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FFA skipper; Islanders' remittance; Lack of tourism growth...
FFA skipper
Your Letter from Suva in the December issue starts off with “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which is the most important Pacific Islands fishing agency of them all?...In Noumea, they'll say the Secretariat of the Pacific Community's Oceanic Fisheries Programme.”
We wouldn't actually say that. At SPC headquarters in Noumea, we recognise FFA's importance and support them all the way. We are not in competition with FFA. When it comes to tuna fisheries we have a clear understanding (see http://www.spc.int/mrd/org/FFA_SPC_MOU3.pdf and http://www.spc.int/mrd/org/FFA_SPC_MOU3.pdf).
I'm paraphrasing a bit, but essentially, we do the science and the small-scale development support, whilst FFA does the enforcement, legislation, economics and national-level development support.
To be frank, we would both probably be part of the same agency by now if it weren't for FFA's narrower membership.
Anyway, it's nice to see FFA getting the good press it deserves. It wasn't so long ago that people in certain quarters were baying for blood. They thought the new Tuna Commission would simply take over the job of FFA.
Luckily, they have come to appreciate that FFA will need to be made even stronger if it is to help small Pacific Islands nations negotiate successfully with the bigger Pacific Rim countries in the jousting arena that is the new Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.
We need to get an international partnership in place that conserves the long-term health of the oceanic fisheries ecosystem and maximises returns to Pacific Islands, and doesn't just maximise the short-term chances of economic survival for distant-water tuna fishing fleets.
-Tim Adams
Director, Marine Resources Division
Secretariat of the Pacific Community
NEW CALEDONIA
Islanders' remittance
An item in your November issue titled “Australia lures islands' professionals” notes how Australia's policy of cherry-picking immigrants is depriving the islands of “desperately needed doctors, nurses, nation-builders and reformers”.
But aren't the remittances sent home by those emigrants the largest source of foreign exchange for many Pacific countries?
Expatriate Tongans and Samoans visiting friends and relatives account for the greater part of the local tourism industries as anyone who has been on a flight north from Auckland will attest to.
Although those folks may not stay at resorts, I'm pretty sure they more than pay their own way.
-David Stanley
CANADA
Lack of tourism growth
While on a recent visit to Tahiti (French Polynesia), I read a copy of your magazine. It was of interest to note comments on lack of growth in your tourism industry. As a customer I can well see why.
In relation to Tahiti, I and my companions found the local people less than welcoming, the airport cold and uninviting, and as to the hotel and restaurant charges, they were exorbitant and of mediocre quality.
Our next port of call was Borneo. What a difference! A friendly welcome at the airport, reasonably priced accommodation and food.
We were treated as guests not as a nuisance that had to be tolerated.
The people involved in Tahiti's tourist industry, particularly the airport staff who were in general rude and unco-operative, should realise that tourism is the island's lifeblood and they are killing it.
You have a problem which is not difficult to resolve.
-H S Travis
Newton Abbot
Devon TQ12 4QF
ENGLAND
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