beyond those

Rossfelder looks beyond those 200-mile zones

A revolutionary plan designed to help Pacific nations reap any ben efits to be hadfrom ocean-floor manganese nodules has been bowled up to the South Pacific Forum by marine geologist Dr Andre Ross felder.

Dr Rossfelder, president of Geomarex of La Jolla, California, is well known for his work on underwater mineral surveys in many island groups in the Pacific.

In an interview with the Papeete paper La Depeche de

Tahiti he has urged that the United Nations deliver to Pa cific Island countries a long term ‘international seafloor grant’ of as much as 300 to 500 additional miles beyond their present 200-mile economic zones. The grant would strictly

concern mineral resources on the seafloor, and not living oceanic resources.

Dr Rossfelder told La Depeche: ‘I work with the Pa cific Island peoples. I know their problems and needs. The ocean is all they had, have and will have for centuries to come.

The Pacific Ocean around them is their common heritage before that of anyone else.’

Dr Rossfelder claims that Pacific island nations have been ‘deprived of their his torical rights’ by the grandiose concept launched at the United Nations in the late 1960 s by the ambassador of Malta, Arvid Parvo, that the deep sea manganese nodules are ‘the common heritage of man kind’.

He says: ‘When the “People of the Sea” started their conquest of the Pacific Ocean some 3000 years ago this ocean was strictly unknown to the peoples who now claim its re sources as their “common heri

tage”.

‘At this time, and well be yond it, the Sahara, the Arctic, the forests of the Amazon, Siberia, were just vast expanses of wasteland. Nobody would now think about declaring the “common heritage of man kind” the deserts which remain there 200 miles beyond the settlements. When this UN declaration was made no Pa cific nations were represented in the UN. They had no say in the matter. Only last year, for the first time, there were four Pacific nations that had access to the rostrum of the UN.

Dr Rossfelder said that as things stand the Pacific nations were the ‘big cuckolds’ of the law of the sea negotiations. ‘By seconding the efforts of the “Group of 77”, which is lead ing the battle in the UN to place manganese nodule re sources under an international operational organisation called “The Enterprise”, some Pacific nations are defeating their own interests,’ he said. ‘The squabbles over the law of the sea are already leading to the disbanding of research teams, and “The Enterprise” will further freeze the develop ment of these resources.

‘Contrary to widespread be

liefs, the fields of nodules of

economic value are rather scarce and limited, and lie

mainly beyond the 200-mile

economic zones. An “inter national seafloor grant’’ would give to the Pacific nations a partial but direct access to some of these economic fields.

All Pacific nations would not benefit, but the Gilberts, the Cooks, the Marshalls and sev eral others may find there a new opportunity for economic

development.’

Dr Rossfelder held that the UN could not have valid argu ments against the idea. The Third World nations would back it on ideological and humanitarian grounds. The industrialised nations could not oppose it because of the same humanitarian consider ations. They could even find an interest in the proposal which could offer them a way to joint venture with some Pacific nations and secure mining entitlements a necessary ‘col lateral’ for raising the huge financing needed for the development of the nodules (up to half a billion US dollars for a single deep ocean mine).

In the event of the UN rejecting the idea, the Pacific countries should ‘make a uni lateral declaration of their own’, according to Dr Ross felder. ‘After all,' he said, ‘that is what Ecuador and Peru did about 20 years ago over the 200-mile zone off their coast lines. They were accused at the time of infringement of inter national law, of abuse, “pi racy” and heaven knows what.

But eventually their unilateral claim was recognised as just.

Their initiative is now a fact of the law of the sea and of the current state of affairs.’

Dr Rossfelder sees the ‘inter national seafloor grant’ as not for final proprietary rights, but

only for ‘temporary user’s

rights’.

He concluded: ‘The South Pacific Forum seems to be the place for starting to act upon this rightful and much overdue claim. This could also be the way to start freeing the dead lock in the law of the sea nego tiations, to send the lawyers back to their books and get down to work.’