Letter to the Editor - Global collaboration for all small island states is imperative |30 June 2015
On this occasion of our National Day I would like to applaud President James Michel’s initiative in inviting the President of the Republic of Palau, His Excellency Mr Tommy E. Remengesau Jr. to be our guest of honour at our 2015 National Day celebrations.
I hope to be able to personally welcome him at the National Day parade this (yesterday) evening and to meet him again at the cocktail dinatoire which President Michel is hosting in his honour at State House on Tuesday June 30, 2015.
Seychelles has hosted many leaders from the so-called powerful nations over the years since its Independence. In this world which has become a global village, the visit of the President of Palau at this time is certainly an idea whose time has come, if not overdue.
Palau has a population of around 21,000 people which is spread across 250 islands which form the western chain of the Caroline Islands. Small as her population may be, the country enjoys a maritime space as large as France. We in Seychelles constitute a 115-island archipelago which occupies a maritime space three times as large as the Federal Republic of Germany. I see in a closer collaboration between Palau and Seychelles an important base for promoting and consolidating a point which I have made over recent times at diverse international conferences, i.e that no country is small if it is surrounded by the sea.
There are indeed many points of common interest between the Republic of Palau in the western Pacific Ocean and the Seychelles although we are located thousands of miles apart in the strategic zone commonly now referred to as the western Indian Ocean.
I visited Palau in 1980 as a guest of the late Lars Eric Lindblad – whom I consider to be the father of eco-tourism – on his cruise ship the Lindblad Explorer on a ‘Discover Micronesia cruise’. I found the people of Palau, who are a mixture of micronesian, melenasian and austroasian descent with significant groups descending from Japanese and Filipino settlers, to constitute like Seychelles a friendly and peace oriented rainbow colour nation.
Following the Second World War, along with other Pacific islands, Palau was made a part of the United States-governed Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in 1947. Having voted against joining the Federated States of Micronesia in 1979 (two years after the coup d’etat in Seychelles), the islands gained sovereignty in 1994 (one year after I had returned from exile) under a Compact of Free Association with the United States. This agreement, which entered into force on October 1, 1994, concluded in Palau’s transtition from Trusteeship to Independece. The Compact Free Association agreement primarily focused on the issues of government, economic, security and defence relations. Palau has no independent military but under the agreement the American military was granted access to the islands for 50 years. Today the US coastguard patrols its national waters.
As a sovereign nation, Palau conducts its own foreign relations and has established diplomatic relations with a number of nations and by virtue of a resolution of the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly approved Palau’s admission as a full member of the United Nations. In 1981 Palau voted for the world’s first Nuclear-Free Constitution which banned the use, storage and disposal of nuclear, toxic chemical, gas and biological weapons without it first being approved by a three-quarter majority in a referendum. In June 2009, Palau announced that it would accept up to 17 Uyghurs who had previously been detained by the American military at Guantanamo Bay with some American compensation for the cost of their upkeep. Obviously, the time has come for someone to write a book entitled ‘Palau – The saga of a small nation navigating the cross-currents of a big world’.
Palau’s economy consists primarily of tourism, subsistence agriculture and fishing – not unlike our economic situation in Seychelles. Tourist activity focuses on scuba diving and snorkelling in the islands’ rich marine environment including its barrief reef walls and World War II wrecks. The government is the largest employer relying heavily on US financial assistance. While much of Palau remains free of environmental degradation, areas of concern include illegal dynamite fishing, inadequate solid waste disposal facilities and extensive sand and coral dredging in the Palau lagoon. As with many other island nations, rising sea level presents a major environmental threat. Inundation of low lying areas threatens coastal vegetation, agriculture and an already insufficient water supply. Waste water treatment is a problem along with the handling of toxic wastes from fertilisers and biocides. Salt water crocodiles are also indigenous to Palau and occur in varying numbers throughout the various mangroves and even in parts of the beautiful rock islands.
In November 2005, President Tommy Remengesau Jr. took the lead on a regional environmental initiative called the Micronesia Challenge which would conserve 30% of near-shore coastal waters and 20% of the forest land by 2020. On September 25, 2009, Palau announced that it would create the world’s first shark sanctuary. In consequence it banned all commercial shark fishing within the waters of its exclusive economic zone. As a result of this initiative, in 2012 the World Future Council, of which I am a councillor, awarded its ‘World Future Policy Award’ to Palau as “a global leader in protecting marine eco-systems”.
The more one looks into Palau’s story, the more one realises the many similarities between the situation in the Republic of Seychelles and the situation in Palau. Both of course are “soft paradise” which the countries have preserved at the time of their isolation from the rest of the world. But now that the world has become a global village it is important that we do not destroy the qualities which made us attractive to the outside world during the time of our isolation.
As Lars Eric Lindblad put it in his story ‘Passport to Anywhere’: “Prudent and intelligent people will realise that the unlimited exploitation of tourist resorts is not progress. Generations become rich at the expense of impoverished future generations. That inevitable end will come when people will open their eyes and say: ‘God what an awful sight!’ There’s a place for tourist development but it cannot be done blindly and greed cannot be the main ingredient. Such developments require research, knowledge and a love for nature and culture. Tourist facilities must be created with cooperation of people drawing on the knowledge of experts on traditions, music and history in order to safeguard the trust in which all places must be held.”
I believe that both President Michel and President Remengesau share today the sentiments of Mr Lindblad in this respect. In the past our isolation defended our fragility. Today the potential destruction of the “soft paradises” is imminent. In creating attractive resorts we must find a way to develop them with care, love and with an eye on the future. The problem today is the speed of destruction and once the damage is done it is irreversible. For this reason Seychelles and Palau, and indeed all small nation states are in the same boat and should collaborate to the maximum to preserve their beauty and to protect the interest of their people.
May the collaborative bond which is being established today between the small islands of the western Indian Ocean and the small islands of the Pacific be the beginning of a global collaboration for all small island nations.
James R. Mancham
Founding President of Seychelles