Excellencies
Colleagues
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my great honour as Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum to welcome you all to this briefing on the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.
We are holding this briefing on World Oceans Day. This is not coincidental. This year’s World Oceans Day highlights the theme Revitalisation: Collective Action for the Ocean. This theme of cooperation and shared stewardship is fitting. It underpins the work of the Pacific Islands Forum since its inception and it informs our 2050 Strategy.
Our region is blue. 96% of our region is Ocean. Together, Pacific Island Countries are stewards of over 40 million square kilometres of our planet. We are the largest oceanic continent on the Blue Planet. But we know as well the World is failing the Blue Pacific. We know that revitalisation of the Ocean is about revitalising our livelihoods and our identity.
We understand the scale of the challenge before us in maintaining the health of the vast Blue Pacific. Climate change, warming oceans, plastic and industrial pollution; natural disasters; illegal unregulated fishing is impacting us with compounding consequences. And so, we look to the multilateral arena for answers that lie beyond us alone.
This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the adoption of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. We celebrate UNCLOS and its critical role in shaping and securing our Blue Pacific and its bountiful resources. UNCLOS is one of the United Nations’ greatest contributions to the codification and development of international law.
As the ‘Constitution of the Sea’, UNCLOS is perhaps one of the most successful outcomes of rules-based multilateralism – culminating in a legally-binding document for the Ocean. It has had a significant impact on the shaping of our future as the Blue Pacific Continent by securing for us rights and privileges in the use of Ocean space, and the sustainable management of Ocean resources. As stewards of the largest body of Ocean through which we live and breathe, we are proud defenders of the Convention.
In order to safeguard our homes and the interest of our Pacific peoples, our leaders endorsed the Declaration on Preserving Maritime Zones in the face of Climate Change-related Sea-level Rise. Sea-level rise related to climate change is a real and pressing issue which raises interrelated development and security concerns for our region. While it is of fundamental importance to Pacific Islands Forum Members, we also recognise that other countries, including Small Island Developing States and low-lying States outside of our Pacific region require stability, security, certainty and predictability of their maritime zones.
With rising seas, we are facing the prospect of diminished territories, reduced Exclusive Economic Zones and damaged homes and livelihoods. If not addressed, such sea-level rise could have devastating effects on regional development, health and even statehood.
The Blue Pacific is actively participating in negotiations for a new international legally-binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement). We are committed to responsibly and effectively managing 100% of the Pacific Ocean within and beyond national jurisdictions to ensure its biodiversity based on the best available scientific information and traditional knowledge.
We recognise areas beyond national jurisdiction as a global common to be preserved for the benefit of present and future generations and strive for the expeditious finalisation, adoption, and entry into force of a BBNJ treaty.
Pacific island small states contribute less than 0.3 percent of plastic waste. Nevertheless, the Blue Pacific over which we have stewardship is now saturated with some 70 percent of the world’s plastics and marine litter. In our international efforts to sustain healthy plastic-free oceans, we reaffirm our call for a new legally binding agreement on Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution.
In advancing and securing the Blue Pacific, the small states of the Pacific will need access to financing on a much larger scale. Most Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are still not eligible for concessional financing because they are classified as middle- or high-income countries. But, we are more vulnerable than income data alone might suggest. SIDS face severe structural challenges due to our remoteness, economic concentration and dependence on external flows such as remittances, foreign direct investment, and tourism revenues.
In order to help provide our vulnerable Pacific communities with access to finance to ensure that existing and/or new community-level projects consider and prepare for the increasing risks of climate-inducted and other natural hazard risk disasters we, the Forum Leaders, endorsed the developed of the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) – the first Pacific designed, led and owned initiative of its kind.
We did this because we know we do not have time to waste. Each year, severe cyclones bear down on the Pacific. They are getting more frequent and wreak greater devastation. Our sea levels are rising and directly threatening the security of our Blue Pacific Continent. We endure the climate change crisis. As we look forward to the 2022 Ocean Conference and COP27, it is clear that the world needs to establish a well-resourced independent financial facility for Loss and Damage under the UNFCCC.
It is in this spirit of forward-looking collective action that the PIF is developing the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent. The Strategy will present a long-term vision for our region and outline the steps to achieve this vision. It is a regional strategy to protect and secure our Pacific people, place and prospects. The 2050 Strategy represents a unique opportunity for the region to develop long-term approaches to critical challenges such as climate change, sustainable development and security. It also represents an opportunity to consider how we might best leverage our solidarity, our strength and areas of opportunity, as one region.
On this World’s Ocean Day we look to the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, building on the Our Ocean Conference in Palau, to help the World once again recognise the centrality of the Ocean to our aspirations as the peoples of the Blue Continent. It is through a healthy and vibrant Ocean but the Ocean will only give us development if we take more forceful measures to restore its health.
Nothing matters to the health of blue pacific more than the goal of keeping 1.5 alive. For the Pacific to continue to serve is one of the lungs of humanity, net zero is a minimum starting point.
Our leaders will take to the floor of the 2022 UN Oceans Conference to remind World leaders of how fundamental the health of the Blue Pacific is to the economic, security and the wellbeing of people, communities not only across the Pacific but across the World.
With these comments let me pass the floor, firstly to our Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat representative Mr. Esala Nayasi, Deputy Secretary, Fiji Ministry of Foreign Affairs to introduce the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent to you all.
Vinaka vakalevu