Helping the People on Christmas Island - Update January 29, 2007

Once the Kwai returns to the island in late February I will be there to help unload and sort the medical items. During my stay we will kick off the second phase water project and work on two new exciting projects which include: exploring the introduction of Rotary to Kiribati with the first club being established on Christmas Island; and working on a new local regulation to protect the game fish, birds and coral. As you are well aware there has been great concern over the protection of the Christmas Island fishery, coral and numerous birds over the past ten to fifteen years.

There have been many proposals in Tarawa to protect the natural recourses of the island but nothing has been done other than pass regulations regarding the amount of fish visitors from Hawaii can kill and export. When you purchase your fishing license upon entering the country you think you are helping protect the game fish and providing funds to enforce the regulations. In reality there are regulations for game fish affecting nonresidents but not for local residents and all of the license fees go to Tarawa for general fund expenditures. While my wife and I were on the Island earlier this month we met with the two government representatives, Island Council members, lodge owners and a number of the island's top guides. From all our meetings there was universal agreement that something has to be done. It appears that local regulations can be passed in Tarawa that affect the island only without going through the legislative body as a country wide law.

While in Suva Fiji we met with the First Secretary to the High Commissioner of Kiribati and voiced our concerns and presented him with an economic model that shows that the visiting fishermen, divers and bird watchers bring more than $2,500,000 to the island annually. The First Secretary is very sympathetic with our project and while the High Commissioner's primary responsibility is over the Gilbert Islands rather than the Line and Phoenix Islands he has worked for the Minister of the Environment in Tarawa and is going to pursue our cause along with the government and Island Council members on the island. The one major concern is the fact that there are no personnel or funds to enforce regulations. The current proposal if the regulations can passed is to: have an island wide educational program to get the residents to understand the problem and accept the solution; empower the guides and existing government employees to write citations or report violations; have the Island Council handle processing the citations and collection of the fines which will be used for further enforcement: impose a minimal fee for visiting fishermen, divers and bird watchers similar to the current fishing license that can be used directly for education and enforcement on the island; and perhaps the most important of all is to open up the new fish processing plant to all the residents as opposed to only the four poor condition government owned rental boats. This would give all the fishermen an incentive to catch reef and blue water fish and stay out of the flats. Currently the local fishermen go into the flats during the day and net milkfish, bonefish and trevally and kill birds with a stick. They leave the kill on the beach and come back after dark with the rented government boats and collect their kill to sell to the fish processing plant, give to their neighbors or eat themselves. While on the island with us a fisherman from New Zealand chased down a number of these flats fish and bird killers and delivered their kill to the authorities. He has documented his experience and also observed a number of very nice trevally and bonefish in the fish processing plant which had been purchased from the flat's poachers. I know this all sounds alarming but if all the factions work together the fish, birds and coral can be saved from further damage. And as we have seen in the past the ecology on the island is very resilient and can recover over time.