Sea Of Indicators

Since a lot of the Pacific Ocean is a vast empty space, apart from heaving waves, cruising seabirds and a cruising whale or two, the true value of it is not that obvious.

Asterio Takesy, the director of the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), produced some indicators of what the ocean is worth. The entire area of the Pacific Ocean is 155.557 million sq kilometres or 28 percent of the Earth's surface.

Pacific Islanders own about 30 percent (about 32 million sq kilometres) of all the area of the world's 200-mile zones.

They have less than 600,000 sq kilometres of land distributed between about 200 islands and about 2500 low ones and 75 percent of it is Papua New Guinea's.

Their sea area is more than 50 times bigger than their land area. Of the region's 7 million people, 70 percent live in Papua New Guinea. Some populations are rising by as much as four percent a year while some are shrinking by one percent.

Generally, all the region's town areas are fast growing ones. Kiribati's capital, urban Tarawa, in 2000 contained 43 percent of Kiribati's 86,000 people; the density in 2003 of 2330 people per sq kilometre is one of the world's highest rates.

For the islands, high populations usually cause bad pollution of the immediate coastal and ocean areas.

The Pacific Ocean allows low-cost sea transportation between East and West. It has extensive fishing grounds, offshore oil and gas fields, minerals, including so far untapped deep sea minerals, and sand and gravel for construction.

The Pacific's role in affecting the world's weather is still not fully understood but there's little doubt it affects the entire global climate In the early 1990s the South Pacific Commission estimated that the region's annual coastal fisheries catch was about 108,000 tonnes with a market value of about US$262 million if it was all sold.

It's probably a lot higher now.

Pacific Islanders each produce an average of about 15 kg of marine stuff a year; take away 3 million inland Papua New Guineans and the figures jump to about 27 kg.

Around 80 percent of the inshore catch is for feeding the family and about 20 percent is sold.

These figures don't include shrimp farming and pearl production, together earning more than US$100 million.

The Pacific Islands tuna fishery is the world's largest with 1.89 million tonnes caught in 2002, of which 500,000 tonnes came from the Philippines and Indonesia.

Pacific Islanders collect only about an estimated US$60 million a year for selling fishing licenses to foreigners. That's only five percent of the catch's landed value.

By the end of 2002, about 3000 islanders were working as local tuna catchers and 5500 others were ashore with fisheries related jobs.

So far, due to lack of financial viability, inappropriate technologies and perhaps not enough research, deep-sea minerals are essentially untapped. There's no doubt that there's a lot of minerals lying on the floor of the Pacific. Using thermal gradients (differing temperatures and different depths), it might be possible to generate power.

While tuna is the only oceanic fish stock now caught commercially, there could be valuable deep-sea fish and invertebrates, like squid. The Pacific's beauty sells tourism.

Finally, bio-prospecting has interesting potential. Some valuable compounds are being extracted from sea life already for medical and other purposes. Much more of the like could be awaiting discovery down there.