New Caledonia has imposed a 50-year ban on deep-sea mining across its entire maritime zone in a rare and sweeping move that places the French Pacific territory among the most restricted exploration areas on the planet’s waters.

The law blocks commercial exploration, prospecting and mining of mineral resources that sits within Kanaky New Caledonia’s exclusive economic zone.

Nauru and the Cook Islands have already publicly expressed support for seabed exploration.

• READ MORE: Cook Islands environment group calls on govt to condemn Trump’s seabed mining order
• Other seabed mining reports

Sovereign island states discussed the issue earlier this year during last year’s Pacific Islands Forum, but no joint position has yet been agreed on.

Only non-invasive, scientific research will be permitted across New Caledonia’s surrounding maritime zone that covers 1.3 million sq km.

Lawmakers in the New Caledonian territorial Congress adopted a moratorium following broad support mostly from Kanak-aligned political parties.

“Rather than giving in to the logic of immediate profit, New Caledonia can choose to be pioneers in ocean protection,” Jérémie Katidjo Monnier, the local government member responsible for the issue, told Congress.

A ‘strategic lever’
“It is a strategic lever to assert our environmental sovereignty in the face of the multinationals and a strong signal of commitment to future generations.”

New Caledonia’s location has been a global hotspot for marine biodiversity.

Its waters are home to nearly one-third of the world’s remaining pristine coral reefs that account for 1.5 percent of reefs worldwide.

Environmental supporters of the new law argue that deep-sea mining could cause a serious and irreversible harm to its fragile marine ecosystems.

But the pro-French, anti-independence parties, including Caledonian Republicans, Caledonian People’s Movement, Générations NC, Renaissance and the Caledonian Republican Movement all planned to abstain from the vote the politically conservative bloc knew they could not win.

The Loyalists coalition argued that the decision clashed with the territory’s “broader economic goals” and the measure was “too rigid”, describing its legal basis as “largely disproportionate”.

“All our political action on the nickel question is directed toward more exploitation and here we are presenting ourselves as defenders of the environment for deep-sea beds we’ve never even seen,” Renaissance MP Nicolas Metzdorf said.

Ambassador’s support
But France’s Ambassador for Maritime Affairs, Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, had already asserted “the deep sea is not for sale” and that the high seas “belong to no one”, appearing to back the policy led by pro-independence Kanak alliances.

The vote in New Caledonia also coincided with US President Donald Trump signing a decree a week earlier authorising deep-sea mining in international waters.

“No state has the right to unilaterally exploit the mineral resources of the area outside the legal framework established by UNCLOS,” said the head of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), Leticia Carvalho, in a statement referring back to the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Republished from the National Indigenous Times.

Three New Zealand journalists were detained by Fijian police in Suva last night after trying to interview a controversial Chinese resort developer.

Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings, investigations editor Melanie Reid and cameraman Hayden Aull were held overnight at the main Suva police station after developer Freesoul Real Estate accused them of criminal trespass.

The journalists had visited Freesoul’s Suva offices seeking an interview but been told to leave.

READ MORE: Fiji government to pursue Chinese resort developer

Fiji PM apologises to released journalists

LISTEN TO MORNING REPORT

Hours later, while they interviewed a lawyer acting for villagers of the damaged Malolo Island, Fijian police located their rental car and arrived and escorted them to the police station for questioning.

Newsroom co-editor Tim Murphy told RNZ’s Morning Report the journalists were looking at the environmental damage perpetrated by Freesoul at the island of Malolo.

“They went across to Suva to get feedback – or comment at least – from the developer and were told to leave. Several hours later, police pursued them to a lawyer’s office and took them to the jail cells.”

Murphy said Freesoul is claiming there was a criminal trespass and were making a statement with the arrest, but he was not sure why.

‘Wider power’
“It’s all tied up in the wider power of Freesoul in Fiji,” he said.

“Our guys would have talked to them openly and would’ve gone back there this morning to talk to them but instead were put in the cells and made to stew overnight.”

The group have a criminal lawyer representing them in Fiji and have engaged the New Zealand High Commission to take an interest in what’s happening.

Under Fijian law, they can be held for up to 48 hours without charge.

FBC News reports from Suva that on February 8, Environment Minister Dr Mahendra Reddy confirmed that the resort under construction on Malolo Island in Fiji’s Mamanuca Group had violated the terms of its development as clearly outlined by the Department of Environment.

The ministry is pursuing prosecution of Freesoul Real Estate Development (Fiji) Ptd Ltd.

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

By TJ Aumua in Suva

The crown-of-thorns phenomenon may sound like something from a Hollywood movie storyline. Instead it’s the name given to the rapid mass reproduction of the crown of thorns (COT) starfish – the biggest threat to the Pacific’s coral reefs.

Named for its long poisonous spines on its exterior, the starfish are the primary cause for the extinction of live coral in the South Pacific.

Dr Pascal Dumas, a researcher at the Institute for Regional Development (IRD), has been working on the phenomenon in the Pacific for almost a decade.

Although this has always been a natural marine cycle for the starfish, climate change such as warming sea temperatures and nutrient run off from floods and drains into the sea are possible factors for the starfish’s population explosion.

Standing on or being scratched by a COT spine can cause serious illness and infection.

This makes fishing for those who live on the Pacific coastlines a dangerous chore.

Dumas, together with IRD colleague and information technology engineer, Sylvie Fiat, developed OREANET, an online COT monitoring system.

This was previously launched in Vanuatu and New Caledonia to keep track of where COT clusters were present or growing around the coast.The project is planned to begin in Fiji this year.

OREANET relies on “citizen science” by encouraging locals to report on COT observations and submitting this via an online form.

Those involved in ORENET will be working with community leaders and NGO’s to help rural communities gain access to the project.

• The University of South Pacific’s Pacific Centre for Environment & Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) is hosting a weekly seminar for students during their semester. This week, they invited Dr Pascal Dumas and Sylvie Fiat from Vanuatu to inform the students about their project.

Ami Dhabuwala and Pacific Media Watch contributing editor TJ Aumua are in Fiji on a two-week “Bearing Witness” climate change journalism project with the University of the South Pacific.

• OREANET Fiji
• OREANET New Caledonia
• OREANET Vanuatu
• Fiji set to start up clean-up of crown of thorns starfish
• ‘Bearing Witness’ project

Fiji is gearing up to launch a monitor-and-clean-up project over the predator crown of thorns starfish.

The crown of thorns starfish (COTS), or Acanthaster, is responsible for disturbing coral reef ecosystems in the Indo-Pacific coastal area.

The creature is  also having a bad impact on local communities which rely on the coral reefs for their livelihood.

In 2013, rural communities of southeast Santo in Vanuatu reported severe outbreaks of the COTS in the water.

After a few years of research and requests from local people, the Vanuatu Fisheries Department launched an initiative called the Oceania Regional Acanthaster Network (OREANET) to control the outbreak of COTS in Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

Dr Pascal Dumas, a research scientist with the Vanuatu Fisheries Department, said: “With the help of more than 10 years of reports, we have found that many Pacific islands are affected by the crown of thorns starfish.

“But as we don’t have exact quantitative data, it is a high time to start a small scale monitoring initiative.”

Lethal injection
The project focuses on different methods to eradicate COTS, including lethal injection, electric/physical barrier and asphyxiation.

“We have reports of the COTS outbreak in Fiji from our colleagues in the University of the South Pacific. They were observing outbreaks in some areas of Fiji,” said Dr Dumas.

He said there was some evidence linking the COTS outbreak to climate change.

“Increasing temperature of sea water and enrichment of coastal water are two major effects of climate change that leads to the outbreak of COTS in the water,” he said.

The project is based on the support of local communities.

Dr Dumas is looking for people in Fiji who are willing to go into the water and send reports about COTS “hotspots” in different areas which immediately need to be cleaned up.

“We need students from USP as well to work on this project. The students will be responsible to communicate with local NGOs, communities, dive operators and resort owners.”

Early warning
This project includes a website as an early warning system.

Sylvie Fiat, a data manager and IT engineer from IRD (Institut de recherche pour le développement), has developed a website and a mobile app (for Android and Windows phone) to reach out to the local people.

“Local people have to fill up a simple observation report form about their name, place and the amount of COTS they have observed in the specific region. With this request, a trained team will start the clean-up process of COTS,” said Fiat.

They have launched a website for the Fiji project as well. The website will help them monitor the COTS in different regions and also to develop an effective risk management strategy to save coral reefs.

However, people without internet access may take some help from the key people of the local community or region.

“We had some issues with the internet in New Caledonia. As a solution we appointed a few key persons in the community who can have access to the internet and with their help, people could easily submit the request form on our website or mobile application.”

The team is planning to launch awareness campaigns in Fiji in the upcoming weeks. They will give some information and training about COTS to the local communities.

“COTS have strong and poisonous thorns. So people are not supposed to touch them directly. Last year two men in Vanuatu died because of the poison,” said Dr Dumas.

He is interested in expanding this project to other Pacific Islands as well.

“We have some requests from Kiribati and Tuvalu. So hopefully we will launch this project in these countries soon.”

• The University of South Pacific’s Pacific Centre for Environment & Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD) is hosting a weekly seminar for students during their semester. This week, they invited Dr Pascal Dumas and Sylvie Fiat from Vanuatu to inform the students about their project.

Ami Dhabuwala and Pacific Media Watch contributing editor TJ Aumua are in Fiji on a two-week “Bearing Witness” climate change journalism project with the University of the South Pacific.

• Crown of thorns website in Vanuatu
• ‘Bearing Witness’ project