The organisers of the Pacific Mini Games in the Cook Islands will hold a public meeting tomorrow night to present an Environmental Impact Assessment report on the removal of coral outcrops from Muri Lagoon.
The Games organisers want the coral removed to ensure an unobstructed course for the canoeing events.
But Noeline Kainuku-Browne, who is a member of one of the land-owning families and the head of the Avana-Muri Marine Action Group, says a government study already made public shows 76 percent of the coral in the lagoon is alive, while the remainder is also an important fish habitat.
She says the landowners are strongly opposed.
"I know that because they tell me themselves and I am related to most of them. And I am in a position with all the various committees I belong to, which are chiefly families I belong to, on top of being a member of the Ariki family, I can assure you there is nobody, who is a Rarotongan, who is a Ngatangiia person, who is a Takitumu person, who has said to me that they are in favour."
Noeline Kainuku-Browne
