Pacific Islands Enter a Post-Nuclear Era

Pacific Islands Enter a Post-Nuclear Era
▪ 1997

      by Barrie MacDonald

 France's announcement in January 1996 that it would end nuclear testing in the Pacific Islands brought the era to a close. For more than 30 years, France had conducted tests at the atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa in French Polynesia. The last series of tests, which began in September 1995, triggered riots and civil disorder in the streets of the Polynesian capital, Papeete. It also caused serious damage to the local tourism industry and spurred growth in local support for independence from France. These tests, like earlier series, brought condemnation from the Pacific nations and countries on the Pacific Rim. This latest protest was more intense, however, because the tests came during a moratorium that had been honoured by all of the other nuclear powers except China. There was debate over whether these tests were a necessary preparation for a shift to computer simulation or the final, defiant gesture of French colonialism. There was also a sense of an opportunity lost in the subsequent dismantling of facilities that had served the nuclear testing and that might have been used to service a fishing fleet or the tourist industry or to assist the local economy in other ways.

      France was the last of a series of nuclear powers that had conducted tests in the Pacific Islands. The United Kingdom had begun tests in Australia in 1956 before switching to Christmas Island, while a decade earlier the United States had begun testing in the Marshall Islands. The U.S. tests ultimately forced the relocation of the people of Bikini and Enewetak, while the residents of Rongelap and Utirik were seriously affected by the downwind drift of radioactive debris, especially from the Bravo test of 1954. In 1996 there remained a legacy of contaminated soils, uninhabitable environments, a high incidence of cancers and birth malformations, and a bitterness that neither time nor compensatory funds had removed. Yet the government of the Marshall Islands was considering a proposal to use one of its remote atolls as a waste dump for radioactive nuclear materials.

      In international terms the Pacific Islands nations are small, remote, geographically fragmented, and poor in exploitable resources—factors that have encouraged their use for military purposes and restricted development options. Some industrial development has taken place by adding labour-intensive value to imported raw materials, but many countries do not have the option of developing manufacturing on a profitable scale. The processing of agricultural or marine commodities may founder on water shortages, lack of infrastructure, high transport costs, and a limited skills base. Despite many attempts, few nations have developed fishing or aquaculture industries for more than local supply. Rather, marine resources, especially tuna, are exploited by nations from the Pacific Rim. The U.S. has a long-standing agreement that compensates island countries for the activities of its tuna-fishing industry, but surveillance and monitoring remain a problem unless support is provided by larger neighbours such as Australia and New Zealand. The filament-mesh "wall of death" nets that caused huge inroads into fish stocks in the 1980s were banned by international convention. The indications are that the fishing industry is now sustainable at present levels of activity and that, with improved monitoring and collective strength, revenues to island economies will increase.

      The main focus of new resource developments is on mining and forestry, with both, except for modest and long-standing industries in Fiji, being focused on Papua New Guinea. Forestry is also of major importance in the neighbouring Solomon Islands and, to a lesser extent, Vanuatu. In many cases the weakness of governance, the narrow economic base, and political greed have destroyed major assets for political advantage and individual profit.

      Although Papua New Guinea is rich in minerals, the development of these resources has been problematic. Bougainville is the site of the largest open-pit copper and gold mine in the world, but before its premature closing in 1989 at the hands of a secessionist guerrilla movement, it had a destructive effect on the local environment. Mining had not only polluted local land and waterways but also generated onshore overburden and tailings dumps of 3,300 ha (8,150 ac) and more than 900 ha (2,225 ac) of newly created delta on the adjacent coast. The exploitation of the resource, the dispossession of the landowners, and the distribution of profits between government and local landowners (the latter receiving less than 1%) provided the impetus for secessionism. Despite seven years of civil war, the Papua New Guinea government has remained unable to reestablish its control over its rebel province. The Ok Tedi and Porgera mines have provided a replacement national income for Bougainville (which used to contribute some 40% of export earnings and 20% of gross domestic product) but have generated their own environmental and political problems.

      Forestry has proved an even more contentious issue in the Melanesian nations of the western Pacific. Through local business interests and Asian investors in particular, there has been a rapid development of the forestry industry concentrated heavily upon clear felling of tropical rain forests and the export of whole logs. With a growing level of government corruption, weak government controls, and a cultural climate that encourages and rewards entrepreneurial activity by politicians, forestry companies are operating the industry at unsustainable levels. In the Solomon Islands, for example, the current log yield of 850,000 cu m (1,112,000 cu yd) per annum is well ahead of the estimated sustainable annual yield of 280,000 metric tons, an estimate that is dropping steadily as high volumes of export continue. There, where the government has a stated intention of terminating all log exports by 1999, forestry exporters are encouraged to accelerate production. Moreover, the government has subverted its own taxation regime by discounting tax obligations for exporters; court actions are also pending on inducements paid by exporters to politicians and senior public servants. This level and nature of resource exploitation has generated concern among regional aid donors, who have tried to improve controls by linking the development policies of the islands to aid programs, but with little success. In January 1996 Australia refused to proceed with a forestry development aid program because of the Solomon Islands government's inability to develop a long-term policy for sustainable logging.

      In the future the seafloor may prove to be a lucrative source of newly exploitable resources. Nodules of manganese and cobalt have been identified in a number of areas, most notably in the deep ocean between French Polynesia and the Cook Islands. These resources, however, will be difficult to exploit until new technology permits their recovery without serious damage to the environment.

      While resource exploitation in Pacific Island nations is a matter of concern for regional organizations, island nations see few options at a time when aid funds are diminishing because of economic difficulties in the major donor nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and a post-Cold War redirection of funds away from the less-developed world and toward Eastern Europe. This has contributed to the largely unplanned and poorly monitored exploitation of commercial resources in the islands and has encouraged governments to seek quick-fix solutions through tax havens and doubtful investments.

      Small Pacific island nations without large-scale commercial resources are dependent on overseas development assistance for providing basic services and meeting the social and economic aspirations of their people. At the same time, those with resources that currently offer a higher return have embarked on a development path that is unlikely to provide sustainable income and may well undermine the stability of governments and ensure low, short-term returns rather than long-term sustainable yields.

      Barrie Macdonald is professor of history at Massey University, Palmerston, N.Z.

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Universalium. 2010.

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