Penrhyn fishing hub won't harm tourism - company

Transcript

A Cook Islands company says its proposal to build a fishing hub on Penrhyn will be endorsed by the atoll's residents when details of the plan are released.

The Merchants of Paradise say the hub could generate $US240 million for the Cook Islands' economy each year while preserving Penrhyn as a pristine tourist destination.

Ben Robinson reports.

A spokesperson for the Merchants of Paradise, Tim Tepaki, says Penrhyn is well situated to to become a hub for fishing boats once transshipping is banned in Cook Islands waters next year. Transshipping is the process of transferring catch between fishing boats while at sea. Mr Tepaki says hundreds of fishers will soon need a port through which to transfer tuna to the canneries in American Samoa.

TIM TEPAKI: In our concept, just transshipment on land and we have a ship lined up with a 250 container capability going from Penrhyn to Pago, offload the fish, then pick up supplies. Over to Raratonga and pick up New Zealand supplies, back to Penrhyn. Just does that triangle. We will have an average of just 1.8 boats visiting [Penrhyn] to offload and refuel a day. That's all.

But reports of opposition to a fishing hub on Penrhyn have surfaced, which the island's former MP, Wilkie Rasmussen, says are a reaction to a parallel government proposal.

WILKIE RASMUSSEN: So they talked about Penrhyn being a fishing hub for transshipment of fish, using it as a slipway so you can have ships repaired and repainted over there. It's just that the magnitude of it was so huge that a number of us who love the island are terrified of the sheer size of it.

A candidate for the upcoming council elections on Penrhyn, Ru Taime, says a fishing hub could spoil the atoll's culture, environment and tourism sector.

RU TAIME: I don't want the fishing hub to be here. Especially it's going to be a problem for the residents in Omoka where they will be putting it. There'll be more problems between the people and these fishing vessels. The culture, the way we live. I think we're much better off without these things happening in our environment so we can attract more tourists.

But Tim Tepaki says Penrhyn residents will support a fishing hub built by the Merchants of Paradise when they learn of other benefits the company will bring.

TIM TEPAKI: We're doing an integrated development for Penrhyn: tourism, farming and fishing. The difference is that the plan that seems to be proposed by government is to develop a hub that will have dry docks and things for these fishing boats and everything else. We're saying no. we're not interested in building dry docks or anything like that because we are pro tourism. We want the lagoon to remain pristine, we want our lagoon to have teeming fish in it. We are only interested in a simple transshipment hub because we do not want boats congregating in the lagoon, not when we have resorts and facilities around the island, encircling the lagoon. I think you will all get a shock when Penrhyn says yes.

The secretary of the Cook Islands' Ministry of Marine Resources wasn't prepared to comment on a Penrhyn fishing hub, and the Prime Minister's office didn't return calls.