Spotlight: The South Pacific Forum

▪ 1995

      At the 25th South Pacific Forum meeting held in Brisbane, Australia, on July 31-Aug. 2, 1994, the designated theme was "managing our resources." This was something of a departure in that the annual summit—attended by the heads of governments of Australia, New Zealand, and 13 Pacific Islands nations—usually had a wide-ranging agenda but no overriding theme. The change reflected concern in some quarters that the Forum should be more than an informal gathering of leaders and that the region should confront the major issues facing its people. At the conclusion of the meeting, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating praised the leaders' "willingness to grasp the nettle on big problems."

      The context for this Forum meeting had been set in June by Gordon Bilney, Australia's minister of Pacific island affairs, who revisited his government's policy of "constructive commitment" to the region in light of post-Cold War era concerns and a turning away from the region by friendly powers, such as the U.K., that had traditionally taken an interest in it. He tried to look beyond the immediate political issues toward the longer-term future of the small countries of Oceania in the context of sustainable development and underlying economic structures. Bilney drew attention to slow economic growth in per capita terms (less than 1% per annum for the region as a whole), despite high levels of overseas development assistance, generally stable governments, sound management, and adequate infrastructure.

      Bilney's diagnosis was blunt and to the point:

      The lack of economic development, when combined with high population growth rates, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and rapidly rising community expectations, has led to a growing range of social and economic problems, including permanent environmental degradation. Already, in some parts of the region, health and general living standards appear to be declining and community services are under strain. . . . No amount of regional and international assistance will bring about sustainable development in the South Pacific unless the countries of the region themselves play the leading role.

      Bilney's analysis, though offered in the context of "constructive commitment," was not always well-received by Pacific leaders who saw Australia as adopting a "big brother" role in the region. With a small number of exceptions—for example, Nauru and Fiji—Pacific Islands countries relied on some form of overseas development assistance for at least one-third of their revenue. For some, notably Niue, the Cook Islands, France's overseas territories, and the former Trust Territories, the figure was two-thirds or more. It was a matter of speculation as to whether the recurrent costs of aid-financed capital development, together with rising expectations, would, in effect, commit these small nations to perpetual economic dependence and, as a consequence, strategic vulnerability.

      These realities, though acknowledged readily enough, were seldom discussed openly. While acknowledging the need for development models that recognized traditional cultural values, Bilney pointed to customary resource-management practices, especially in forestry, that were destroying the prospect of future development. In some quarters Bilney's remarks were condemned as insensitive and bordering on interference in the internal affairs of other Forum members. Despite this, however, his comments, reinforced by the similarly strong position taken by Keating, gave a focus to discussions at the Brisbane summit.

      The Forum decided to investigate the possibility of common protocols and legislative controls on logging and perceived this as more of an issue for Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, in particular, where local benefits from logging were not large, a high percentage of logs were exported unsawn, and felling was well above sustainable levels. One study estimated that these three governments alone lost some U.S. $280 million in 1993 because of logging in excess of contracted levels and the understatement of actual yields by foreign logging companies. Fisheries were another area of concern, with the combined exclusive economic zones of Forum members accounting for one million tons of canning tuna annually, or about one-half of the world's supply. The countries involved had very small land areas and few resources, however, and the surveillance of fishing zones to detect unauthorized vessels and check on the actual catches taken by authorized vessels required regional cooperation even beyond that provided by the Forum Fisheries Agency. One estimate suggested that returns to island nations from this catch—with an annual commercial value of U.S. $1.6 billion—were no more than U.S. $60 million. Forum members also acknowledged that natural resources would have to be better managed if secondary industries, like tourism, were to have a long-term future. Here, too, the difficulties afflicting regional airlines were acknowledged, together with the need for stronger public-sector management.

      These latter concerns were paralleled by the broader concerns of agencies such as the World Bank, which had focused its attention on "governance" and the gray area between insistence on high levels of managerial competence and public accountability as a condition for development assistance and interference in the domestic affairs of recipient nations.

      Other environmental issues also attracted attention. Keating launched a strong attack on Greenpeace when it alleged that Australia was letting down its Pacific neighbours because of slow progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions were thought to be one of the major contributors to global warming, which, through rising sea levels, threatened the survival of atoll nations. Keating defended his government's record and accused Greenpeace of having little understanding of the realities of environmental protection.

      The Forum welcomed the continuing suspension of nuclear testing by all major powers except China, but the other members were unable to persuade the Marshall Islands to drop plans for a feasibility study on the establishment of a nuclear-waste dump. According to Marshall Islands Pres. Amata Kabua, the dump would provide for "nuclear power countries of the northwestern Pacific rim to make nuclear materials shipments direct to a permanent disposal site in the Marshall Islands without infringing upon the territorial waters or 200-mile exclusive economic zones of other countries." Kabua said that his government was investigating the proposal in the hope that if it went ahead, it would provide revenue for the decontamination of the nuclear testing sites used by the U.S. in the 1940s and '50s.

      While the economic and social challenges facing the small island countries of Oceania had changed little in the past year, in 1994 there was a noticeable change in the way that the issues were presented and discussed. And the South Pacific Forum, portrayed by some commentators as drifting and lacking purpose, showed that after 25 years it could still provide a focus for important regional debates.

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

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