Pacific Report
pp. 36-38 · Read in the full issue
□ Australia-Pacific Conference
THE University of New South Wales’
Centre for South Pacific Studies will hold its first conference with the theme ‘Australia and the South Pacific in 1988’ from December 1-4 this year.
The conference is intended, in “a year of national rethinking and eva luation in 1988” to highlight Austra lia’s relations with the South Pacific, an area long ignored in the national consciousness. It will provide a bluep rint for future projects and activities of researchers at UNSW relating to the South Pacific.
Speakers include Mr Henry Naisali, director of the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (SPEC), Professor R G Crocombe of the Uni versity of the South Pacific, and a range of highly qualified people in the fields of mineral development, health, women’s issues, trade, politics and humanities.
□ Aid For Fiji Agriculture
THE Asian Development Bank has approved a SUS2O million loan to Fiji
to help the country’s agricultural di
versification program. There will also be technical assistance grants totalling SUS 1,070,000. The loan, for 15 years with a three-year period of grace, will carry interest to be determined in accordance with the bank's pool-based variable lending rate system.
It is intended to support agricultu ral diversification and growth, leading to exports of agriculture-based manu
factured products. Working with pri
vate sector enterprises that will help relieve rural poverty, the program is expected to help cope with adverse environmental factors.
The technical assistance grants will
provide a farm-management informa
tion system, strengthen the project
formulation, evaluation and monitor
ing capabilities of key government
ministries, and help formulate the Northern Division Agricultural De
velopment Project.
□ Marshalls Wilderness Care
AN expedition organised by Hawaii’s
East-West Center is sailing the Mar shall Islands to determine if the gov ernment should establish protected, patrolled areas to preserve plant and animal species and archaeological sites.
The study is focusing initially on 10 uninhabited atolls in the northwest
Marshalls. “Illegal foreign fishing ex
ploitation may nave already damaged
marine life, particularly the turtle
population,” said Lawrence Hamilton, the study co-ordinator. He is also in vestigating reports that a US company is negotiating to use one of the atoll lagoon sites to dump millions of ton nes of garbage as landfill for eventual development of tourist facilities.
□ Tahiti Hosts Pidp Group
FOLLOWING the recent South Paci fic Forum in Tonga, representatives of seven Pacific nations met in Tahiti for the 14th standing committee meeting of the Pacific Islands Development Program. It was the first time such a meeting had been hosted by French
Polynesia, Tahiti having joined PIDP
last year with a special contribution of SUS4O,OOO, backed up by a SIOO,OOO donation from France. PIDP has its headquarters at the East-West Center in Hawaii.
□ Us Islands Population Boom
THE US Census Bureau reports that
population growth is skyrocketing in
islands under US jurisdiction in the Pacific. Numbers in Guam in 1987 were up 23.1 per cent over 1980, due
largely to migration and military per
sonnel movements from the Philip
pines. Guam’s population reached
139,400 in 1987.
The northern Marianas population increased by 21.1 per cent in the same period, to 20,300. American Samoa grew by 19 per cent to 38,400. In both cases growth was attributed mainly to increased births.
□ Aborigines Partner Bikinians
ABORIGINAL people from Mara linga in South Australia met recently with a delegation of five Bikini Islan ders who visited Australia at their own expense to discuss their common ex perience of seeing their homelands used as proving grounds for nuclear weapons after World War 11.
Tne Australian Department of Em
ployment, Education and Training’s
journal Aboriginal Employment and
Education reports on the similarity of the two situations. The US moved the 1500 people of Bikini while it tested hydrogen and atomic bombs on Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958: the Aborigines were also moved from their tribal lands to make way for Brit ish nuclear tests in the 19505.
Archie Barton, speaking for the Maralinga people, said “Like us, the Bikini Islanders are living a traditional lifestyle, and we are both concerned with the same thing”. That is, making
their homelands sate to live in again.
The Aborigines are seeking SA7 million in compensation from the Au stralian Government for resettlement, while the Bikini people are asking the US Government to scrape off the top 16 centimetres of soil from their is land, together with all plant life, as a prelude to restoration.
□ Nivaga Ii Welcomed To Tuvalu
A BEAUTIFUL day, throngs of peo
ple, dancing and a highly decorated
deep-sea wharf welcomed Tuvalu’s new inter-island ferry and cargo vessel Nivaga II as she arrived in Funafuti on September 5 after a long voyage
from England.
The SAIO million vessel, launched at Lowestoft, England, earlier this year, constitutes tnat country’s main thrust of aid to Tuvalu. Representa tives of Britain’s Overseas Develop ment Agency were on hand to film the arrival and its enthusiastic recep tion by the local community.
As tier gleaming white form came into view across Funafuti’s broad la goon, excitement ran high; a colourful regatta of yachts and workboats man ned by trainees from the Tuvalu Mari time School accompanied the Nivaga II across the final stretch of water to the wharf, where crowds of onlookers welcomed the arrival beneath a canopy adorned with palm fronds, ferns and flowers. The Nukulaelae Is land Group gave a tremendous display of songs and dancing as the boat drew up beside the wharf.
Nivaga II will replace the original
Nivanga, which has given almost 27 years of faithful service to the islands of Tuvalu. A handing-over ceremony took place at the wharf during the afternoon, and a reception was held that night at the Vaiaka Lagi Hotel.
Skipper Paueli Sione, who travelled with tne vessel on the voyage from England, has had little time to relax since his return! Already Nivaga II has made a trip to Fiji to collect the Nanumea dancing troupe returning from the Townsville Festival of Pacific Arts, and ferried hundreds of people from the outer islands to Funafuti for the Independence celebrations in early October.
□ Telecommunicators Confer
THE annual conference of the Pacific Telecommunications Council will be held at the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel in Hawaii from January 15-18, 1989. Il
will, as previously, bring together
academic and business participants
from all regions of the Pacific.
The Council is “dedicated to the de
velopment, understanding and benefi
cial use of telecommunications
throughout the Pacific hemisphere”;
taking in North, Central and South America, Northeast, South and South east Asia, together with Oceania Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
The conference, styled PTC ’B9, is intended to be a forum for both users and providers of communications ser vices, as well as academics, scientists,
policy makers and planners.
PTC is designed to embrace mem bers from countries involved in the development of Pacific telecom munications.
Enquiries should be directed to PTC ’B9, 1110 University Avenue, Suite 308, Honolulu, Hawaii 96826, USA. □ NEW KON TIKI CREW MAY QUIT MEMBERS of an expedition trying to cross the Pacific on a raft made from r-eds (see Pacific Islands Monthly, Au
gust) are considering abandoning the
attempt. The raft similar to those used by the Inca Indians of Peru was towed into Papeete late in October
after suffering damage to its steering
gear for the second time.
The five-man crew is seeking to prove that Incas could have sailed
from Peru to New Zealand; the 20 metre raft, named the Urn, left Lima in July and all went well until the craft
was damaged by heavy seas in
September.
The crew put into the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, where government workers installed a new rudder, then continued the voyage until it was again damaged in stormy seas and towed to Papeete.
□ Security Conference
AUSTRALIA’S current defence and security circumstances will be ex amined in the light of the country’s
history and global and regional de
velopments at a conference organised by trie Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, to be held from 6-9 December. The con ference will be opened by Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Senator Gareth Evans, who will
provide a political and economic glob
al and regional overview of Australia’s place in the world The Minister for Defence, Mr Beaz ley, will make a major statement on Australian defence policy, and Chief of the Australian Defence Force, General Peter Gration, will discuss current issues and future prospects concerning the ADF. Professor John
Molony, Manning Clark Professor of History at the ANU, will review Au
stralia’s political legacy and identify
the principal themes in Australia’s de velopment as a nation, The conference, Australia and the World: Prologue and Prospects, will hear Professor Robert O’Neill, Profes sor of the History of War at Oxford University give an overview of the
global strategic landscape, highlighting
both constant factors and new trends, The world economy and the major
geopolitical and geostrategic implica
tions for Australian security prospects will be examined by Professor David Calleo from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in
Washington, DC.
Dr Richard Higgott, Director of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, will speak on the political economic implications for Australia and Professor Nancy Viviani, Head of the Department of Political Science at ANU, will analyse economic develop ments in Asia and assess their political
implications for the region,
Dr Jusuf Wanandi, Executive Direc tor of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta, will discuss security questions in Southeast Asia.
Australia’s alliances will be ex amined along with Soviet naval power
4 in the Pacific, US maritime strategy in the region and the prospects for Japanese rearmament and will be ex plored, as well as strategic develop ments in the Indian Ocean.
The conference will also include a session on arms control and disarma ment. Dr Graeme Cheeseman, Senior Research Fellow in the Peace Research Centre at ANU, will provide a critique of aspects of Australia’s defence policy and outline alternative approaches in cluding the possibility of a non offensive defence position for Au stralia.
The ANU is seeking expressions of interest in the conference; conference secretary is Mr J O Langtry, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific Studies, ANU, GPO Box 4, Canberra, phone (062) 49 2276.
□ Thatcher In Favour Of Environ
Ment Care
THE United Kingdom seeks to “help countries of the South Pacific to use and manage their limited resources in a productive and, above all, sustain able way”, according to Chris Patten, Britain’s Minister for Overseas De velopment, to a conference on the Pacific environment at the Common wealth Institute in London. Last year Britain spent more than 10 million pounds on technical advice and train ing in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Fiji and Tonga.
Mr Patten quoted British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s endorse ment of sustainable development and
appropriate growth as the only effec
tive means of tackling poverty or en
vironmental degradation and pollu
tion. In a remarkable speech to the Royal Society, Mrs Thatcher commit ted her Government to serious treat ment of environmental issues.
□ New Party For Cook Islands
A THIRD political party has been formed in the Cook Islands with the establishment of the Cook Islands Labour Party. Leader of the party, Mr Rena Ariki Jonassen, said his party will field a full slate of candidates to contest general elections to be held late this year or early in 1989. Mr Jonassen said the party will have no formal ties with the New Zealand Labour Party, but among its policies is a pledge to declare the Cooks a nuc lear-free zone and a ban on all nuc lear-armed ships entering its ports.