Staking their claims: The management of marine resources in the exclusive economic zones of the pacific islands

Abstract

The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC) was tailor-made for Pacific Island. These islands consist of 22 self-governing nations on about 500,000 square kilometers of land scattered across about thirty million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Island countries have declared their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) and Extended Fisheries Zones (EFZs)1 and are cooperating with each other to stake their claims. The countries are sharing limited expertise, experience, facilities, infrastructure, resources and markets but are achieving admirable success in effectively acting upon their rights within their EEZ and EFZ and are setting the pace in influencing international events and practice. Pacific Island countries have formulated international management arrangements that safeguard the EEZ and EFZ and the marine resources within. The countries are using the EEZ and EFZ provisions to effectively stake their claims and are providing a good model for regional cooperation and collaboration based on the equitable pursuit of common economic goals, the peaceful use of ocean resources and the effective management of the marine environment. In addition, the Pacific Island states are working with distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) to establish management regimes covering the EEZs and EFZs and the high seas as promoted by the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement. The 1982 LOSC has gained widespread acceptance among the Pacific Islands. The small island developing states in the Pacific saw in the LOSC the opportunity to formalize a system for the use and management of the regions most important resource base, fisheries. The Pacific Islands countries were united in their support. In 1982, one of its members, Fiji became the first country in the world to sign and ratify the LOSC. By 2002, all of the 13 Pacific Island member-countries of the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), the regional fishery organization for the coastal states of the western and central Pacific Ocean, had ratified the LOSC. In addition, these countries have formulated institutions and a collaborative system of management within the framework of the 1979 FFA Convention that has been set up to protect their interests as coastal states. These cooperative management initiatives have taken into consideration the transboundary nature of the fisheries resource, and the peculiar position of Pacific Islands in terms of their limited financial resources, technology and capacity compared to their DWFN partners.2 These reasons make it critical that regional institutional arrangements, such as those forged within the FFA framework, are promoted and additional initiatives developed. The Pacific Island countries comprise 22 self-governing nations scattered over 30 million square kilometers of ocean. The land-mass of most nations are small (with the exception of Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Fiji), with land making up just over 500,000 square kilometers of the total area, 83% of which belongs to Papua New Guinea. The EEZs and EFZs of the nations are enormous in comparison with the land area (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 1984). Consequently, the responsibilities placed on these small island states to explore, exploit, conserve and manage their EEZs and EFZs have overwhelmed some of the countries. The Pacific Island countries also have to deal with DWFNs, straddling fish stocks and highly migratory species that constitute the main features of the regions fishery (Thistlewait and Votaw, 1992). A summary of Pacific Island countries is provided in Table 10.1. Pacific Island countries can be grouped into four categories based on their natural resources, which in turn largely determine their capacity for long-term growth (Fairbairn, 1994). The first category includes the relatively large countries (Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and Vanuatu), which account for 84% of the regions population, possess extensive areas for agriculture, and control large EEZs and EFZs. These countries have achieved a relatively high degree of economic diversification (forestry, agriculture, fisheries, tourism and minerals) and growth (Fairbairn, 1994). Several of these countries such as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji have been plagued by political strife in recent times. The second category can be termed the middle level countries, such as Samoa and Tonga, which have modest resource bases, limited agriculture, no exploitable minerals and limited tourism potential. The third group consists of countries that are remote and poor such as Kiribati, Tuvalu, Niue, Tokelau, Nauru and the Cook Islands which lack land-based resources and do not have the capacity to exploit their comparatively large EEZs and EFZs. The last category of countries includes those with special relations with the United States, Britain and France, which compensates for their otherwise poor economic prospects. Included in this category are Palau, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna. These countries have achieved living standards that are amongst the highest in the region due to the subsidies they are given by their developed country partners. The Pacific Island countries are separated from each other by vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean. Their small economies and the varying institutional capabilities make economic development daunting (Veitayaki, 1996). The LOSC therefore was welcomed in the region because of the huge potential for economic development it provided to the countries. The LOSC formalized the Pacific Island countries jurisdiction over the resources in their vast EEZs and EFZs (Tarte, 2000). Seabed minerals, fisheries, ocean space, scientific research and critical ecological habitats are also pertinent to the sustainable development of the Pacific Islands.