DW: So that process in terms of the removal of the old buildings that’s actually got underway, has it?

TRM: That process is already underway, the demolition process is underway, and BCL [Bougainville Copper Limited] is the one that’s taking the lead. It has engaged our local expertise, who are actually working abroad, but they have hired them because under the process we have local content policy where we have to do shopping for experts from Bougainville, before we’ll look into experts from overseas.

Apart from that as well, one of the things that I have seen is there is an increased interest from both international and national and local partners as well in understanding the areas where the report, assessment report has pointed out.

There is quite a lot happening, as compared to the past years when, towards the end of our political phase in parliament, usually there is always silence and only campaigns go on. But for now, it has been different.

A lot of people are more engaged, even participating on the policy programmes and projects.

DW: Yes, your government wants to reopen the Panguna Mine and open it fairly soon. You must have misgivings about that?

TRM: I have been getting a lot of questions around that, and I have been telling them my personal stance has never changed.

But I can never come in between the government’s interest. What I have been doing recently as a way of responding and uniting people, both who are believers of reopening and those that do not believe in reopening, like myself.

We have created a platform by registering a business entity that can actually work in between people and the government, so that there is more or less a participatory approach.

The company that we have registered is the one that will be tasked to work more on the politics of economics around Panguna and all the other prospects that we have in other natural resources as well.

I would say that whichever way the government points us, I can now, with conviction, say that I am ready with my office and the workforce that I have right now, I can comfortably say that we can be able to accommodate for both opinions, pro and against.

DW: In your Ioro electorate seat it’s not the biggest lineup of candidates, but the thing about Bougainville politics is they can be fairly volatile. So how confident are you?

TRM: I am confident, despite the long line up that we have about nine people who are against me — nine men, interestingly, were against me. I would say that, given the grasp that I have and also building up from 2020, I can clearly say that I am very confident.

If I am not confident, then it will take the space of giving opportunity for other people and also on campaign strategies as well. I have learnt my way through in diversifying and understanding the different experiences that I have in the constituency as well.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

While public attention has been focused on the domestic fast-track consenting process for infrastructure and mining, Associate Minister of Finance David Seymour has been pushing through another fast-track process — this time for foreign investment in New Zealand.

But it has had almost no public scrutiny.

If the Overseas Investment (National Interest Test and Other Matters) Amendment Bill becomes law, it could have far-reaching consequences. Public submissions on the bill close tomorrow.

• READ MORE: Other NZ foreign investment reports

A product of the ACT-National coalition agreement, the bill commits to amend the Overseas Investment Act 2005 “to limit ministerial decision making to national security concerns and make such decision making more timely”.

There are valid concerns that piecemeal reforms to the current act have made it complex and unwieldy. But the new bill is equally convoluted and would significantly reduce effective scrutiny of foreign investments — especially in forestry.

A three-step test
Step one of a three-step process set out in the bill gives the regulator — the Overseas Investment Office which sits within Land Information NZ — 15 days to decide whether a proposed investment would be a risk to New Zealand’s “national interest”.

If they don’t perceive a risk, or that initial assessment is not completed in time, the application is automatically approved.

Transactions involving fisheries quotas and various land categories, or any other applications the regulator identifies, would require a “national interest” assessment under stage two.

These would be assessed against a “ministerial letter” that sets out the government’s general policy and preferred approach to conducting the assessment, including any conditions on approvals.

Other mandatory factors to be considered in the second stage include the act’s new “purpose” to increase economic opportunity through “timely consent” of less sensitive investments. The new test would allow scrutiny of the character and capability of the investor to be omitted altogether.

If the regulator considers the national interest test is not met, or the transaction is “contrary to the national interest”, the minister of finance then makes a decision based on their assessment of those factors.

Inadequate regulatory process
Seymour has blamed the current screening regime for low volumes of foreign investment. But Treasury’s 2024 regulatory impact statement on the proposed changes to international investment screening acknowledges many other factors that influence investor decisions.

Moreover, the Treasury statement acknowledges public views that foreign investment rules should “manage a wide range of risks” and “that there is inherent non-economic value in retaining domestic ownership of certain assets”.

Treasury officials also recognised a range of other public concerns, including profits going offshore, loss of jobs, and foreign control of iconic businesses.

The regulatory impact statement did not cover these factors because it was required to consider only the coalition commitment. The Treasury panel reported “notable limitations” on the bill’s quality assurance process.

A fuller review was “infeasible” because it could not be completed in the time required, and would be broader than necessary to meet the coalition commitment to amend the act in the prescribed way.

The requirement to implement the bill in this parliamentary term meant the options officials could consider, even within the scope of the coalition agreement, were further limited.

Time constraints meant “users and key stakeholders have not been consulted”, according to the Treasury statement. Environmental and other risks would have to be managed through other regulations.

There is no reference to te Tiriti o Waitangi or mana whenua engagement.

No ‘benefit to NZ’ test
While the bill largely retains a version of the current screening regime for residential and farm land, it removes existing forestry activities from that definition (but not new forestry on non-forest land). It also removes extraction of water for bottling, or other bulk extraction for human consumption, from special vetting.

Where sensitive land (such as islands, coastal areas, conservation and wahi tapu land) is not residential or farm land, it would be removed from special screening rules currently applied for land.

Repeal of the “special forestry test” — which in practice has seen most applications approved, albeit with conditions — means most forestry investments could be fast-tracked.

There would no longer be a need to consider investors’ track records or apply a “benefit to New Zealand” test. Regulators may or may not be empowered to impose conditions such as replanting or cleaning up slash.

The official documents don’t explain the rationale for this. But it looks like a win for Regional Development Minister Shane Jones, and was perhaps the price of NZ First’s support.

It has potentially serious implications for forestry communities affected by climate-related disasters, however. Further weakening scrutiny and investment conditions risks intensifying the already devastating impacts of international forestry companies. Taxpayers and ratepayers pick up the costs while the companies can minimise their taxes and send profits offshore.

Locked in forever?
Finally, these changes could be locked in through New Zealand’s free trade agreements. Several such agreements say New Zealand’s investment regime cannot become more restrictive than the 2005 act and its regulations.

A “ratchet clause” would lock in any further liberalisation through this bill, from which there is no going back.

However, another annex in those free trade agreements could be interpreted as allowing some flexibility to alter the screening rules and criteria in the future. None of the official documents address this crucial question.

As an academic expert in this area I am uncertain about the risk.

But the lack of clarity underlines the problems exemplified in this bill. It is another example of coalition agreements bypassing democratic scrutiny and informed decision making. More public debate and broad analysis is needed on the bill and its implications.

Dr Jane Kelsey is emeritus professor of law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.