A double helping of

Opinion

A double helping of PIM . . . and an apology to our readers

THIS ISSUE of Pacific Islands Monthly represents both the first time the magazine has appeared as a double issue, and the first time its pages have been devoted to a vital but often ignored element in the region’s future.

The appearance of this April /May issue is in response to legal matters and production difficulties arising from the March issue which problems resulted m distribution of that issue being delayed. We apologise unreservedly to our readers for the delay but assure them that a disadvantage was put to ultimately good effect and that we will now again be able to provide them with coverage of Pacific affairs on a timely basis. All subscribers will receive an extra month’s issue of the magazine.

In the difficulties that accompanied the production of our March issue, one or two gremlins made their appearance; specifically in that issue’s Opinion page, in which former Islands Business editor John Richardson was mistakenly quoted as saying correspondent David Robie was a journalist “who is either anti-right or pro-left”. Naturally, this was an error: the sentence should have read “David Robie’s articles reflect a journalist who is neither anti-right nor pro-left”. We apologise to David and to John Richardson for the typographical error.

T FIRST glance, the stories contained in this double issue may seem to represent a fairly broad coverage of regional events: violence and sabot age on Bougainville; French Polynesian politics and the mysterious threat of ciguatera; tree snakes; Port Moresby and Tuvalu’s new inter-vessel.

But this issue’s Special Report on the regional consequences of the Green house Effect reveals the overall theme: that of the growing need to address threats to the quality of life throughout Oceania.

That need overwhelms questions of politics, economics and social issues, for it is inherent in all of them: it’s just not possible to devote energy to politics or business if one is (as may literally be true within 50 years) up to one’s knees in effluent, environmental destruction, rising sea levels and otner horrors of na ture. Indeed, environmental Questions can be seen at the heart of the majority of issues affecting the region today not least in the despoliation of Bougainville, and the terrifying spiral of violence that has grown out of an inability to resolve the question of land rights and protection of resources.

Also relevant to Bougainville (and chillingly ironic in the context of the deaths that have occurred there) is the story on Pages 38 and 39. For much of the past century, the Western world has looked on the Pacific in fact, on the globe as a whole as no more than a source of cheap labour, timber, minerals and foodstuffs. It has sought to ‘develop’ natural resources primarily for the benefit of the West, and only recently for tne benefit of those who, having seen so much destruction of their heritage for the benefit of others, are now lobbying for a more equitable share of the world’s wealth.

But as World Bank researchers have found, development and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive concepts. In trutn, they can work hand in hand, for the good of both producer and consumer.

As the World Bank report shows, environmental protection and awareness can actually increase the profitability of development: the forest that is retained upstream of a hydroelectric dam could contain useful drugs, and certainly is home to animals and plants that add to the diets of the local human population.

As global problems of the order of the Greenhouse Effect begin to make themselves felt, the Pacific has to realise that it cannot turn to others for solutions for those others still be battling the same problems on an even greater scale. Oceania has to act on its own behalf, if only to demonstrate that otherwise powerless nations can take the steps necessary to preserve a region of astonishing natural beauty and richness. □