Pacific Report

□ In-Flight Maori Message

NEW Zealand Maori Affairs minister Koro Wetere has welcomed moves by Air New Zealand to include Maori in its in flight magazine. Pacific Way. The maga zine already includes stories in languages other than English, including Japanese.

□ Maori Head Laid To Rest

SERVED tattooed Maori head retrieved from an auction in London (see Pacific Is lands Monthly , July) was laid to rest on a hillside in North Auckland on July 22.

Burial of the oak casket containing the head followed a tangi on a nearby marae the day after it was brought from Britain by Maori elders.

The relic has been renamed tupuna maori (Maori ancestor) rather than mo komakai (tattooed slave, as it had been la belled in England), and was believed to have been taken from a burial cave during the 19205. It was probably purchased by a whaler on the ship Nimrod , which sailed to New Zealand from Australia.

It seems the whaler had a request from his brother in England for a couple of pre served heads; a descendant offered the head at auction and became international news when local protesters, then the Maori

Council in New Zealand, objected. In rit ual exchange, The Maori Council finally obtained the head in exchange for a green stone mere or war club.

□ Islanders “Too Fat”

A METABOLIC physician with the Can terbury Hospital Board, Christchurch, Russel Scott, says Maoris and Pacific Is landers have a “disproportionate tend ency” to be overweight.

Dr Scott said the tendency to be over fat could be blamed on environmental and cultural factors. There would always be problems when people had to adapt to a new environment, he said.

□ East-West Energy Seminar

ENERGY ministers and permanent sec retaries of 11 Pacific island nations met at Honolulu’s East-West Centre from August 10-12 to discuss regional energy trends, problems and possible solutions. Repre sentatives from Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micro nesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Western Samoa, in addition to represen tatives of oil companies operating in the region and international agencies, gath

ered under the auspices of the East-West Centre’s Resource Systems Institute and the United Nations Pacific Energy Devel opment Program.

“This was the first time such a high ranking group of Pacific energy officials came together for briefings on the energy situation in the region and internation ally,” said Fereidun Fesharaki, leader of the Centre’s Energy Program. “We hope this will be the first of a series of annual or biannual meetings” of officials from is land nations that are fully dependent on imported petroleum for their energy needs.

Key concerns of the meeting were pe troleum supply and pricing, electricity, foreign investment and energy security. Oil and energy companies represented in cluded Mobil Oil, Shell, British Petro leum, Pacific Resources Inc of Honolulu, Hawaiian Electric Company and the Apache Corporation.

Agencies sending observers were the Asian Development Bank, the US De partment of Energy’s Pacific Site Office, 'World Bank, the Hawaii Department of Business and Economic Development, Australia’s Department of Primary Indus tries and Energy, the Hawaii Natural En ergy Institute, the South Pacific Forum,

Pacific International Centre for High Technology Research, South Pacific Bu reau for Economic co-operation and the Co-ordinating Committee for Offshore Prospecting in South Pacific Waters.

□ Footprints Finds New Publisher

FOOTPRINTS on Malekula, reviewed by Nicolas Roth well in Pacific Islands Monthly, August, is available from Free Association Books in hardback or paper back (the former publisher, Salamander, is no longer operational) from Free As sociation, 26 Freegrove Road, London N 7 9RQ, United Kingdom.

□ Clue To Samoan Diabetes

RESEARCH by a New Zealand doctor into diabetes among American Indians could throw light on why Samoans in New Zea land demonstrate twice the incidence of diabetes as white New Zealanders. Dr Ste phen Lillioja, 36, conducted the study on a US National Institute of Health pro gram, looking at the Pima tribe at Gila River Indian reservation in Arizona/New Mexico; 50 per cent of the population there over 35 have diabetes.

He found that overweight adults with impaired glucose tolerance have a nor mally functioning pancreas. If they lose weight, the insulin they produce can be come more effective and so may prevent the onset of diabetes. “It is likely Samoans have exactly the same metabolic condi tion,” Dr Lillioja says.

□ Treaty Restores Fishing Rights

A TRIBUNAL set up to apply a 19th cen tury treaty to today’s needs has given New Zealand’s Maori people rights to the fish in significant stretches of their marine heritage. The ruling could hearten all native races resentful of commercial threats to traditional food sources.

The Waitangi Tribunal, mainly Maori in background and attitude but judicially constructed to rule on present-day claims under a treaty drawn up by Maori tribes and British settlers in 1840, heard evi dence last year from five northern Maori tribes and several trusts and corporations for both fisheries and land claims, part of a reaction by Maoris to NZ Government moves to disturb Crown titles by making corporations of former government departments.

Specifically, the tribunal examined government plans to introduce a fisheries quota management system and decided in a 340-page report that it contravened the Treaty of Waitangi by which the Crown of fered certain protections in exchange for sovereignty. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, however, continued to issue fisheries quotas. The High Court stopped it, and commercial fishermen, who suffer enough frustration from inroads by for eign trawlers, were angry.

A backlash was already evident against Maori activists and what was seen as“their” treaty.

The tribunal has effectively confirmed the tribes’ rights to NZ’s northern waters and directs the Crown to bargain for any right to commercial exploitation of fish eries off the coast of North Auckland.

“It is all too clear that over the years nu merous blatant and serious breaches have occurred of the treaty guarantee,” the de cision observes. The damage to the Mur iwhenua tribes had included the loss of a viable industry: “very substantial relief to the claimants is required in respect of past breaches, and to restore their fishing econ omy to what it might have been. There can be no once-and-for-all settlement. .. without a long-term program of rehabili tation to restore their ancestral associ ation with the seas.”

It found the fisheries quota manage ment system was in fundamental conflict with the principles and terms of the treaty, “yet need not be”. The tribunal also sug gested that it might be beneficial to both parties if an agreement or arrangement could be reached.

The Waitangi Tribunal has power only to recommend, but such is the treaty’s mana if not its legal standing that any Government that tried to buck it would invite trouble. Government spokesmen have variously assured all sides that exist ing fisheries law is unchanged, that Pak ehas have nothing to fear from the tribunal, and that the findings have important im plications for race relations.

□ Pacific On Tv

TELEVISION New Zealand is morn ing around the Pacific with a new series, Tagata Pasifika, which screens at 11.35 am each Saturday.

The series began with an examination of tourism development on Niue; the King of Tonga’s birthday celebrations were an other feature followed last month by Rar otonga’s Constitution Day festivals. Also scheduled are law theme programs show ing how Samoan matais can assist in cases involving their people and the New Zea land court system, and how two young Sa moan women qualified as lawyers.

Tagata Pasifika is presented by Susana Hukui and produced by Michael Evans.

□ New Qantas Island Services

QANTAS’s new services from Brisbane to the Solomon Islands offer opportunities for budget-conscious Australian travellers with two 737 services, operated jointly with Solomon Islands Airways, from Brisbane on Mondays and Thursdays. The three hour flight takes adventurous tourists to the Solomons’ small resorts that offer “soft” or “hard” adventure treks and excursions.

Qantas and Air Niugini will also cater for islands tourists with a twice- weekly joint service between Townsville, Queensland, and Port Moresby from Oc tober 30. The airlines will approach the Australian and PNG Governments for ap proval to start the services once final stud

ies are completed and airfare levels have been worked out.

A feasibility study found the existing flights from Port Moresby to Cairns could be extended to include Townsville on Mondays and Fridays, returning on Sat urdays and Mondays. Qantas Townsville manager Rod Plaister said the new flights would use Fokker F2B jets, which pres ently fly between Port Moresby and Cairns, and would carry joint Air Niugini and Qantas flight numbers.

□ Drug Conference In Pago Pago

THE South Pacific Commission’s seventh annual regional training course in drug identification and concealment methods was held in Pago Pago, American Samoa, from August 22 to September 2 under the direction of SPC health education spe cialist Manoa Baleo.

Attended by senior police and customs officers from Australia, New Zealand, the USA, INTERPOL, FBI and from other international agencies that deal with the illegal use, trafficking and illicit market ing of drugs, the training course provided valuable insights for the SPC members, as well as an opportunity for participants to learn how to identify drugs, the effects of drug abuse and the organisation and methods used by illegal traffickers.

□ Tole Mour Sets Sail

THE Marimed Foundation has recently seen the christening, dedication and bless ing and other events surrounding the maiden voyage of the Tole Mour, profiled in Pacific Islands Monthly , August.

The ship sailed late last month from its construction site in Seattle, Washington to the newly sovereign Republic of the Mar shall Islands, where the floating health care centre will provide assistance to the Mar shall Islands Health Ministry in serving the primary health care and public health education needs of thousands of isolated outer island residents.

□ Fiji’S Newest Resort

THE SAI.S million Tokoriki Island Re sort, the newest in Fiji, is expected to take its first guests in November with up to 20 beachfront bure units of a planned total of 30 completed.

The resort, about 18 nautical miles west of the port of Lautoka and 20 minutes by floatplane or helicopter from Nadi Inter national Airport, is being built under a joint venture by Newcastle businessmen Gordon Morris and Aldo Aloisi. When completed, Tokoriki’s facilities will in clude a tennis court, freshwater swim ming pool, two restaurants, a cocktail bar and boutique.

The resort’s main beach, about 1000 metres long, is on a safe lagoon with coral gardens for snorkellers nearby. Tokoriki Island also has a 94-metre-high hill that provides a 360-degree view of nearby is lands of the Mamanuca group and the Ya sawa Islands chain. □