French Polynesia’s president has announced his administration will establish one of the world’s largest networks of highly protected marine areas (MPAs).

The highly protected areas will safeguard 220,000 sq km of remote waters near the Society Islands and 680,000 sq km near the Gambier Islands.

Speaking at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, President Moetai Brotherson pledged to protect nearly 23 percent of French Polynesia’s waters.

“In French Polynesia, the ocean is much more than a territory — it’s the source of life, culture, and identity,” he said.

“By strengthening the protection of Tainui Atea (the existing marine managed area that encompasses all French Polynesian waters) and laying the foundations for future marine protected areas . . .  we are asserting our ecological sovereignty while creating biodiversity sanctuaries for our people and future generations.”

Once implemented, this would be one of the world’s single-largest designations of highly protected ocean space in history.

Access will be limited, and all forms of extraction, such as fishing and mining, will be banned.

Together, the zones encompass an area about twice the size of continental France.

President Brotherson also promised to create additional artisanal fishing zones and two more large, highly protected MPAs within the next year near the Austral and Marquesas islands.

He also committed to bolster conservation measures within the rest of French Polynesia’s waters.

Donatien Tanret, who leads Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy’s work in French Polynesia, said local communities had made it clear that they wanted to see stronger protections that reflected both scientific guidance and their ancestral culture for future generations.

“These protections and commitments to future designations are a powerful example of how local leadership and traditional measures such as rāhui can address modern challenges.”

Samoa announces MPAs
Before the conference, Samoa adopted a legally binding Marine Spatial Plan — a step to fully protect 30 percent and ensure sustainable management of 100 percent of its ocean.

The plan includes the establishment of nine new fully protected MPAs, covering 36,000 sq km of ocean.

Toeolesulsulu Cedric Schuster, Samoa’s Minister for Natural Resources and Environment, said Samoa was a large ocean state and its way of life was under increased threat from issues including climate change and overfishing.

“This Marine Spatial Plan marks a historic step towards ensuring that our ocean remains prosperous and healthy to support all future generations of Samoans — just as it did for us and our ancestors.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

New Caledonia has imposed a 50-year ban on deep-sea mining across its entire maritime zone in a rare and sweeping move that places the French Pacific territory among the most restricted exploration areas on the planet’s waters.

The law blocks commercial exploration, prospecting and mining of mineral resources that sits within Kanaky New Caledonia’s exclusive economic zone.

Nauru and the Cook Islands have already publicly expressed support for seabed exploration.

Sovereign island states discussed the issue earlier this year during last year’s Pacific Islands Forum, but no joint position has yet been agreed on.

Only non-invasive, scientific research will be permitted across New Caledonia’s surrounding maritime zone that covers 1.3 million sq km.

Lawmakers in the New Caledonian territorial Congress adopted a moratorium following broad support mostly from Kanak-aligned political parties.

“Rather than giving in to the logic of immediate profit, New Caledonia can choose to be pioneers in ocean protection,” Jérémie Katidjo Monnier, the local government member responsible for the issue, told Congress.

A ‘strategic lever’
“It is a strategic lever to assert our environmental sovereignty in the face of the multinationals and a strong signal of commitment to future generations.”

New Caledonia’s location has been a global hotspot for marine biodiversity.

Its waters are home to nearly one-third of the world’s remaining pristine coral reefs that account for 1.5 percent of reefs worldwide.

Environmental supporters of the new law argue that deep-sea mining could cause a serious and irreversible harm to its fragile marine ecosystems.

But the pro-French, anti-independence parties, including Caledonian Republicans, Caledonian People’s Movement, Générations NC, Renaissance and the Caledonian Republican Movement all planned to abstain from the vote the politically conservative bloc knew they could not win.

The Loyalists coalition argued that the decision clashed with the territory’s “broader economic goals” and the measure was “too rigid”, describing its legal basis as “largely disproportionate”.

“All our political action on the nickel question is directed toward more exploitation and here we are presenting ourselves as defenders of the environment for deep-sea beds we’ve never even seen,” Renaissance MP Nicolas Metzdorf said.

Ambassador’s support
But France’s Ambassador for Maritime Affairs, Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, had already asserted “the deep sea is not for sale” and that the high seas “belong to no one”, appearing to back the policy led by pro-independence Kanak alliances.

The vote in New Caledonia also coincided with US President Donald Trump signing a decree a week earlier authorising deep-sea mining in international waters.

“No state has the right to unilaterally exploit the mineral resources of the area outside the legal framework established by UNCLOS,” said the head of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), Leticia Carvalho, in a statement referring back to the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Republished from the National Indigenous Times.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Vanuatu has taken a leading role in a bloc of nations fighting to keep marine environment protection on the main agenda of the UN organisation responsible for developing global regulations for seabed mining.

The assembly of the Kingston-based International Seabed Authority is meeting this week with a packed programme, including a vote to pick the next secretary-general who could significantly influence the environmental constraints set on mining.

Deep-sea mineral extraction has been particularly contentious in the Pacific, where some economically lagging island nations see it as a possible financial windfall and solution to their fiscal challenges but many other island states are strongly opposed.

Vanuatu Minister of Climate Change Ralph Regenvanu, at the ISA meeting of the 168 member nations plus the European Union, said an environmental policy was “critical” because it’s likely the body will receive an application to approve commercial seabed mining by the end of this year.

“When you make deliberations in the coming days, please think beyond your national boundaries and think as custodians of our ocean and of the real threat mining the seabed poses for the Pacific region,” Regenvanu said in remarks he explicitly directed at the Pacific island nations which favour deepsea mining.

“Financial exploitation of our ocean may be beneficial for the next decade for our nations, but it could be devastating for the future generations,” he said.

Mining of the golf ball-sized metallic nodules that litter swathes of the sea bed is touted as a source of the rare-earth minerals needed for green technologies, like electric vehicles, as the world reduces reliance on fossil fuels.

Irreparable damage
Sceptics say such minerals are already abundant on land and warn that mining the sea bed could cause irreparable damage to an environment that is still poorly understood by science.

Deep-sea mining opponents have been pushing for the ISA to prioritize protection of the marine environment at the full assembly rather than keep discussion of the issue within its smaller policy-setting council.

Some see such a policy as the prerequisite for an international moratorium on deep-sea mining in the vast ocean areas outside national boundaries that fall under the ISA’s jurisdiction.

Along with Vanuatu, several nations including Spain, Chile and Canada expressed backing for the assembly to begin discussion of an environmental policy.

China, a powerful voice at the ISA, reiterated its reservations because of the packed agenda, but said it was willing to be flexible. Saudi Arabia was among the nations that criticised the proposal sponsored by Vanuatu and seven other nations but did not formally object.

The assembly is also expected to vote on candidates for the ISA’s secretary-general. The long serving incumbent Michael Lodge has been criticized by organizations such as Greenpeace, who say he has taken the part of deep-sea mining companies rather than being a neutral technocrat.

The British lawyer’s candidacy is sponsored by the pro-mining Pacific nation of Kiribati against Brazil’s Leticia Carvalho, an oceanographer and former oil industry regulator of the South American nation, who has also been critical of his leadership.

Vanuatu also made its mark at the assembly by blocking two organisations linked to deep-sea mining companies from gaining NGO observer status at the ISA.

Regenvanu told the assembly that one of the organisations was made up of subsidiaries of The Metals Company, which has been testing its equipment for hoovering up the metallic nodules from the ocean floor.

The Metals Company is working with the Pacific island nations of Nauru, Kiribati and Tonga to possibly exploit their licence areas in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone. The 4.5 million square kilometer area in the central Pacific is regulated by the ISA and contains trillions of polymetallic nodules at depths of up to 5.5 km.

Nauru in June 2021 notified the seabed authority of its intention to begin mining, which started the clock on a two-year period for the authority’s member nations to finalise regulations.

The Cook Islands, meanwhile, is allowing nodule exploration by other companies in its own waters and does not need ISA approval to mine in them.

Sonny Williams, Assistant Minister to the Cook Islands Prime Minister, told the assembly that his country is proceeding with caution to ensure both conservation and sustainable use of marine resources.

“Deep seabed minerals hold immense potential for our prosperity,” he said. “To unlock and develop this potential we must do so responsibly and sustainably, prioritising the long-term wellbeing of our people.”

Greenpeace deep-sea mining campaigner Louisa Casson said the ISA assembly would not complete the complicated process of agreeing on deep-sea mining rules at its current meeting.

Non-governmental organisations and governments that want to take a cautious approach to deep sea mining are hoping the assembly meeting will make incremental progress toward achieving a moratorium on mining, she told BenarNews.

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with permission of BenarNews.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

French Polynesia’s new President Moetai Brotherson is in Paris for wide-ranging talks with the French government and the organisers of the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

His visit involves meetings with a range of ministers and officials to continue cooperation arrangements initiated by his predecessor.

“I’m not here to come begging,” Brotherson said, adding that he wanted to ensure that France was helping to decrease dependence on French financial transfers by developing French Polynesia as a country with its own resources.

He told the news site Outremers360 that he wants any process of self-determination to be arbitrated by the United Nations.

Restating a timeframe of up to 15 years until a referendum on independence, Brotherson said that it was not utopian.

“[French] Polynesia is as big as Europe, and in terms of population, it is [the size of] Montpellier”, he said, referring to the southern French city with its 300,000 inhabitants.

He said time needed to be taken to prepare, and by seeking independence “we will be able to take decisions with full responsibility”.

By contrast, he said the preceding pro-autonomy governments had the reflex to say that in the end, if they did not make the right decisions, they would turn to “mother” France.

Support for seabed mining ban
Brotherson met the State Secretary for the Sea Herve Berville who reconfirmed the French government’s support for a seabed mining ban.

Berville also reconfirmed that such a ban would also apply to French Polynesian waters.

Brotherson again expressed his unwavering support for next year’s Olympic surfing competition to be held in Tahiti.

After flooding in the area last month, French Polynesian Sports Minister Nahema Temarii cast doubt on Tahiti being able to go ahead with the competition.

However, the site manager of the Paris Olympics organising committee, as well as Brotherson, said the event would go ahead as planned.

After becoming President last month, Brotherson will this week officially relinquish his seat in the French National Assembly, to which he was re-elected last year when his pro-independence Tavini Huira’atira for the first time won all three available Paris seats.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz