Abundant, Say

Tonga Will Stay

The Experts

HMNZS Endeavour’s Com mander D. G. Bamfield, arrived in Nukualofa, Tonga, on October 3 with members of the Cook

Bi-centenary Scientific Expedi

tion. They had ended a month’s investigations in the Cook Islands and Tonga areas.

For most of the team of 13 New Zealanders and five British scientists in this joint venture, organised by the Royal Society of NZ and of London, it was their first visit to these islands.

Leader of the expedition, Mr.

Elliot Dawson, an oceanographer, said that in the Western and North ern Tonga group, studies were under taken for the first time in the fields of geology, archeology, soil structure and marine biology. The three west ern volcanic islands of Late, Tofua and Kao were found to be of com partively recent formation, whereas the main northern island of Vavau was now established archeologically to be at least 2,000 years old.

Rich marine life

The first soil survey undertaken on this island would be of immediate benefit to the farmers; it showed a continuing high fertility, unlike many of the other Pacific Islands, and with the correct use of fertilisers, could greatly develop its agriculture.

Marine life too was rich and varied and although the fish population in some of the nearby reefs and atolls was somewhat depleted, there was no shortage of edible and marketable fish immediately beyond the whole area now worked by small boats and canoes.

He considered that with proper equipment and training, the northern islanders can look forward to in creased harvests from land and sea for many years, Mr. Dawson struck a note of warning about the presence in the area of the feared crown-of-thorns starfish that has done so much damage to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Although in its initial stages in Tonga, the position will have to be watched carefully, he said.