Palau comes under spotlight after hosting Forum

Transcript

The small Pacific country of Palau has come under the spotlight after hosting this year's Pacific Islands Forum leaders' summit.

Palau was the first country in the world to create a shark sanctuary and it is now setting its sights on declaring a national marine reserve.

Amelia Langford has been in Palau, which has a population of just over 21,000, and took a look around.

Palau's main industry is tourism and centres on what they call the blue economy. Its President, Tommy Remengesau, has declared the Pacific ocean under siege from climate change, overfishing and pollution. Mr Remengesau, who describes himself as a humble fisherman and is partial to a metaphor, says tourism is integral to Palau's economy and that means a healthy ocean.

TOMMY REMENGESAU: The shoe that fits Palau would be to promote the tourism industry, which is the bread and butter. It is the mother goose that lays the golden egg for us.

He says the idea of no-fishing zones is not a new one for Palau and chiefs have been banning fishing in certain areas for generations upon generations. He wants to create a safe haven for marine resources.

TOMMY REMENGESAU: The idea of Palau doing the marine sanctuary is for tourism, for food security, and for the region in our conservation quota or our conservation target.

Palauan Justin Uvui says Palau's shark sanctuary attracts sharks and tourists alike.

JUSTIN UVUI: I've seen a lot of sharks like cray reef, black tip, white tip, tiger shark, hammerhead shark and the nurse shark.

He says the sharks aren't aggressive towards people.

JUSTIN UVUI: They are just swimming by - good for tourism. You can see sharks coming by not harming anybody.

AMELIA LANGFORD: Because you believe these are friendly sharks?

JUSTIN UVUI: Yeah, I believe. Because there are many fish in Palau so sharks don't eat people - they only eat fish.

The Palau Visitors Authority says the country's tourism industry generates about 85 million US dollars a year. Its managing director, Nanae Singeo, says visitors are mainly from Japan, followed by Taiwan, China and South Korea. She says Tommy Remengesau is a great advocate for Palau.

NANAE SINGEO: He is a visionary and for us you know him declaring the marine sanctuary means a significant impact - not only from a tourism point of view but also reaching out to the globe saying that we are a very tiny tropical island but we are making a very significant step.

She says one of the country's biggest attractions is the Jellyfish Lake. After millions of years, the jellyfish have lost their sting due to an absence of predators.

NANAE SINGEO: There are thousands and thousands of jellyfish floating and you can swim with them. If you are a diver - you can actually dive in jellyfish lake and the experience is actually magical, I would say divine.

The Rock Islands Southern Lagoon, which includes the jellyfish lake,  was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.