NEWSPAGE 12 July
2010

(Photo: Pacific Underground)

(Photo: Samoa Tourism Authority)

SAMOA: Samoa Tourism Authority Updates
Source: Samoa Tourism Authority Press Release

Combined Pacific Marketing Effort in China

Samoa’s Team at the Expo 2010 Shanghai China are very happy to be a part of the combined efforts by the participating Pacific countries to market the PACIFIC REGION at the2010 Expo as the ideal travellers’ destination. This comes after a successful SPTO driven tourism seminar that was held specifically for Beijing wholesalers.

According to Samoa Expo Coordinator, Tracy Warren, this event was a great opportunity for the wholesalers to meet with the pacific country representatives on a one to one basis, start making contacts & networking with them to promote not only Samoa but all islands of the Pacific.

The Pacific Island countries were encouraged to make a collective effort, with assistance from SPTO in putting together a Pacific Islands travel package ensuring optimal value for money for Chinese visitors travelling to the Pacific.

The meeting highlights included the Beijing wholesalers being given a glimpse of the warm and spirited welcome they can expect when visiting these Pacific Islands, in the form of entertainment provided by some of the Pacific Pavilion countries that were in attendance, including Samoa.


Samoa sports visitors' numbers tee off to good start

The number of visitors travelling to Samoa for sports events may still be small but it is slowly making a significant contribution to the total number of visitor arrivals to Samoa.

In the first half of this year, Samoa has seen a number of foreigners travel here to witness or participate in various sporting events at the international level, with the likes of rugby, tennis, netball and swimming to name a few.

This week, Samoa hosts the 2010 SIFA Samoa Masters International Golf Tournament at the Le Penina Golf Course from the 07-10th July 2010. This event is estimated to bring in more than 30 international golfers alone from around the Australasia region, not taking into account those that will be travelling to Samoa just to watch the tournament that is currently in progress.

Such sporting events have been the contributing factor to the increase in Samoa’s visitor arrival numbers throughout the past few years for sporting purposes, despite the decline in total number of visitors to Samoa as seen in the first quarter of this year. The past years from 2007-2009 show an increase in the number of sports visitors from 368-391 individuals and the beginning of this year has shown that the number of sports visitors from January-April of this year has increased in comparison to the same months last year. While not major figures, the increase is a supportive indicator to the tourism industry of its efforts to attract more visitors to our shores.

The Government is encouraging Samoa through its local sporting bodies to continue to host such sporting events with the hopes of not only increasing visitor numbers but also creating more positive publicity for Samoa to the outside world.

Tourism contributed 30% of Samoa’s total earnings in the past financial year.


STA lends green fingers to tsunami affected villages

The Samoa Tourism Authority is happily getting its hands dirty to help clean up some of the tsunami affected villages.

Through a joint project with the United Nations Development Program, the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development and the villagers from the targeted villages, STA in the form of its National Beautification Committee team, have made great progress in dressing up the landscape of Mutiatele, Aleipata, one of the villages affected by the tsunami last year.

The village’s roadside yards that were was once barren and stripped of beauty now boast of vibrant and colourful gardens after a strenuous 9 day makeover transformation that was led by NBC’s own garden expert, Su’a Frieda Paul and the energetically physical assistance from STA’s Beautification team.

Today marks the end of the Mutiatele segment of the Project. From here, the green fingered team will move on to make the same transformation in Malaela.

These efforts are made possible under the UNDP and Government funded Early Recovery Project which aims to provide recovery and long-term development support for communities in line with its priorities now and for the future.

Photo Caption: One of the newly planted roadside gardens that STA and joint project members have been able to create for the Malaela Village.
 

(Photo: PNG Church Partnership Program)

AUSTRALIA: Australia provides $50 million to PNG churches
Source: Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Australia will provide $50 million to churches in Papua New Guinea over six years to deliver critical health and education services to the poorest, most disadvantaged and remote people of PNG.

These services include building medical centres for people with HIV and AIDS, operating health clinics and schools in remote areas, training medical workers and school teachers and running primary schools.

PNG churches help to resolve community conflicts, respond to disasters and improve the income of PNG's poorest people through growing and marketing cash crops.

Australia's support for these efforts recognises the vital role churches play in delivering approximately half the country's health and education programs.

Australian Non Government Organisations will work with PNG churches, who deliver aid directly to the people of PNG. This is a very effective way to ensure that capacity is being built and services reach the people most in need.

This new phase of the Australian Government funded Church Partnership Program builds on the success of the churches' efforts to date.

In the past Australia has provided $35 million to support PNG churches to raise HIV awareness, address discrimination, improve health facilities, train school teachers and respond to emergencies such as the cholera outbreak in 2009 and the Oro floods in 2007.

The new phase will continue this good work. It will help PNG churches work more closely with PNG Government service delivery agencies.

The program will also support PNG churches to join forces to deliver health and education activities. This will maximise the reach and effectiveness of Australia's support.
 

(Photo: John Cowpland / New Zealand Press Association)

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: PNG to approve fruit picking scheme
Source: Australian Associated Press via Television New Zealand

Papua New Guinea is this week expected to endorse an agreement for its people to work in a fruit-picking pilot scheme launched in Australia two years ago.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is due to arrive at Alotau, Milne Bay Province, in PNG's eastern tip, on Wednesday for the annual Australia and PNG ministers' forum.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said the meeting "to discuss and advance key issues of bilateral concern", would be attended by fewer ministers this year because of a problem of "finding suitable dates".

The forum will focus on the beleaguered aid program under which Australia has spent about $A400 million a year over the past decade with few "wins" in AusAID's goal of providing good governance and social development improvements.

As outlined in the recent PNG-Australia Development Cooperation Treaty review, PNG has called for an overhaul of Australian-supplied aid, especially the role of ineffective and highly paid consultants.

PNG is also expected to announce it will soon start vetting locals for Australia's seasonal workers scheme which so far has only employed 56 Pacific islanders.

When Agriculture Minister Tony Burke launched the pilot in August 2008, he said the 2,500 visas available for the three-year scheme would be mutually beneficial by creating revenue streams for the Pacific while helping Australian farmers get fruit to market.

But the scheme has been plagued by setbacks blamed on the global financial crisis.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand seasonal workers scheme, on which Australia has modelled its pilot, is reporting numerous successes.

Australia's handling of PNG, a former territory that gained independence in 1975, has always been difficult for Canberra which has tried numerous approaches to help get the resource-rich country on track.

The Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank has repeatedly called for more beneficial trade, not aid, in regard to PNG.

The Vanuatu-based think tank Pacific Institute of Public Policy recently recommended Australia endorse "an orderly, mutually beneficial Pacific Island migration policy".

"There seems to be no political will for a 'grand gesture' to embrace Pacific islanders as part of the broader Australia community," the paper states.

It's not just about supplying millions in aid but embracing Pacific culture, the report suggests.

"Otherwise it (Australia) will be forever perceived as only seeing the islands through the prism of governance and economic issues, which means nothing for the 80 per cent of islanders living outside towns."
 

(Photo: Solomon Star)

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Young Solomon Islander to represent State of Hawai’i
Source: Solomon Star

A young Solomon Islander residing in Hawai’i has been selected to represent the State of Hawai’i at the U.S. National Young Leaders Conference in Washington DC.

She is 15-year-old Germaine Saqanapure Kabutaulaka, a Grade 10 (Form 4) student at St Francis Catholic School in Honolulu.

Ms Kabutaulaka was invited by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council to participate in the National Young Leaders Conference (NYLC) to be held in the U.S. capital in the coming fall 2010.

In an invitation letter, the Dean of Academic Affairs for the NYLC, Dr Marguerite C. Regan, said that Ms Kabutaulaka was “nominated to serve as a National Scholar” in recognition of her as “an outstanding individual who has achieved academic excellence and possesses leadership potential.”

“As a National Scholar, Germaine, you will be distinguished as one of the most promising young leaders of today and tomorrow and will join your peers from across the nation for this unique learning experience,” Dr Regan said.

The young leaders from all over the U.S. will meet with high-ranking government officials, members of Congress, national media figures and other distinguished scholars.

They will also attend special functions, including a presentation on the floor of the House of Representatives, a panel discussion with prominent journalists at the National Press Club and an issue briefing conducted by a current or former member of the president’s administration.

In the past distinguished speakers at the NYLC included the former Vice-President of the U.S. and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Al Gore, former Secretary of State and Founder of America’s Promise Alliance, General Colin L. Powell, and Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Human Rights Activist, Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Ms Kabutaulaka said that she is really excited to have been selected.

“I am really privileged to represent the state of Hawai’i and also the Solomon Islands,” she said.

She said that “this is a once in a life time chance so I am going to enjoy every second of it” and attributed the reason for her selection to her “hard work and dedication to school.”

“One should always do one’s best in everything one does,” Ms. Kabutaulaka said, adding that “if my generation of Solomon Islanders can do this then our country has a bright future.”

Ms Kabutaulaka and her family reside in Hawai’i where her father, Dr Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, from the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal, works as a professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.

Photo Caption: Germaine Saqanapure Kabutaulaka.
 

WORLDWIDE: UNESCO and Fiji Government Commit to Marine Education
Source: Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council Press Release

Strengthening the role of marine education and traditional knowledge is crucial to the future of sustainable development in the Pacific region, according to the 2010 International Pacific Marine Education Network (IPMEN) conference. Held at Outrigger on the Lagoon, Viti Levu, Fiji Islands, the three-day conference concluded today with several key outcomes, including commitments from UNESCO and the Fiji Ministry of Education to undertake immediate initiatives to make this a reality.

“Pacific Islanders, who are custodians of the rich but threatened marine biodiversity in the region, have for centuries applied customary management practices in the traditional governance of their fishing grounds,” noted associate professor Joeli Veitayaki, coordinator of the Marine Studies Division at the University of the South Pacific (USP). “While remnants of the system remain today, the people have witnessed increasing threats as they have to share their resources with other people with whom they must now work to ensure its sustainability.”

Hosted by the USP Marine Studies Division and Institute of Applied Science, the conference brought together 87 participants from a dozen countries to address ways marine education can
help Pacific communities prepare for the new millennium. The conference topics included climate
change impacts on Pacific children, incorporating traditional and place-based knowledge to build healthy coastal communities, the changing role of women in fisheries, and gaps in existing Pacific marine education.

Dr. Jan H. Steffen, science program officer, UNESCO Office for the Pacific States, headquartered in Apia, Samoa, acknowledged and underlined the importance of traditional value systems, natural and ecological knowledge and marine education as cornerstones for sustainable development of Pacific Island countries.

“Over the last decade, UNESCO has been working with Pacific communities and governments on a range of programs closely related to the theme of the conference,” he noted. These include documentation of traditional knowledge, marine biodiversity conservation in Biosphere Reserves, traditional navigation and boat building, school-based monitoring of coastal erosion and coastal community education, and the conservation of Pacific cultural and natural heritage among others. Linking the recommendations by the conference participants to current regional efforts, Steffen offered IPMEN the opportunity to become part of the capacity-building program under the Pacific cultural and natural heritage hub, which is currently under development. The hub will serve as a web portal and clearinghouse to facilitate the flow of information to educators, researchers, donors and other interested parties on publications, education and outreach resources and capacity-building projects in the Pacific Islands.

On the local level, the Fiji government supported the goals of IPMEN with a commitment to include marine education into Fiji’s school curriculum. Mr. Nemani Drova, Fiji Ministry of Education’s Curriculum Development Unit Director, said he would write a proposal to his Minister, Mr. Bole, before November 2010 to introduce marine science as an academic subject in Fiji’s secondary schools. He is hopeful that the Ministry will embrace the idea and allow a Cabinet paper to be written, with the development of relevant curriculum by 2011. Fiji currently does not include marine education in its primary and secondary curriculum although most of the students come from coastal villages or are connected to them.

The conference ended with participants committing to undertake various projects. One project is
a combined youth forum with Fijian school students and Coorparoo Secondary College, Brisbane, Australia. The forum will create opportunities for the students to share learning, gain an understanding of traditional values and forge a better future for Pacific marine life.

IPMEN is a group of marine educators throughout the Pacific. It aims to foster collaborative relationships that will lead to the creation of resources, programs, training and leadership necessary to build ocean literacy at every level of society in the Pacific region. Countries and territories represented at the 2010 conference included Australia, Canada, Chile, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Hawaii, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru and the United States,. The 2010 IPMEN conference presentations will be accessible by web at www.coexploration.com. The next IPMEN biennial conference to be held in Chile will open opportunities to Latin American countries to share their cultural heritage and commitment towards the Pacific Ocean for an East-West dialogue about sustainability of the marine ecosystems and climate change challenges.

The 2010 conference was sponsored by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, NOAA Office of
Ocean Exploration, Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, US National Marine Educators Association, Papua New Guinea National Fisheries Authority and the University of the South Pacific. Webcasting was provided by the College of Exploration. Additional support was provided by Nautilus Educational (Australia), Conservation International, Fiji Locally Managed Marine Area (FLMMA) network, Centro AquaSendas-COPAS (Chile), BriTer Solutions (Australia), SeaWeb and the International Ocean Institute, among others. For more information, go to www.ipmen.net.