P-NG Waters
pp. 91-92 · Read in the full issue
Search for Shell in P-NG Waters
Prom Our Own Correspondent
Port Moresby, April 1.
PRIVATE enterprise is making a bid to build up a pearl shell and trochus fishing industry in Territory waters.
The private operator is Mr. John Nolan who owns a fleet of small ships which have been working in Torres Straits. Two of his vessels, the 70-ft. trawler Crystal Star and the 50-ft. Lochiel arrived at Port Moresby at the end of March and have started a survey along the nearby coast at Samarai.
Mr. Nolan’s intention is to make an extensive survey of potential pearl shell and trochus grounds along the Papuan and New Guinea coasts, and if the result is favourable he will bring other vessels from his Torres Straits fleet to the Territory, He says that good results are being ob tained in the Straits but he feels that there should be excellent possibilities in unworked areas around Papua and New Guinea. If his hopes are realised and the ships can work to full capacity, he is confident that shell exports worth half a million dollars annually can be shipped.
The total output will go to America where he has been guaranteed a fixed price for all consignments during the next 2i years.
This, he says, takes the gambling element out of the enterprise, a factor which with violently fluctuating markets, has periodi cally wrecked the industry.
He is also counting on teaching native communities to develop their local shell grounds, with the idea of their production being sold through village co-operative groups. This output is included in the
estimated half million dollar trade. In addition, he hopes to train natives for work on his ships. There are ten Euro peans and one Thursday Islander manning the two ships already in the Territory, with the proportion varying between each trawler as circumstances demand. One of the divers, Marco Kiniziger, was a member of one of the French Olympic diving teams, and another, W. Tebb, is an ex Royal Navy “frogman.” The latter had many dangerous assignments during the war, including operations in two-man submarines.
Both trawlers are equipped with modern diving gear.
Mr. Len Usher, head of the Public Re lations Branch of the Fiji Chief Secre tary’s Department, will be in Sydney at the end of April, en route to London, where he will attend a conference at the Colonial Office. Accompanied by Mrs.
Usher, he is to sail from Sydney on the liner, Orion for Europe on May 5. He is expected to be guest speaker at Pacific Islands Society’s meeting in the evening of May 2, at History House, Young Street, Sydney.