KEY POINTS:
The future of the Chathams Islands is hanging in the balance as the dwindling population looks for help in the face of soaring costs.
The population of the New Zealand territory has fallen from about 700 to 600 in the past 18 months, and the cost of living is about 40 per cent higher than on the mainland, and the islanders fear their land's viability is now under threat.
"The critical mass of the island is getting such that we are running out of grunt," said Ian McFarlane, chief executive of the Chatham Islands Enterprise Trust.
The Government says it is looking into what it can do to help the islanders, such as funding a wind turbine or hydro electricity scheme to provide cheaper electricity.
The islander now rely on diesel fuel to generate electricity at nearly six times the cost of power on the mainland.
"I'm on a reasonable wage ... and I can't afford to really cook on the electric stove," Mr McFarlane said.
"I go home and light a fire, which heats the water and I cook on it.
"So for people that are much more on the bread line, it is almost impossible to live here at the present moment."
"And of course [the cost] impacts on any industry on the island."
Incomes on the Chathams have traditionally been derived from fishing or farming.
But the islands' freezing works have shut down, so farmers were now transporting live animals out on boats, and this often resulted in a financial loss, Mr McFarlane said.
Chatham Islands farmer Bruce Mills said it was a constant struggle to find a product that could be exported to the mainland for less than the cost of producing it.
Last season, sheep he sent off the island at $30 a head were lucky to sell for that much at stockyards.
If it wasn't for his wife offering tourists lunches and guided tours, picking up cleaning jobs, and him getting extra money for his work on the local council, Mr Mills wasn't sure how they would get by.
A growing tourism industry was the islands' shining light.
Mr McFarlane said the Chathams needed multimillion-dollar help from the Government to reduce the cost of electricity, while help was needed to upgrade the main port - suffering from "concrete cancer" - and the islands' airstrip.
A wind turbine could provide 67 per cent of the island's electricity needs, and would cost only about 10 per cent of electricity on the island at present.
Rongotai MP Annette King, whose constituency includes the Chathams, recognised there was no way the islands could fund the multimillion-dollar projects they needed themselves. The Government was assessing what it could do through a ministerial group headed by Government minister Jim Anderton, she said.
The islands had a "strong case" for Government support and she expected some action to be taken on its greatest need - electricity - within a year.
ISLAND HISTORY
The Chathams are a group of 10 small islands about 800km east of the New Zealand mainland.
Two of the 10 islands are inhabited: Chatham Island, the largest of the group, and Pitt Island.
The ancestral home of the Moriori, the islands were first visited by Europeans in 1791.
After colonisation, the islands became a centre for whaling in the South Pacific.
