Treasures of the Pacific
and how to exploit them
We gather the bait at night. That’s when the hermit crabs feed. At around 10 pm I duck through the line of plants separating our compounds to meet up with Priscilla and her sister Rachel. We wander up and down the dark path between the houses and the shore, swinging our flashlights to try and spot the scuttling shells amidst the roots and pieces of coral.
The next morning Rachel and I set out. Our raft is a big, beat-up square of foam and our oar has been carved from wood by some cousin or brother. Our fishing lines are tied around old coke bottles. We row out until the houses disappear behind the palm trees. We can see our island’s beach stretched out from the old Lutheran Shipping Company compound all the way to the end of the narrow strip of land between the lagoon and the sea, the fon. After smashing open the hermit crabs with a stone and piercing their soft bellies with our hooks, we fling them into the water.
I am not, it turns out, very good at fishing. I feel the tug at the line, but no matter how fast and strong I jerk my hand up, the little devils always slip away. No matter, Rachel hooks enough for both of us and when we return, she doesn’t mention the actual proportion caught. We have about 20 of the bright creatures. At the market, I tend to prefer tuna, barracuda, or red snapper over reef fish, even though these little guys are the prettiest and the cheapest. They have too many tiny bones for my taste. But freshly caught and fried up in a pan or grilled over an open fire, they are delicious. They taste like the sea.
I got to take minutes for another conference a couple weeks ago. This time the topic was experimental seabed mining. Representatives of NGOs from around the Pacific — Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and of course Papua New Guinea — met up with advocates from Germany, the U.S., and Australia, plus a sharp young lawyer from Guam, to talk about how to stop this scary new development. No one’s ever mined the seabed before; the machines capable of doing so are just now being constructed for the first time out in Qatar. No one knows how the mining will affect the fish or their ecosystems.
And we probably won’t find out any time soon. The mining company, a Canadian firm called Nautilus, has decided not to do a preliminary environmental impact analysis. Various Pacific governments have decided that’s alright. Mining is scheduled to commence in the waters between New Britain and New Ireland (two Papua New Guinean islands) in 2018.
What to do? A lot of campaign ideas were thrown around. One point people kept coming back to was the unique relationship Pacific peoples have to the ocean. It isn’t about gathering a bunch of proofs of acidity levels or tuna spawning patterns, the argument goes. The communities of the affected areas don’t need all these scientific reasons to dignify their “no.” They have the authority of their fundamental connection to the sea, a relationship that is something akin to spiritual.
I qualify the word “spiritual” because it suggests a world apart from physical mundanities like fishing for food and profit. Traditionally, Pacific Islanders’ spirituality is not disconnected from other aspects of life. The Pacific worldview and lifestyle is more holistic than that, combining religion, economy, politics, and all kinds of work including food production. That’s why in this context it can be confusing to introduce a concept such as, say, “conservation,” as though that were some distinct goal to be identified and pursued. In our communities, a man from New Ireland explained, people don’t see themselves as practicing conservation, but they do respect masalai places where it is taboo to build or farm. This “spiritual” masalai tradition has the very physical consequence of preventing excessive exploitation.
The Pacific Way might be the central message of a campaign against experimental seabed mining. As a newcomer to island life, I am also exploring its consequences on a more personal level. I can admire the Pacific Way and try to protect it, but can I learn from it too?
To be sure, I will never have the holistic, instinctive connection to the sea that a Pacific Islander has grown up with. My spectacular failures at fishing are proof enough of that. But if the sea has a siren song, I can hear some of its overtones. Bobbing on our foam raft, I let my eyes rest on the tiny, constantly changing points of light caused by the ripples’ play with the sun, the bright flashes of white, the deep lines of black, and the countless shades of blue between. It’s a startling, intoxicating sight. Look over it, look briefly, on your way to doing something else, and you wouldn’t notice anything. But watch it for long enough and you can lose your mind. Watch it for long enough, and you can see the glimpses of an extraordinary power that has nothing to do with you, that is fundamentally inhumane.
On the other hand, I want it to be about me. Of course I do. That’s why I’m writing this and taking pictures and posting them. The technology used to do so requires rare earth elements. Did you know that? I’m just starting to learn about them. Apparently we humans need ever more of these elements, and are facing a shortage unless new sources are found and mined.
Guess where are rare earth minerals are abundant and relatively easy to collect.
(A: The bottom of the ocean.)
In the evening I walk to the shore outside my house to catch the last pink smudges of the sun before it dips behind the hills. Looking out, I see the dark silhouette of a fisherwoman on her canoe. Even though I see it every day, it still gives me a thrill, that image. The solitary figure poised still against the rocking waves. It is the embodiment of tranquility, peace, strength.
I grab my camera.
