Environment Briefs
Environment Briefs
Palau’s New Coral
Reef Center Opens
Palau’s new International Coral Reef Center, described as a “world-class research and educational facility,” officially opened its doors in mid-January. A collaborative effort of Palau, Japan and the U.S., the $7 million facility “is the first specific U.S.-Japan project in the Pacific,” said U.S. Compact negotiator Allen Stayman who attended the opening that coincided with the inauguration of President Tommy Remengesau, Jr. “Hopefully, it is the beginning of a trend.”
The Japanese government contributed most of the capital costs for the center, with the U.S. adding several hundred thousand more, Stayman said. The U.S. commitment is “basically to sustain it.” Both U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are expected to participate in the center’s work, and three Peace Corps Volunteers are on the staff. Located near downtown Koror in the capital’s harbor area, the Center consists of three buildings — an aquarium and both research and administrative facilities. “The aquarium has displays of the different underwater Palau habitats,” Stayman said, “including some extraordinary reef fish.” The presentations include sea grasses, reef areas, jellyfish and even saltwater crocodiles. —Al Hulsen
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Kosrae, Nauru
Team Up For Waste
Kosrae’s Development Review Commission (DRC) has taken some giant steps in its bid to establish sustainable environmental management practices. Thanks to cooperation between Kosrae State Government and industry on the island, a shipment of almost 25,000 gallons of waste oil has, at almost no cost, been transported to Nauru. It will be reused to fuel industrial furnaces. The shipment is an initiative of the DRC’s environmental management plan for Kosrae’s industrial area — prepared with the assistance of the South Pacific Regional Environmental Program and Australian Volunteers International.
Kosrae’s three main collectors of waste oil — Kosrae Utilities Authority (KUA), Micronesian Petroleum Corporation (MPC) and the Department of Public Works (DPW) — collaborated with the DRC to reduce environmental threats to Kosrae. Oil is one of a growing number of waste products that is not suited to traditional disposal methods. The combination of dangerous and hazardous waste coupled with the lack of appropriate disposal infrastructure is creating potential environmental “time bombs.”
The Micronesian Sunrise, which is chartered by MPC, took the waste oil to Nauru in tandem with its regular fuel deliveries thus absorbing the shipping charges. MPC, KUA and DPW all contributed to the costs proving that major obstacles can be overcome if industry and government work together.
Selling new oil products to any island is only part of the transaction. The other part is managing the waste bi-products, which is often conveniently forgotten; its impact temporarily masked. With Kosrae’s heavy reliance on its marine resources, a large spill or continued ‘backyard’ dumping of small amounts of waste oil has the potential to seriously damage the local economy.
Simpson Abraham, Administrator of the DRC, says “This is not a problem that will go away without intervention. On the contrary, it will only get worse and its potential impact more devastating. That is why we had to take positive action. Kosrae does not have the capability to recycle its waste oil on-island so, if it can be re-used in Nauru, that reduces Kosrae’s waste problem and saves money and resources for Nauru.” —Pauline McCarthy
New Climate Change Evidence Should
Sound Alarm Bells
More severe climate change is now being predicted. A new assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects “potentially devastating” global warming of up to 10.44 degrees Fahrenheit over the coming century. This forecast is for higher temperatures than an assessment by the same panel five years ago. The full report is the work of 123 authors from around
the world.
“The scientific consensus presented in this comprehensive report about human induced climate change should sound alarm bells in every national capital and in every local community,” said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program.
Patrina Dumaru, assistant director/environment at the Fiji-based Pacific Concerns Resource Center, expressed her disgust at industrialized nations that, late last year, derailed movement on implementing international curbs on greenhouse-causing pollution emissions. “One thing was clear from the conference: money talks,” she said. “Rich countries don’t really care whether our islands sink, float or fly. That’s our little problem…Of course, we can expect adaptation funds from them. It’s a cheaper way of dealing with a problem of their making.”
The next international climate change meeting is scheduled for July. The Association of Small Island States is attempting to get implementation of the Kyoto Protocols of 1997, which call for a five percent reduction in carbon emissions. Although the major industrialized nations refused even that modest level of reductions at the climate change convention late last year, “the fact remains, a five percent reduction is not sufficient to curb the threats of climate change on us,” Dumaru said.
Meanwhile, the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier reported in early February that PNG’s Duke of York islanders, threatened by rising sea levels, will soon move to safer ground on mainland East New Britain. Communities on Bougainville’s atoll islands most threatened by rising sea levels have also sought resettlement. Since the 1960s, the shorelines of the Carterets group have been washed away and the islanders fear that in the next five to 10 years some atolls will be no more.
Repeated high tides that flooded parts of Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands during January and February have also heightened concern about sea-level changes. —Giff Johnson
