The Pacific Media Centre’s weekly Southern Cross radio programme on 95bFM has featured the latest Pacific news brought to you by Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Sri Krishnamurthi.

He was joined by Auckland University of Technology communications masters student Laurens Ikinia from West Papua to discuss the threat of coronavirus for the Pacific, Papuan students in NZ, right-wing extremism groups and a scourge of crown of thorns starfish eating coral – and how an environmental group found a solution.

“This is a very worrying trend,” says Krishnamurthi in response to the three cases of Covid-19 in a French Polynesia outbreak – first in the Pacific. “And now three cases in Guam, two from the Philippines and one from Japan.

“So they brought it back into Guam. And there is a self-isolating case in American Samoa.

“It has had a very sobering effect in the Pacific – people are being very careful.”

Listen to the PMC’s Southern Cross radio programme.

Ikinia talked about the 160 Papuan students studying in New Zealand as part of a bold education strategy of the local Papuan provincial government of sending students to English-speaking countries.

Krishnamurthi and Ikinia talk about the Pacific issues with 95bFM’s The Wire presenter Sherry Zhang and producer James Tapp.

• 95bFM Southern Cross podcast
• Education key to a better life for West Papua

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