Closed Again

Cook Is. Pearling

Manihiki May Be Closed Again

IyfANIHIKI, best mother-of-pearl H fishery lagoon in the Cook Islands, which was closed to livers throughout 1956, may again ►e closed next year.

The Administration ordered the agoon closed last year when it was een that much undersized and orderline shell was being shipped outh to Rarotonga for packing and xport.

Closure naturallly caused consid rable opposition by those in the idustry, who maintained that the olicy was wrongly based. It was lore a question of policing the egulations, some exporters con idered.

They maintained that there was o shortage of large shells in the tgoon, but that the divers would aturally pick small shells as well, they could get away with it. -eport, shell fished since reopen ig has again been of borderline ze. The legal minimum was raised lis year from 4| inches to 5 inches.

Continuing supplies of undersize lell may confirm the Administra on’s contention that the evidence lints to the lagoon being too eavily fished. The Report states lat it appears that it may be “cessary to again close the lagoon irough 1958.

Manihiki lagoon is of very great tlue to the impoverished Cook roup. Despite a heavy decline in tell exports in the 1956-57 finan al year the total value of JZ101.490 was only £l7O below that the next most valuable export, matoes. This was due to a record r erage shell price of £NZ67O per ng ton for the 149 tons shipped.

Much of this shell was a carry er of shell fished in the previous ar. Only 421 tons was actually ihed, 13 h tons of this coming from iwarrow lagoon which was worked r a few months.

The Administration’s hope that e closure of Manihiki would also .mulate fishing at the other arling lagoon, Penrhyn, was not alised.

In fact, production there declined two tons, to 29 tons.

Manihiki’s importance to the in stry can be seen in export figures lich have often been over 300 is in recent years, from that joon alone.

Mo scientific and detailed survey Manihiki’s shell resources has sr been made. Little reliance can placed on the divers who turally want the lagoon kept en at all costs and do not take .(png-term view. It would be worth die for the Administration to

have a thorough survey of the lagoon made by a competent person so that necessary action could be firmly based.

Some replanting has been done in Pukapuka lagoon and elsewhere but it would be many years before this had any commercial potential. + Makea Nui Teremoana Ariki was formally invested with the Insignia and Grant of Dignity of Commander (Civil Division) of the Order of the British Empire by Resident Com missioner of the Cook Islands, Mr.

G. Nevill, on November 6 at the Court Room, Avarua. * A motion that graduates of Tereora College and Nikao Teachers’

Training College, Rarotonga, be re

quired to undertake to remain in the Cook Islands for at least five years after graduation was carried by the Cook Islands Legislative Council in November. The rule may be relaxed in special cases. - At a brief ceremony at the Tan unamanono, Apia, village school, re cently, the 13-year-old Samoan girl, Fa’afaga, member of the Junior Red Cross Society was presented, with the Royal Humane Society’s Bronze Medal for bravery in saving the life of a young Samoan boy from drown ing in the flooded Vaisigano River, near Apia, on March 16, 1956. Mem bers of the Apia Red Cross Society attended the function, and the Pre sident, Mr, H. W. Moors, addressed the gathering.