Micronesia in dependency rut

Press, 21 July 1989, Page 9

Micronesia in dependency rut

GARRY ARTHUR

talks with

a statistician who has found that Micronesian states, heavily dependent on American money received for military rights, have in some cases little else to trade, while small islands have the problem of imported rubbish

THE MYRIAD of tiny islands that make up Micronesia face the problem of shaking off their legacy of dependence on the United States and developing infrastructures of their own. This is the conclusion drawn by a Christchurch statistician, Gavin Lucas, after a sevenweek tour of the northern Pacific.

He went there with a colleague from the Department of Statistics to develop and install a computerised system for collecting trade Information in the five small Pacific countries. The project was funded by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and supported by the Statistics Department, which developed the software package. The economy of Micronesia is heavily dependent on the money the United States pays for its sweeping military rights under “compacts of free association.” Gavin Lucas says about 60 per cent of the workforce are employed by the island governments, and those wages form the backbone of their economics. The islands are being financially supported by the United States but are meant to stand on their own feet In 15 years time. The problem is that no infrastructure is being built in the meantime. The Micronesian states need to monitor what they are importing for their own economic planning. Guam and Saipan in the northern Marianas appear to be the most prosperous of the Micronesian countries, because their economies are based on tourism. Guam, Mr Lucas found, was a mini-Honolulu with a beach-front of international resort hotels. "The Japanese own the whole down-town hotel area at Agana,” he says. “The local Guam residents can’t get to their own beaches. Saipan is very similar; the Japanese dominate the tourist hotel development there, too, but there seems to be a definite movement among the local Chamorros to resist the Japanese buying up their prime, real

estate. Whether they can actually do anything, I can’t say. They look at Guam, and say they don’t want Saipan to be developed to the detriment of their own local traditions.” “The nature of U.S. expenditure in some areas of Micronesia has created a dependency rather than self-sufficiency,” he says, “and the islanders have little to trade apart from their water for fishing rights and their land for military bases. “In no place within Micronesia is this more evident than in the Marshalls, particularly Kwajalein Atoll. Many New Zealanders wouldn’t know that Kwajalein is the retrieval area for the U.S. military test missile firings, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Most people of course have heard of the disastrous events surrounding the bomb testing at Bikini Atoll which has yet to be made safe enough for the return of its native inhabitants. For the use of Kwajalein the Americans pay millions of dollars annually to the Marshallese Government.”

Pohnpei, Palau and the Marshall Islands are very much the poor relations of the area, he says. They have no tourism or natural resources to rely on, except fishing, which has not been developed. “They have some of the best fishing grounds in the world, yet they are importing thousands-of dollars worth of canned tuna.” Gavin Lucas’s visit to the Marshalls was limited to Majuro, an atoll where the larger islets have been connected by a 56-kilo-metre stretch of paved road. “The highest point — a bridge — is 20ft above the water — and in some places you can view the open sea on one side and the lagoon on the other while standing on the one main road,” he says.

“Majuro has a problem common to many atolls and small islands of Micronesia — what to do with all the imported rubbish. Along the more heavily populated stretches of the atoll piles of Budweiser cans and dispos-

able nappies litter the beaches. A census of population recently completed in the Marshalls shows 51 per cent of the population of Majuro under 15.” The local “Marshall Islands Journal” carried a prominent advertisement in English and Marshallese headed “Damn those disposable diapers,” and urging people to tell their senators they support a ban on their importation. Throwing them in the lagoon creates health hazards, whereas cloth diapers on an atoll can be “rough-cleaned” on the ocean reef at low tide, thus dissipating potential contamination, the advertisement says. It also recommends a $1 deposit on each disposable nappie, refundable on production of proof that the used nappy was taken to the dump. Gavin Lucas says the Marshall Islands have the problems of lack of living 'space and not knowing what to do with their imported Western rubbish. "They’ve been dragged into the twentieth century, but without the resources to solve those problems, now that they are virtually independent. “There are certainly some projects under way. In Majuro, for example, there is a development of the lagoon for safer berthing. While we were there the first ship from the new Forum line arrived. It’s to be a trans-ship-ment point for the Federated States of Micronesia and Guam, for goods from New Zealand, Australia and Fiji. That’s just another way to import stuff. They have tremendous imports — the whole economy is upsidedown.”

An American company, Admiralty Pacific, has begun engineering and environmental studies for the disposal of shiploads of garbage from the American west coast.

The Kwajalein Atoll Develdpment Authority has given the company exclusive rights for 25 years to use the waste for landfill at Kwajalein, providing that an environmental impact report favours the project.

The idea is to use the garbage to build a causeway between Ebeye Atoll, where many Marshallese live, and Gugeegue where they work. If it goes ahead it will use only a small fraction of the millions of tons of American waste that the company plans to ship to the Marshall Islands. The company hopes to persuade leaders of other atolls to take some of the 2.5 million tons a year it will have contracted to ship from the Pacific north-west and California.

On the lush “high” island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, he found that, like most of Western-influenced Micronesia, the locals preferred to drink soft drinks or Budwesier beer rather than climb a tree for

coconuts, which were just left to rot.

He found the fiercely independent state of Palau, one of the most beautiful areas of Micronesia, and a Mecca for divers. "Palauans are fiercely determined to control their own future as an independent nation, but because of their anti-nuclear constitution are coming under extreme economic pressure directed from the U.S. “Of all the countries visited in Micronesia, Palau was the most informed about New Zealand, obviously with a particular interest in our nuclear-free policy. There is also a decided willingness to trade with the South Pacific rather than maintain traditional links with the U.S.”