As Waitangi Day commemorations continue drawing people from across Aotearoa and around the world to the Bay of Islands, Te Tii Marae has become a gathering point for Indigenous ocean leadership from across the Pacific.

Taiātea: Gathering of the Oceans held its public forum yesterday, uniting more than 20 Indigenous leaders, marine scientists and researchers from Australia, Canada, Cook Islands, Hawai’i, Niue, Rapa Nui and Aotearoa.

The forum forms part of a wider 10-day wānanga taking place across Te Ika a Māui (North Island).

• READ MORE: Big Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi delegation joins Māori in solidarity over Te Tiriti
• Other Waitangi reports

With a focus on the protection and restoration of Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, the Pacific Ocean, kōrero throughout the day centred on the exchange of knowledge, marine protection, ocean resilience and the accelerating impacts of climate change.

A key message remained prevalent throughout the day – the moana is not separate from the people, but a living ancestor, and a responsibility carried across generations.

‘Continue that path of conservation, preservation’
Hawaiʻi’s Solomon Pili Kaho’ohalahala, co-founder of One Oceania, a former politician, and a respected elder, framed his kōrero around the belief that there is no separation between human and nature — “we are all one”.

For Kaho’ohalahala, being present at Waitangi has been a powerful reminder of the links between past, present, and future.

“Waitangi is a very historical place for the Māori people,” he said. “It is where important decisions were made by your elders.

“So to be here in this place, for me, is significant.”

“We are talking about historical events that have happened to our people across Oceania, preserved by the elders who had visions to create treaties . . .  decisions that were going to be impactful to the generations to follow,” Kaho’ohalahala said.

“It brings the relevancy of these conversations. They are what we need to negotiate and navigate the challenges we face in the present. The purpose for this is, ultimately, no different to the kupuna (Hawai’ian elder), that this was intended for the generations yet unborn,” he added.

Kaho’ohalahala also reflected on the enduring connections between indigenous communities across oceans.

“To be a part of this conversation from across the ocean that separates us, our connection by our culture and canoes is to help us understand that we are still all connected as the people of Oceania.

“But we need to be able to reiterate that, and understand why we need to emerge from that past to bring it to our relevancy to these times and issues, to continue that path of conservation, preservation, for those unborn.”

‘Our ocean … a living organism,’ advocate says
Cook Islands environmental advocate and Ocean Ancestors founder Louisa Castledine reiterated the responsibility of Indigenous peoples to protect the ocean and pass knowledge to future generations.

She said Waitangi was the perfect backdrop to encourage these discussions. While different cultures face individual challenges, there is a collective sense of unity.

“One of our key pillars is nurturing our future tamariki, and the ways of our peu tupuna, and nurturing stewardship and guardianship with them as our future leaders,” Castledine said.

“It’s about reclaiming how we perceive our ocean as being an ancestor, as a living organism, as whānau to us. We’re here at Waitangi to stand in solidarity of our shared ancestor and the responsibility we all have for its protection,” Castledine said.

She said people must be forward-thinking in how they collectively navigate environmental wellbeing.

“We all have a desire and a love for our moana, our indigenous knowledge systems of our oceans are critical to curating futures for our tamariki and mokopuna,” she said.

“We want to ensure that generations that come after us will continue to be able to feed generations beyond all of us. It’s about safeguarding their inheritance.”

Learning about shared challenges
Canadian representative Chief Anuk Danielle Shaw, elected chief councillor of the Wuikinuxv Nation, said the challenges and goals facing Indigenous peoples were often shared, despite the distances between them.

“This is [an] opportunity to learn about common challenges we may have, and how other nations and indigenous leaders are facing those challenges, and what successes they’ve been having,” she said.

“It just makes sense that we have a relationship, and that we build that relationship.”

She noted the central role of the marine environment for her people.

“It’s not lost on me that my people are ocean-going people as well. We rely on the marine environment.

“Our salmon is the foundation and the backbone of our livelihood and the livelihood of all other beings in which we live amongst. I’m a world away, and yet I’m still sitting within the Pacific Ocean.

“So the work I do at home and how we take care of our marine environment impacts the people of Aotearoa as well, and vice versa. And so it just makes sense that we have a relationship, and that we build that relationship, because traditionally we did,” she added.

Following the public forum, indigenous leaders will visit haukāinga in the Tūwharetoa and Whanganui regions for further knowledge exchanges and to discuss specific case studies.

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

They have been dubbed the “Persian Indiana Joneses”. Their adventures are fabled and hair-raising, as shown by a Jivaro shrunken human head and relics from curious rituals on display from almost 70 years ago.

But the Omidvar brothers from Iran were no gung-ho adventurers, merely gate-crashing hidden tribal and indigenous communities around the world. They were also no elitists.

They were courageous research adventurers and their motto was “all different – all relative”.

READ MORE: Around the world in 800 days

A 2015 Iranian Press TV channel documentary about the Omidvar brothers.

Today their exploits and treasured artefacts are kept alive in the fascinating Omidvar Brothers Museum, housed in a restored coach gatehouse near the Green Palace in the Pahlavi era Sa’ad Abad forest complex in North Tehran.

I encountered younger brother Issa Omidvar, now 88, at an amusing public talk he gave at the museum last month, and I took the opportunity to interview him. His elder brother, Abdullah, 90, lives with his wife in Chile where they started a business.

Their adventures and survival were of special interest to me, as in 1972-74 I had spent a year travelling across Africa in two stages from Cape Town to Algiers, driving across the Sahara Desert in the process – chicken feed compared with the brother’s two global odysseys totalling a decade, 1954-1964.

Travelling east from Tehran via the country’s second city of Mashhad, the brothers first passed through Afghanistan, then Pakistan, India, south-east Asia and Australia, where they lived with Aboriginals. Eventually they crossed the Pacific to Rapanui and headed north through Alaska and Canada into the Arctic.

After a huge sweep through North and South America, they rounded off their first seven-year journey in Antarctica.

Following a short break back home in Iran, the brothers set off again on a second exploration trip in a Citroën 2CV across Africa, including the Congo and the pygmy country of the Ituri jungle. They filmed their exploits along the way.

As Guardian travel writer Kevin Rushby wrote in 2013, “they created a visual record that is now a milestone in film history, a documentary record of a vanished world: peoples, cultures and even entire countries that no longer exist.”

According to Issa at his public Tehran talk, “We had the opportunity of visiting, and holding talks with most presidents, prime ministers, kings and cultural personalities of the world.”

However, many of the communities that they described in their remarkable book, Omidvar Brothers: In Search of the World’s Most Primitive Tribes, and showed in their various documentaries, no longer live as they once did, untouched in remote locations.

The Omidvar mission – they started off on their motor bikes in 1954 with the equivalent of merely $90 each in their pockets – was about scientific research and documentary making.

In the book preface Nikfarjam, then international affairs director of Aryan International Tourism Magazine, wrote that the Omidvar brothers were “the greatest explorers, adventurers and seekers of knowledge in 10 years of scientific expedition … searching [for] the most primitive tribal people in unknown lands of our planet earth who had never had contact with the outsider before …

“The live stories … will take the reader … to the most severe climatic and various geographical conditions living with unknown savage tribes.

“In fact, [this] scientific research has been so adventurous and exciting that hardly anyone can believe all are true and serious.”

But true they are.

The Iranian Organisation of Cultural Patrimony added in their foreword: “The fruits of their exploration are … great photographic and documentary films, hunting equipment and household utensils from diverse primitive tribes.

“With such a treasure, unique of its kind, the Omidvar Brothers Museum illustrates the wealth, complexity and diversity of human culture … and of human organisation that succumbed, victims of the world’s explosive development.”

Browsing through the illustrated book in Farsi (an English-language edition also exists), I came across these sample passages:

Kabul
“The first capital we visited was Kabul, a city with few main streets. There were few vehicles, which was a blessing, but there were lots of bicycles on the streets. Even prominent and well-known people used bicycles … One day we were surprised to see the chancellor of Kabul University riding an old bicycle.”

Jalalabad
“We passed through Jalalabad towards the border of Pakistan. To our delight we discovered a wedding party with riflemen and prepared to photograph … Unknown to us … was that this tribe didn’t like to have photos taken, especially of their ceremonies. When they saw us their cheerful shouts immediately changed to a cry of death and they began hurling hundreds of rocks at us.”

Sri Lanka (then Ceylon)
“It is said that Adam and Eve were expelled from Heaven and began their earthly life in Ceylon. We boarded the ship called Safinet al Arab … She was 43 years old and in considerable disrepair with a capacity of 1100 people, mostly pilgrims for Mecca … on the third day one of the Muslim passengers died, creating chaos. The authorities had no choice but to bury the body at sea. From that moment we feared that a similar fate might befall us.”

Hyderabad
“The Kite War is as significant for the people of Hyderabad in India as horse racing is for the British, bullfighting for the Spanish and football for the Brazilians … Common people and nobles alike participate in the kite competitions, betting enormous amounts of money.”

Lucknow
“When we arrived it was a national holiday – the Colour Festival … We were settled at the university dormitory and sleeping when at dawn we awoke with a loud noise. The students pounded on the door and looked as if they had escaped from Hell. Each with a bucketful of water colours and after rubbing some colour on our forehead, they threw each other in a colourful pond.”

Himalayas
“In order the climb the Himalayas, we had to pass through dangerous, swampy forests to reach the slopes pf the mountains. We had not seen such a dreadful forest … Such a threat becomes a hundredfold at night. The roars of wild animals, especially tigers, made us shake with fear … We touched our legs and found a small creature, a leech. We turned on our flashlight and saw a great number of leeches sucking our blood.”

Amazon
“We were nearing the horrifying tribe of Jivaro [in the headwaters of the Marañon River]. We reached a settlement of huts made of wild sugarcane leaves and bamboo around a clearing. All the men and women with painted bodies were standing by their huts waiting for us. Although they had seen other white people, it was interesting for them to see us – maybe at that moment they were measuring our heads to be shrunken!”

In my interview with Issa Omidvar, he stressed the critical importance of the value of international travel as a contribution to “global understanding and peace”.

Dr David Robie travelled independently and with no political “minders”.

David Robie talks to Issa Omidvar about the brothers’ research travel philosophy. Video: Del Abcede/Café Pacific

• Part 1: Iran a hugely ‘friendly’ country behind the sabre-rattling
• Part 2: 10 reasons why tourists must visit Iran
• Part 3: Iran’s great global adventurers
• The Omidvar Brothers Museum

Rapa Nui has been hit by serious disturbances after a family tried to lynch a homicide suspect, reports Chilean news media.

The news site Ahora Noticias reports that police were assaulted and injured, and a court building and a registry office in Hanga Roa were torched by the victim’s relatives.

Police had arrested a 51-year-old man accused of killing a 34-old-man with a knife.

The victim’s family then attacked the police vehicle with the suspect inside and set fire to the buildings.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

• Other Rapa Nui stories

An indigenous activist on Chile’s Rapa Nui says new rules restricting internal migration to the island need to be rigorously enforced.

Non-Rapa Nui Chileans now need to have Rapa Nui spouses or children to migrate to the island without a work contract.

The activist, Santi Hitorangi, said the rule requiring a contract has previously been flouted.

READ MORE: Rapa Nui limiting visitor time to stop overcrowding

“The authorities are saying that once in action there’s going to be rigorous enforcement. So far we haven’t experienced that.

“What we have experienced is the ability of the Chilean authority in collusion with business people on the island, be it Rapa Nui or Chileans, they are keen to find creative ways to jump over those so called provisions.”

Santi Hitorangi said Chileans moving from the mainland had overwhelmed Rapa Nui’s infrastructure and warped its culture.

“The Chileans who come from the marginalised neighbourhoods of Chile and have brought crime, degenerating the culture. They are doing taxi tours and the problem with that is the information they give to those tourists. They are a warped perspective of who we are,” Hitorangi said.

Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, had become overcrowded during 130 years of colonial rule and its environment was suffering with the water no longer being safe to drink, the activist said.

“Many of the underground wells are polluted because as long as we have had Chile on the island the waste has been dug in pits, plastics, chemicals what have you all covered over with dirt,” he said.

The Pacific Media Centre has a content sharing partnership with RNZ Pacific.

A large contingent of Pacific island country officials will be among delegates from 60 countries meeting in Auckland today to discuss latest tactics to fight illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing across the globe.

The 5th Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop (GFETW) will align to the theme: “Working together to combat IUU fishing to ensure the sustainability of world fish stocks.”

Hosted by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and the International Monitoring Control and Surveillance (MCS) Network, it is an opportunity for nations to update each other on the latest techniques and technologies and to strengthen the communication ties that makes the MCS network successful.

The International MCS Network focuses in particular on enhancing cooperation with developing countries, and at the 4th GFETW held in Costa Rica 2014, several presentations pointed to the need to deploy additional efforts in developing countries in order to strengthen their capacities to implement effectively internationally agreed measures. These efforts were urged to address governance, legislation and technical capacities (means and skills).

MPI spokesperson Dean Baigent said global co-operation means there was increasingly nowhere to hide for boats and crews that deliberately plunder high seas fisheries.

“We have a successful network where nations share information gathered from satellite monitoring, aerial surveillance, catch data and vessel inspections that targets illegal operators and makes it very difficult to profit from IUU fishing.”

Obvious host
Baigent plugged New Zealand as the obvious country to host the global workshop.

“We are responsible for managing the world’s fourth largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and are an active participant in monitoring and patrolling the toothfish fishery in the Southern Ocean and the tuna fishery in the southwest Pacific Ocean.”

Niue’s MCS Officer Launoa Gataua certainly hopes the meeting will deliver on its objective as Niue desperately needs help for the monitoring, control and surveillance of its 360,000 sq km fishery.

Niue had only recently re-opened its waters for fishing in June 2013 and so far licensed seven vessels with the hope that its cap of 10 will be reached in the near future.

However, they are aware that a lot of their fishery income is hemorrhaging through illegal, unreported and unregulated fishers. And they are powerless to do anything about it at the moment.

Niue is one of three Pacific island countries without a patrol boat but that is not usually a big problem because it has a constitutional arrangement with New Zealand to provide surveillance for its EEZ. But for the whole of 2015, that service did not happen as New Zealand assets were diverted elsewhere.

‘Pretty much blind’
“Last year alone we had no surveillance patrol done for our EEZ except for a chance visit by a French patrol boat which was very welcome. But that apart we are pretty much blind,” Gataua said.

“We do know there’s a lot of IUU going on in our EEZ. An estimate of how much that loss of income is to Niue would probably be on the low side.”

He explained that they get regular reports from visiting yachts on their way from the Cook Islands. Reports which they [Niue’s fisheries division] are not picking up through the Automatic Identification System (AIS) or the regional Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) run by the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).

“To me that’s an indication of IUU fishing,” he said. “Each of those ships sighted is lost income to Niue.

“But what else can we do? It’s too hard for us to monitor the area.”

Gataua is attending the 5th Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop and is hopeful the next five days will provide options and help for Niue’s situation. Help that would have significant impacts to Niue’s economy. With its GDP, a meager $28.5million, any increase from its fishery revenue would be a massive boost considering that tourism, is the biggest earner at just under $6million.

“If we can reduce the IUU going on in our EEZ, it’s quite feasible that our fisheries revenue will rival that of our tourism sector.”

He points enviously towards their smaller neighbor Tokelau, whose 2015 fisheries revenue topped $12.5million, as to what is possible.

The Future of Fisheries Roadmap

By Losalini Bolatagici in Suva

Fiji and other Pacific Island nations have been warned about the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, has this week sent an update on the Zika virus infection to public health ministries and health professionals in the Pacific Islands region.

Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services will release an official statement in relation to the virus, which shows symptoms of mild fever, rashes and joint pain.

The rare tropical disease can also cause possible birth defects, transmitted through bites from the same kind of mosquitoes that can spread other tropical diseases such as dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever.

SPC closely monitors the Zika situation regionally and internationally, including dengue and chikungunya.

“We provide an ongoing service to the region’s public health professionals whereby we maintain a map of epidemic and emerging disease alerts for regional health security purposes,” said acting SPC Deputy Director (Public Health Division) Dr Salanieta Saketa in a statement.

“According to the information available to us, no Pacific countries have reported confirmed cases of the Zika virus infection so far this year, but further investigation is under way to ascertain circulation of the virus in a number of Pacific Island countries and territories.”

Lab diagnosis
She said Zika virus infection could only be confirmed by a laboratory diagnosis and Pacific Islands countries had very limited capacity for Zika testing.

“We’re working closely with our partners from the Pacific Public Health Surveillance Network to overcome this challenge and facilitate access of all countries to the few laboratories which can perform the testing,” Dr Saketa said.

Part of SPC’s update concerned the latest findings on the possible association between Zika virus infection in pregnancy and congenital central nervous system malformations, including microcephaly.

While this was not proof that Zika virus had caused these malformations, a possible association could not be ruled out given the evidence available, Dr Saketa said.

“In view of the latest findings, we provided countries with a number of recommendations. For example, we recommend all travellers, particularly pregnant women, who are visiting known affected areas to take extra precautionary measures to prevent being bitten by mosquitoes.”

First Zika hospitalisation case in NZ this year

By Shailendra Singh in Suva

Discussions about the concept of “Global Citizenship” are gaining momentum in various international forums, but remain largely unexplored in the Pacific Islands.

According to Ron Israel, co-founder of The Global Citizens’ Initiative, Global Citizens think beyond communities based on shared group identities. They see themselves as part of a larger, emerging world community.

In the Pacific, the late Tongan academic and philosopher, Professor Epeli Hau’ofa, had gone as far as proposing a common regional identify he called the “new Oceania”, comprising of people with a common Pacific heritage and commitment, rather than as members of diverse nationalities and races.

In Hau’ofa’s conceptualisation, an Oceanian was anyone who lived in the Pacific, and was committed to the region, regardless of ethnicity or religion. His framework also accounted for the “astounding mobility” of Pacific Islanders over the last half-century or more.

This expanded version of Oceania covered larger areas than was “possible under the term Pacific Islands region”, forming a “world of social networks that crisscross the ocean, all the way from Australia and New Zealand in the southwest, to the United States and Canada in the northeast”.

Hau’ofa felt that a common, enlarged Pacific identity was crucial for the advancement of collective regional interests, including the protection of the vital Pacific Ocean.

Connecting and mobilising people to agitate for common interests is the thread that binds the Oceanian and the Global Citizen concepts.

Global Citizen
Global Citizen is just more expansive. Its proponents link it to the universal values of justice, democratic participation, diversity, and global solidarity as the building blocks for peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and sustainable societies.

Pacific Island commentators laud the concept, but feel that certain cultural, economic, geographical and historical obstacles could stand in the way of its implementation.

Former University of the South Pacific academic in literature, Dr Som Prakash, feels that some Global Citizen values are incompatible with the cultural beliefs, philosophies and life-styles of Pacific Island societies.

For instance, egalitarianism is seen as inimical to the hierarchical nature of some Pacific societies, such as chiefly power in Fiji, the aristocracy in Tonga, and matai (chiefly) system in Samoa.

“Democracy, for example, is not always welcomed by traditional chiefs who are given much more power and authority than the ordinary folks,” says Prakash.

“It takes a while for the ordinary Pacific cultures to get accustomed to the questioning of elders and chiefs. Often peace (one of the pillars of Global Citizenship) is argued to be better attained under a benevolent dictator.”

There are some other apparent contradictions. As pointed out by Fiji’s former vice-president, Ratu Jone Madriwiwi, in collective Pacific societies like Fiji, group interests supersede individual interests.

Agents of change
Global citizenry, on the other hand, centers on individuals as the agents of change through instilling in them “awareness of the interconnected nature of the world and the need for a global focus for development”.

However, the likes of Fiji-based university student, Duane Mar, do not see the above paradoxes as obstacles. Mar points out that the Pacific is equally affected, if not more, by some common world problems, which transcend geographical cultural, and philosophical differences.

“Global citizen is a person whose ideals and thought processes are based around those of the general global issues, such as poverty, climate change and human rights,” says Mar.

“In many rural Pacific communities, the people are very much aware of issues like climate change, and the need to combat poverty. These issues are discussed at the community level and from there, villages often work with NGO groups to address them.”

Moreover, collectivism, based on group solidarity, has some clear parallels with the Global Citizen concept of “interdependency”, even though the Global Citizen model encompasses an “interdependent world” rather than just the village, or clan.

Global Citizen, as espoused by UNESCO and other institutions, promotes the idea that people’s “individual and collective actions have a global impact – and it is their responsibility to engage in positive actions for their communities and the planet”.

The idea of collective responsibility to address global problems is likely to resonate with Pacific peoples, especially in relation to global warming and sea-level rise, seen as a severe threat to the region.

Global warming
For years, one Pacific leader after another has stood up at various international forums to urge the industrialised nations to take responsibility for global warming and implement meaningful policies to reduce carbon emissions.

As Kiribati President Anote Tong has often pointed out, the Pacific region contributes the least, just three percent, to global warming, but many islands are on the “frontline” of sea level rise.”

Speaking at a recent meeting of Pacific Island leaders, Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama blamed the industrialised nations for “our slide into disaster”. He added that, “the industrialised world needs to reorganise its economies and its priorities to stop pumping excessive carbon emissions that are warming the planet. To let us sink beneath the waves is totally immoral. The world must not betray us.”

Another recent Pacific leaders’ meeting in the Papua New Guinean capital, Port Moresby, ended in a stalemate after Australia and New Zealand blocked a bid from low-lying island nations for a tougher global target.

This stance has led to increased polarisation, with one commentator stating that the “lacklustre response by Australia and New Zealand to the plight of Pacific nations has finally reached boiling point”.

‘Tragedy of the commons’
Mar describes the Pacific’s global warming predicament as the “tragedy of the commons”, which in this case refers to the actions of some nations having an adverse impact on those nations that did not contribute to the situation.

On his part, USP academic Dr Prakash sees Australia and New Zealand’s intransigency over global warming as perhaps the most recent example of the many ways in which the greater powers have treated the Pacific with “carelessness, if not contempt”.

Prakash feels that such treatment lead to scepticism in the region about what inevitably comes to be seen as “fancy notions of globalisation, often emanating from well-to-do nations”.

He adds that “the most visible and tangible effects of globalisation is the crass TV, mobile phones and social media that inundate our Pacific societies”.

However, as Mar points out, the Pacific has partially benefited from globalisation.

Furthermore, globalisation and Global Citizenry are two distinct ideas. In fact, Global Citizen principles aim to address situations such as “tragedy of the commons”, a by-product of globalisation, although it is easy to see how the two terms could be confused.

The reality is that despite their smallness and isolation, the Pacific region’s destiny is tied with the rest of the world, something which Hau’ofa was keenly aware of.

Surely Hau’ofa was thinking along Global Citizen lines when he wrote that “we cannot confront the issues of the Pacific Century as individual, tiny countries created by colonial powers and acting alone. We could indeed ‘fall off the map’ or disappear into the black hole of a gigantic Pan-Pacific doughnut”.

This article was first published by Indepth News and has been updated by the author for Asia Pacific Report.

The decision by the United States to withdraw from the 30-year Tuna Treaty with Pacific Island countries will not take effect until January 2017, says Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) deputy director general Wez Norris.

In his initial response to Pacnews queries, Norris admitted that the impact of the US withdrawal “will be markedly different among individual Pacific Island Parties (PIPs)”.

“Some of them have viable alternative markets that could absorb their fishing days with relatively little impact. Others, however that are reliant on the Treaty to sell their days would struggle to achieve revenues similar to those currently enjoyed, said Norris.

In addition, parties will lose economic assistance under the treaty, which contributes significantly to the core revenue of some of Pacific nations.

All is not lost for the Pacific, and according to Norris, the immediate task ahead is for PIPs that are part of the Vessel Day Scheme (VDS) to assess their ability to sell additional days to other fleets for 2016.

“This will be a critical component of any arrangement that PIPs can craft for responding to the revised proposal of the US.

‘Redesigning Treaty’
“Beyond that, our work will focus on redesigning the Treaty so that it can still play its vital government to government roles, but can cater for more flexible commercial arrangements between individual vessel operators and countries that sell then fishing days. This will ensure that the treaty adequately reflects the nature of the fishery and respects the VDS.”

Norris said the 17 PIPs were keen to find the best solution to the situation that has now arisen with the United States.

“PIPs are committed to continuing the work already started, both to ‘fix’ 2016 and to redesign the treaty for the longer term to address the weaknesses in the current arrangement that the US has finally come to recognise.

Under the agreement reached by the parties in Brisbane in August last year – the US and the America Tuna Boats Association (AT) were to make the first quarterly payment of US$17 million by January.

However In November last year, FFA received an advice that the “ATA could not afford the first quarterly payment.’

In response, the PIPs through the FFA informed the US that it will not issue licenses, halting the entire 37 fleet operating in the Pacific.

Since the US is one of the largest purse seine fishing fleets fishing in the Pacific region, its withdrawal will have an impact on the FFA’s Regional Observer Programme.

“Complete cessation would have noticeable impact on the region’s observer programmes. We are working hard to ensure there will indeed be fishing in 2016, Norris said.

On the issue of the US being taken to task for reneging on its commitment, Norris said: “There are avenues under the treaty and broader international law for PIPs to take action but the immediate action now is to resolve the issue in mutual best interest.”

“Unfortunately, events like this can damage relationships and erode trust that may take significant time to rebuild,” said Norris.

The 17 Pacific Parties to the US Tuna Treaty are Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, United States, and Vanuatu.

Tuna fishing deal dispute keeps US boats out of Pacific

Pacific delegations to COP21 were part of the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change reached by negotiators last weekend, SPREP reports.

The agreement includes several key elements that are of particular importance to the Pacific region, including recognition for pursuing a temperature goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels, a strengthened mechanism for loss and damage, and the provision for scaled up and simplified access to climate finance for small island developing states.

The Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) agencies have been working as “One Team” to support Pacific island countries with technical assistance during the lengthy negotiation process.

David Sheppard, director-general of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), commended the leadership and tireless efforts of Pacific leaders in Paris who were “inspirational” throughout COP 21 and noted: “I was extremely proud to be with our Pacific leaders in Paris and to hear the voices of the Pacific on climate change, in this important global platform.”

Small islands around the world worked together, demonstrating the importance of Pacific collaboration with other regions, through the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS),

“AOSIS has been instrumental in mobilising a collective voice in the sea of lengthy and intense negotiations, which is evidenced in the position of 1.5 degrees and a mechanism for loss and damage, being included in the final text of the Paris Agreement,” Sheppard said.

Dame Meg Taylor, secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) and the Pacific Ocean Commissioner, was in Paris for the COP21 meeting and said:

‘Strong outcome’
“This agreement provides a strong outcome for the Pacific. While there were great gains the real work starts now. We must work together to secure climate change finance for the island nations to support adaptation activities.

“Pacific Leaders and their delegations did an amazing job in representing their people and future generations of Pacific islanders. The way in which the CROP agencies worked alongside them highlighted to me once again just how much can be achieved when the region works together towards a common goal.”

The Paris Agreement includes aspects that are legally binding, and includes a five year review of emissions to determine the ability to meet the long term global goal, to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change”.

Other key measures include: to peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century; to review progress every five years; and a commitment towards US $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, with a commitment to further finance in the future.

Small island states, together with least developed countries, have special status with regard to financing and reporting under the Paris Agreement.

The inclusion of “loss and damage” in the Agreement is a significant step towards recognition of the loss and damage that results from the adverse effects of climate change (including extreme weather events and slow onset events) and acknowledgment of the suffering of vulnerable states including small island countries and territories in the Pacific.

Another key implication from Paris will be an overhaul of historic proportions for energy policies worldwide and a huge investment in renewable energy and cleaning up the pollution now being emitted to the Earth’s atmosphere. In the Pacific, this will signal an acceleration of the existing efforts of Pacific island countries and territories to shift to renewable energy.

Globally, every country will now have to commit to reducing emissions.

Key factors on the success of COP21 for the Pacific were the open and transparent manner in which the Government of France led the COP itself and their extensive consultations with stakeholders, Pacific voices and the AOSIS, building upon the lessons learnt from Copenhagen in 2009.

The vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific (USP), Professor Rajesh Chandra, welcomed the outcome of COP 21 and said: “The Paris Agreement is a historic win globally, and seeing how the Pacific has been able to influence the COP 21 negotiations, while also working as the ‘moral centre’, is a great show of our abilities and the collaborative potential we have across the region and amongst our CROP agencies.

“It is a great testament of what can be achieved by our island nations, which will be especially important as the world begins to work towards the goals that are set out in the Agreement.”

CROP agencies through the PIFS, SPREP, USP and the Pacific Community (SPC), worked closely and effectively together at COP21 to support Pacific delegations.

The director-general of the Pacific Community (SPC), Dr Colin Tukuitonga, said: The Paris Agreement is an achievement of David and Goliath proportions and our Pacific leaders and delegations must be commended for fronting this monumental challenge with sterling leadership, unwavering commitment and a strong, united voice.

“Against immense odds, the concerns and resolve of small island states are echoed in the pages of this agreement and I would also like to acknowledge the effective cooperation by all partners within the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific towards lending vital support to our leaders in their quest for a successful outcome in Paris,” Dr Tukuitonga added.

Further information about the Paris Agreement of the COP 21 can be found here.

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9526

“I refuse to leave our future in the hands of the world leaders cloistered in Le Bourget,” she said in downtown Paris, well removed from the summit site northeast of the city.

“We have left our messianic fantasies at home. We’ve done the maths. We know politicians have come to the table with emissions reduction targets that will lead us to an extremely dangerous future, three to four degrees.”

“This is not ambition.”

Klein was speaking at a free public event downtown that drew about 500 people away from the summit. The author is promoting her new movement, the “Leap Manifesto” —an attempt to bind together social activist, labour, environmental and indigenous groups to push for greater climate ambition from governments.

And while environmental observers from Greenpeace to Équiterre have said they’re surprisingly pleased with Trudeau and his climate negotiators so far — Klein says current country emissions targets at COP21 are “completely unacceptable.”

‘Ratcheting up’
She’s not alone. Few here at the summit, including scientists and the UNFCC, believe the climate targets proposed by nations will be enough to keep global warming below two degrees —the summit’s official goal. The hope is, the final agreement will include a mechanism for “ratcheting up” stricter climate targets in five years time.

“If this was 1992, and we were in Rio, maybe we could mess around with this kind of incremental nonsense. But it is 2015… and we are up against the wall. We cannot kick this can down the road anymore —there is no more road.”

The global two degrees target is itself a step back. At past COP meetings, Klein says, island nations said they needed “1.5 to survive” and African delegates said even two degrees warming “was a death sentence for Africa.”

She also took aim at the summit’s lack of legally binding emissions reductions targets —something Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna confirmed Sunday. Countries are only “legally bound to keep negotiating forever,” lamented Klein.

“[So] by the end of the summit, there won’t be anything that deserves to be described as success. But we cannot afford to give into despair —we need a post-Paris peoples’ plan.”

Enter the Leap Manifesto, she says.

Klein’s been travelling the planet for five months to promote the manifesto from Australia to Europe. It’s a philosophical call for action by her “political pop up” organization called This Changes Everything, which is also a book and film.

Sustainable economy
The manifesto calls for people to support a fully sustainable energy economy in 20 years, in a way that respects Indigenous rights, and against powerful interests that would resist decarbonisation.

“We know we are up against forces which have a huge amount to gain from inaction. When you look at the sponsors of the [COP21] summit, the fossil fuel companies, there’s trillions of dollars to lose if we have a response to climate change that acknowledges we have to leave the vast majority of reserves in the ground,” said Klein.

The manifesto is called “Leap” because of its call to jump towards greater climate ambition, but also because 2016 is a leap year. The hope is that people will rally internationally for the movement on Feb. 29.

The Leap Manifesto was launched in September during the Toronto International Film Festival and at the height of the Canadian federal election with the backing of environmental, labour and social activist groups. Some 100 famous Canadians also signed on, including Donald Sutherland, Ellen Page, Neil Young, Rachel McAdams, Leonard Cohen and Pamela Anderson.

But the day after the launch, mainstream media “threw an epic tantrum,” said Bianca Mugyeny, Canadian outreach coordinator for This Changes Everything.

National Post founder Conrad Black called the Leap Manifesto “national suicide,” while others called it “green communism,” a sabotage of the NDP, and an attempt to throw Canada back to the stone ages, said Mugyeny.

The Globe and Mail simply called it madness — which was a strange reaction, she said, to a document (the Leap Manifesto) “whose byline is a call for Canada based on caring for the earth and each other,” she added, with laughs from the Paris crowd. “But the backlash wasn’t all bad. We gained a lot of attention.”

Leap-inspired manifestos
Now, other leap-inspired manifestos are popping up, from Australia, Europe, the Canadian Arctic and Maritimes regions.

The president of the Canadian Labour Congress Hassan Yussuff signed on too, but it was not unanimous among the unions he leads. Many rank and file members work in the oil sands that CLC represents. But Yussuf says, if we are listening to the science, and we have to get Canada off fossil fuels, then “workers have to be part of that discussion.”

“We need to something dramatic…. because the path we’re on, if we don’t change it soon, we’re going to end up somewhere very horrible.”

That’s why he’s part of a “one million climate job” campaign calling for Canada to expand public transit, retrofit nearly all houses and buildings, and build high-speed rail networks to get Canadians from coast to coast. The fast train technology, he says, has been around since “Dr. Zhivago’s time” in the 1950s.

“It’s interesting to come to Europe to experience the technology that [Montreal-based] Bombardier sells and develops, but yet we can’t put it to use in our own country.”
‘The fish are sick with tumours and cancer’

Beaver Lake First Nations Cree woman Crystal Lameman was one of the panelists. She is also a signatory to the Leap Manifesto, and told the Paris crowd how the oil extraction industry hurt the health of her community in northern Alberta.

“It’s not charity. It has violated our treaties, attacked our basic human rights, it’s made our children sick. It’s killed those beings that cannot speak for themselves: the winged, the water and the land beings. The fish are sick with tumours and cancer… and the moose have puss bubbles under their skin. That’s not natural.”

‘Had enough’
“People everywhere are getting up… and we’re saying we’ve had enough,” she said.

Progressive intellectual Maude Barlow with the Council of Canadians added that any Paris climate agreement that Canada signs on to could be undone by trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“If Canada were to take a real and serious position [on climate change], we would come back and be hit by investor state challenge from all of the American corporations under NAFTA, and all of the Chinese oil and energy corporations operating [in the] tar sands under a similar investor agreement [with China.]”

She said the real battle on climate change is a fight against economic globalization based on unlimited growth. That philosophy ensures that “there’s absolutely no forest not to be taken down, no dam not to be built,” warned Barlow.

This article was first published by the National Observer.

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9502

Pacific Ocean Commissioner Dame Meg Taylor has called on world leaders meeting in Paris to protect the Pacific region and the ocean.

In a video, Taylor said world leaders needed to protect the region and the ocean it depended on.

A statement from the Pacific islands Forum Secretariat revealed the video was watched more than 17,000 times in less than 24 hours, illustrating the power of social media to amplify Pacific voices during the Paris-based climate change negotiations.

“The video and other messages from the Pacific are being promoted across social media using the common hashtag #4PacIslands.

“The one-minute video includes striking images of hope, beauty and resilience from around the region. It also includes a strong call to action.

Taylor used the video to remind world leaders of the vital connections between the ocean and climate.

“The ocean, climate and weather are all linked. The impacts of climate change on our ocean are already being felt by many of us.”

The clip also delivers a powerful positive message stating the determination of Pacific Islanders to do all it can to save the ocean and communities dependent on it.

“We are strong and we will not give up on our ocean, our homes or our future,” Taylor said.

#4PacIslands

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9501

“We are gradually being sidelined, everyone is now claiming that they are the most vulnerable” – Ambassador Feturi Elisaia, Samoa

Although the special circumstances of the Small Islands Developing States was reinforced by the United Nations at the Third UN Conference on SIDS in Samoa last year, the challenge now for the Pacific Islands is to make sure this recognition is clearly spelled out in the new Climate Change Agreement being negotiated in Paris these two weeks.

The 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, also known as COP21 is underway in Paris, France.  By December 11, a new global climate change agreement should be finalised and as those on the frontlines of climate change, the island states are calling for the text to include the wording – Small Islands Developing States” where applicable, throughout the negotiated text.

“The special characteristic that members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) under the UNFCCC process share in common is our vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. It makes no sense therefore to have a new climate change agreement that doesn’t reflect the special realities for SIDS,” said Ambassador Feturi Elisaia, Samoa’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Samoa, host of the Third UNSIDS Conference is also the birthplace of the SAMOA Pathway – the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action Pathway which reaffirms that the Small Islands Developing States remain a special case for sustainable development in view of their unique and particular vulnerabilities.

“If SIDS are not captured as the most vulnerable group in the Paris agreement that we are negotiating, then something is wrong, somewhere. After all, this is meant to be a climate change agreement, not an economic or investment agreement,” said Ambassador Feturi.

“Years ago when we said that we were vulnerable because we saw our coastlines were being eroded, we were told to provide the scientific evidence for that. Now that the scientists have spoken that there is such a phenomenon as climate change which is largely caused by manmade actions, we are gradually being sidelined. Everyone is now claiming that they are the most vulnerable.”

Flooded islands
At one metre of sea level rise, 90 percent of Tuvalu will be inundated with similar flooding projected for Kiribati and the Marshall Islands.

El Nino events will increase the risks posed to Pacific Islands of coral bleaching, tropical cyclones and other extreme weather events such as droughts across the Western Pacific and heavy rains and flooding over a narrow band around the equator.

Economic losses by tropical cyclones in the Pacific islands translate to losses in GDP of 15 – 25 percent, hampering economic development.  The island region is also home to the second most at risk country in the world, Tonga, which facesconstant threats of tropical cyclones and other related climatic hazards, as well as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcano eruptions.

“While everyone is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, no one is more vulnerable than the Small Island Developing States. We contain three of the five world’s lowest lying islands and the Pacific Islands is also home to Tuvalu, the first island forecast to disappear due to the impacts of climate change,” said David Sheppard, Director-General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).

“The impacts are being felt by SIDS now – financially, culturally, physically and environmentally.  The new global climate change agreement must reflect and acknowledge the importance of this document to the SIDS.”

Coming close to the end of week one of the UN Climate Negotiations, AOSIS including the Pacific Islands, are negotiating hard to ensure the recognition of their special vulnerability is particularly recognised in the new text.

As Pepetua Latasi, a Chief Negotiator for Tuvalu said:

“We have a big role to play here in Paris, to ensure that SIDS language is included in all parts of the text that comes out.  We have to follow this ongoing discussion that seems to be redefining what vulnerability is here.

“At the UNSIDS Conference in Samoa, world leaders and international organisations all recognised the special circumstances of Small Island Developing States, so to be excluded from this historical climate change agreement is a shame.

“We cannot leave Paris without having SIDS reflected in the new agreement.”

#4PacIslands

SPREP website

Source: Pacific Media Watch 9500