Transcript
KELVIN PASSFIELD: Well our main issue with the Marine Resources bill is that it is similar to the old one in as much as there is too much authority delegated to the Secretary and/or the Minister of Marine Resources in the draft. There has got to be more provision for accountability through committee type arrangements rather than having all this power with one or two people.
DON WISEMAN: Who should be there? Who should be on those committees?
KP: Oh, people with expertise in the fisheries sector, and people with foreign affairs knowledge, traditional leaders of the country - under the constitution they have a right to be consulted and it is not happening, and NGOs, such as ourselves, who have special interest in the marine sector. We should all be included in a marine committee. I know it is never going to be easy - management by committee but at least we wouldn't get into some of the problems we have had when we had when it's been all up to one of two people.
DW: Why is it that there is so much power concentrated in the [Ministry of] Marine Resources?
KP: Just the way the Act has been written in the past. And there are a lot of good things in the Act, it's just that the problems are the decision makers are too limited in number. An example is when negotiating access agreements with foreign fishing companies there are a lot of things to be considered, and yet it is only one or two people that end up signing off on the deal and sometimes they ignore the opinions of others, or they don't even seek the opinion of others. So it should be mandated that that opinion needs to be sought and needs to be respected in any access agreements that are being negotiated.
DW: Particularly there you have got in mind this controversial deal with the European Union.
KP: Exactly yeah. That deal, which was signed about three or four weeks ago - it would have been much better delay the signature to that agreement until after the new Act had been fully debated act and consulted with the public and then passed. Now they have signed up a deal for eight years with a tacit of an extension to another eight years, and they are going to go ahead and change the Act within the next 12 months anyway, so it just doesn't make any sense.
DW: The Cook Islands has made a big deal out of its Moana Marae - this huge marine park - now encompassing the entire country. How does this sit with this new legislaton as it stands?
KP: The intention of the Marae Moana bill is to try and establish some meaningful marine conservation within the country's Exclusive Economic Zone and yet within the draft [Marine Resources] bill, they have an area in there about marine protected areas. And they are trying to manage marine protected areas within there, and yet they are the same ones who are also trying to sell access for licences for foreign fishing. It is going to lead to conflicts and it is not a good way when you have got the fox in charge of the hen house, so to speak. We need to make sure that the Marine Resources bill does have meaningful conservation messages in there. One example is that under the Marae Moana bill the hope is that we will get 50 nautical mile exclusion zones around the islands, to keep foreign fishing at least 50 nautical miles away. But the Marine Resources Ministry is pushing for only 24 nautical miles. Much smaller areas. So these are the sort of conflicts that we are having when there are two conflicting bills trying to manage the EEZ.
