KEY POINTS:
Rugby legend Jonah Lomu is set to launch a high-profile campaign against whaling in his native Tonga this week, coinciding with the Pacific leaders' annual summit in Nuku'alofa.
The campaign is to be launched at a function hosted by Tongan Princess Salote Mafile'o Pilolevu Tuita for the region's leaders. It was her father King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV who banned whaling in the Kingdom nearly 30 years ago. The subsequent development of a whale sanctuary has led to the Kingdom's highly successful whale watching industry, now worth several million dollars a year.
Tonga's efforts to preserve cetaceans both by enacting appropriate legislations and creating a safe environment for them in its territorial waters - while also raising awareness by building activities around them - has been praised by conservationists and anti-whaling campaigners from all over the world.
Following last year's defeat of the anti-whaling nations' efforts to extend the worldwide moratorium on whaling, Japan announced plans to cull 1000 whales, including 50 of the dwindling humpback species, in the southern Pacific Ocean for its controversial scientific whaling programme.
Japan will begin its whaling operations next month and conservationists hope that the well-timed "Jonah and the Whale" campaign to be launched in the presence of the region's most influential leaders will give a much needed fillip to their campaign in terms of spreading greater awareness within the Islands region. It may be recalled that several Pacific Islands controversially voted for pro-whaling nations last year.
But Tonga's commendable efforts at conservation seem to stand out in isolation in the Islands region.
Though nations from outside the region have been blamed for the degradation of Pacific ecosystems, some of the Islands' own actions have shocked conservationists and organisations across the spectrum.
In August this year, as many as 84 sea turtles were slaughtered as part of festivities at a Methodist Church conference at Macuata in northern Fiji. This was despite a Fiji Government-administered moratorium being in place since March 2004 that is set to expire only at the end of next year.
Most species of marine turtle are in the endangered list; but the four that inhabit Fijian waters - the Hawksbill, Green, Leatherback and Loggerhead turtles - are believed to be dwindling faster than the others. Green turtles are a migratory species that travel from American Samoa and the Cook Islands to feed and nest in Fiji's littoral environment.
Turtles are central to most Pacific Island cultures and slaughtering them for meat has been part of traditional ceremonies for hundreds of years. The moratorium, while protecting turtles, takes traditional mores into account and stipulates that a written permit be obtained from Fiji's ministry of fisheries ahead of any ceremonial slaughter.
In this case, fisheries officials have told the Fijian media that a permit for no more than three turtles was issued but a number far exceeding that were killed and eaten at the conference.
Though the illegal harvest and sale of turtles - or their meat and shells - is punishable with jail terms ranging from six months to five years and thousands of dollars in fines, no charges have been laid for the Macuata massacre even two months after the event. Wildlife officials believe turtle slaughter takes place routinely in several parts of the country. The WWF has urged the Fijian Government to take preventive action urgently.
Again, this week, despite fierce protests from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) besides several other organisations across the world, 30 wild dolphins ensnared in the Solomon Islands will land in Dubai amid tight security in two specially fitted DC10 aircraft. It is not known what they will be used for.
Four years ago, a shipment of dolphins from the Solomon Islands to Mexico caused an international outrage and forced the Mexican Government to declare a blanket ban on all future trade in live dolphins. The then Solomon Islands Government put its own ban on export under intense international pressure.
A couple of years later, Solomon Islands Marine Mammal Education Centre and Exporters, a private company based in the Solomon Islands, challenged the export ban in the courts and in a landmark ruling earlier this year, the courts overturned the ban paving the way for the latest export.
The present Government is believed to be sympathetic to live dolphin exports and activists fear more shipments will follow. Speaking to the media on possible future exports, a company spokesman said: "We've already created the market - they could just follow."
Jonah Lomu's conservation campaign will likely have little effect on the Solomon Islands' leadership in Tonga: Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is travelling to the Northern Marianas for a summit called by Taiwan President Chen Shui Bian for Taiwan's Pacific Island supporters.
On a brighter note for Pacific conservationists, a major supermarket chain in Europe announced last week that it had pulled out tuna products manufactured by companies involved in pirate fishing in the western and central Pacific Ocean.
The pullout of product from 1300 stores in Austria, France, the Czech Republic and Germany is a first, citing illegal, pirate fishing as a reason. "The European supermarket has sent a strong signal against pirate fishing in the Pacific," said Suva-based Greenpeace Oceans campaigner Lagi Toribau, speaking after the supermarket's announcement.
