NEWSPAGE 23 August
2010

(Photos: Teacher Education / Pacific Scoop)

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

Hideaway at Samoa’s newest beach accommodation

It’s not Samoa’s best kept secret as the signs are already up, the word is already out and the interest is already building, but it still offers the perfect solution to getting away from it all.

Samoa’s newest accommodation provider, the Samoa Hideaway Beach is tucked away in a remote corner of Matatufu, Falealili, an area that was fortunately not affected tremendously by the 2009 tsunami.

The most attractive feature of this new tourist haven is that it is really hidden away from the public’s view according to a Samoa Observer interview with Hideaway owner Tuala Francis Westerlund.

The accommodation offers 13 beach fales with self contained units to follow. It also promises to provide employment for locals from around the area.

This is a positive reflection of tourism in Samoa. As pointed out in the Samoa Tourism Authority’s Tourism Development Plan 2009-2013, ‘tourism has become an exceptionally important sector for future economic development of Samoa and particularly in generating employment and foreign exchange earnings.

In a sneak preview to what it has to offer, the Hideaway welcomed visitors over the recent Fathers’ Day Holiday, however it is not scheduled to open until September 2010.


Samoa gamefishing reports good times ahead

Angler looking to fishing in Samoa can expect great times in coming months. This is the sound advice given by the likes of Greg Hopping of Troppo Fishing Adventures, a local group that

provide popular fishing charters and one of the main driving force behind the annual Samoa International Game Fishing Tournaments.

In efforts to further promote gamefishing adventures in Samoa, Hopping provides a bi-monthly report giving updates on fishing in Samoa to Blue Water Magazine. This particular magazine which is published and distributed in Australia and New Zealand is dedicated to offshore gamefishing, boats and equipment information.

Hopping’s latest report for July 2010 states that ‘mahi mahi have started to appear in good numbers. All boats have reported landing big bulls between 15kg and 20kg. Towards the end of July the south easterly trades picked up and so did the Wahoo.

Hopping points out that the current choppy sea conditions along with a slight drop in water temperature have lifted the strike rate on blue marlin. Males averaging 100kg are most common. About ten miles from Apia trolling the second drop off and in the waters around the Apia FAD are best. On the best days most boats are raising fish. Capt Alfred Swchalger aboard Kingfisher also reports consistent strikes from sailfish as he trolls the 80m line.

Hopping confirms that as Samoa moves from August into spring, September and October will see the numbers and condition of all species improve further still. October will also see the arrival of the first xos yellowfin of the new season and the arrival of warmer waters will also herald the start of both the doggie and GT seasons.

(Report used by kind courtesy of Greg Hopping)
 

(Photos: Australia Pacific Technical College)

AUSTRALIA: Training sleds build Manu's power and speed
Source: Australia Pacific Technical College

Training sleds have become one of Manu Samoa's secret training weapons.

When Manu Samoa fitness coach, Dave Edgar decided to boost Manu Samoa's power training sessions, he turned to the welding and fabrication team from Australia Pacific Technical College (APTC) to build some training sleds.

"I have used sleds with all of the professional teams I have worked with for their weight training sessions to build their speed and power. But they are expensive to buy, so I approached the APTC to see if they were able to make the sleds," said Dave.

"I had a concept in mind but I left the construction of the sleds to the APTC experts. Two weeks later, I had six sleds! The players get a very specific work out using the sleds, which builds both power and speed, but this is different to the normal gym work where I can target specific ranges of motion. It's also a great way to break up the training regime."

The sleds each weigh about 20kgs but extra weights are added to increase workload. The players are attached to the sleds by a rope and harness around their waist and complete 20-30 metre sprints pulling the sleds behind them.

APTC trainer Mark Rohweder said welding and fabrication tutor Tuasivi Kaleopa and student Loia Lavea jumped at the chance to build the sleds

"This was a very different project from our normal lessons so we were keen to build the sleds to give the students a new challenge. They used all their training to design and build the sleds, refining things as they went along so it all worked," said Mark.

The APTC students had a first-hand glimpse of the sleds in action when they watched the Manu Samoa's training sessions last week.

Let's hope the extra speed and power training from the sled work will be the winning difference to Manu Samoa!

Photo Captions:

Photo 1 - Manu Samoa team accepts training sleds from APTC students. Shown with the
team are (from left) APTCs Mark Rohweder, Tuasivi Kaleopa, and Loia Lavea.

Photo 2 - Manu Samoa team works with sleds.
 

COOK ISLANDS: Cook Islands draft family law bill discussed at the Triennial
Source: United Nations Development Programme Press Release

A draft family law bill that better protects the rights of women, children, and family members in the Cook Islands was discussed during at the 11th Triennial of Pacific Women on Thursday (August 19, 2010).

The discussions which were part of a side event on “Advocating and Campaigning for Gender Equality Laws: Lessons Learnt” focused on the features of the proposed Family Law Bill as well as the consultative processes employed.

Ruth Pokura from the Division of Women in the Cook Islands, highlighted that her Government had approached the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to develop a policy paper on reforming domestic legislation to align it with international human rights instruments.

The request was made to the UNDP Pacific Centre following the publication of a report reviewing the compliance of Cook Islands domestic law with the Convention on the Elimination of all form of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The report, which was jointly produced by UNIFEM Pacific and UNDP Pacific Centre was launched in Rarotonga, Cook Islands in 2008.

The preparation for the new Family Law Bill included some initial research and the production of a policy paper that drew on both Pacific and global experience. The paper was subsequently discussed in Raratonga in February this year where 22 local participants considered the issues and recommended the best approach for the Cook Islands.

Presenting at the triennial, Christine Forster, who has been working on the policy paper said that the February consultation provided an opportunity for participants to make a number of very progressive and CEDAW compliant recommendations that have been captured in the draft Bill.

“The consultation decided which areas should be covered in the new Family Law Bill and identified local context issues for consideration and discussion,” said Ms Forster.

The consultations focused particular attention on marriage, divorce, the care of children, spousal and child support, domestic violence, property division upon relationship breakdown as well as Uipaanga Koputangata or Family Group Conferencing.

Recognizing the impact of domestic violence on families and the broader society, the draft Bill includes a comprehensive definition of domestic violence. Protection from domestic violence was extended to cover many contexts and a range of personal relationships where there are power imbalances. Civil law aspects of domestic violence protection are included in the draft Family Law Bill while it is porpsed that domestic violence be separately incorporated into the criminal law.

The draft legislation is being reviewed by the Cook Islands Law Reform.
 

(Photos: GNS Science)

TONGA: Scientists uncover rare double-whammy quakes near Tonga
Source: GNS Science Press Release

Scientists have found that the tsunami that devastated parts of Tonga and Samoa in September 2009 was caused by two almost simultaneous earthquakes, not one as previously thought.

A double strike of two large earthquakes within minutes of each other, and with one quake ‘hiding’ the other, is unusual and almost certainly increased the size of the tsunami and its destructiveness on some Tongan islands.

Global earthquake readings and GPS recordings from Samoa initially indicated a single large ‘normal-faulting’ quake of magnitude 8 had occurred.

However, tsunami modellers at GNS Science noticed that tsunami waves recorded by deep ocean tsunami gauges in the southwest Pacific strongly indicated the earthquake was a ‘thrust’ event, which has a compressional movement within the earth’s crust rather than the extensional motion from a normal-faulting earthquake.

No matter how hard the tsunami modellers tried, they were unable to reconcile the tsunami gauge data with the data from permanent GPS instruments in Samoa and global seismic recordings.

However, six weeks after the event GPS measurements from a small Tongan island showed there must have been two large earthquakes - and the tsunami gauge readings indicated these earthquakes must have occurred within a couple of minutes of each other.

The finding appears this week as the cover story in the prestigious science publication Nature in a paper called ‘Near-simultaneous great earthquakes at Tongan megathrust and outer rise in September 2009’.

Lead author John Beavan, a geophysicist at GNS Science, said the conflicting data was initially very perplexing, and the discrepancies could not be resolved in spite of determined efforts by a group of his colleagues.

“In the end, it was pure detective work that uncovered the two earthquakes,” Dr Beavan said.

Several weeks after the earthquake, colleagues in Tonga obtained post-earthquake GPS measurements from two survey marks on the outlying Tongan island of Niuatoputapu.

“The files arrived from Tonga in early November 2009. When I processed the data and looked at the GPS results I was astonished to see that the island of Niuatoputapu had moved nearly 400mm to the east.”

This was a much bigger displacement than was expected, and in a completely different direction.

The GPS results from Niuatoputapu could be reconciled with the Samoan GPS data, the deep-ocean tsunami observations and global seismic observations if two separate earthquakes had occurred - one a thrust-faulting earthquake on the dipping interface between the Pacific plate and the Tonga microplate above, and the other a normal-faulting earthquake within the Pacific plate as it bends before entering the Tonga subduction zone at the Tonga trench.

“We worked hard for a couple of months to ensure there was no other explanation for the GPS and tsunami observations, which were telling us that two nearly simultaneous earthquakes had occurred.”

The earthquakes occurred under the ocean floor about 70km apart and within a couple of minutes of each other. Researchers at GNS Science could not be certain which quake had occurred first. The subduction thrust earthquake was magnitude 8.0 and the other earthquake was magnitude 7.9.

“The tsunami impacts at Niuatoputapu and Tafahi islands in northern Tonga may have been significantly exacerbated by the double earthquake, though we need to do more detailed tsunami modelling to fully understand this.”

It is rare for two large earthquakes to occur so close together in time. Dr Beavan said it was possible scientists had not recognised large double-whammy earthquakes in the past because seismic waves become entangled making it almost impossible to distinguish individual earthquakes when they occur close together.

Dr Beavan said it was possible, though unlikely, that two large near simultaneous earthquakes could occur on the plate boundary under New Zealand.

“This is a rare phenomenon, but it is possible wherever there is a subduction-type plate boundary.”

Dr Beavan co-wrote the Nature paper with five colleagues from GNS Science, and one each from Ohio State University and the Ministry of Lands, Survey, Natural Resources and Environment, Tonga.

A second paper by a group of US and French seismologists appears in the same issue of Nature, and uses seismological methods - quite different from the methods used in the GNS Science study - to come to similar conclusions about the 29 September earthquakes.

Photo Captions: Using land-based GPS measurements on an outlying Tongan island, and tsunami wave measurements from ocean floor sensors in the Pacific Ocean, scientists have deduced that the tsunami that devastated Samoan and northern Tongan islands on 29 September 2009 was caused by two nearly simultaneous earthquakes, not one as previously thought.
 

(Photo: South Pacific Regional Environment Programme)

WORLDWIDE: Preparing the “One Pacific” for biodiversity negotiations in October
Source: South Pacific Regional Environment Programme Press Release

A three day meeting has brought the Pacific region closer together as the 14 island countries prepare to face the world at the 10th Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity in October. The international agreement was formed to help conserve the worlds biodiversity and establish targets to halt the current rate of biodiversity loss.

The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) brought together Pacific Island Parties, donors, partners and other interested conservationalists to discuss and deliberate on key biodiversity issues for countries and the region and how they will be approached at the international arena.

“To my mind this has been one of the most effective support meetings,” said Mr. Stuart Chape, the Island Ecosystems Programme Manager for SPREP. “I think we have all benefited from this meeting, and SPREP will continue to support you so there is effective engagement and a strong Pacific Voice at the international gathering on Biodiversity in October.”

SPREP is now preparing a Pacific brief on the agenda issues that will help the Pacific representatives at the world meeting, SPREP will also assist with a communications plan to raise a ‘One Pacific Voice’ at side events, exhibitions and media work while at the 2010 Conference of the Parties. The foundation for this work stems from the three day meeting in Nadi, Fiji this week, whereby the 11 Pacific Islands parties reached common ground for a Pacific approach.

“A key highlight for this was to bring the Pacific parties to the Convention together to work out some of the key regional priority issues that they would like to focus on and collectively work together at the 10th Conference of the Parties to present these issues,” said Easter Galuvao, the Biodiversity Adviser for SPREP.

“The national priorities are still important for the countries, but the meeting helped to facilitate these to a discussion on the regional level, so they can be promoted together as a Pacific Voice at the international level.”

The commitment from the countries and partners to work together in support of each other was also an important highlight at this meeting. Whereas other countries outside of the Pacific can bring larger delegations to support their negotiations at the meeting, Pacific members usually bring one or two member delegations, at the most.

It is at the 2010 Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity that the Pacific can showcase the conservation efforts underway in the region, for which there are many successes. This will also be the opportunity to highlight the challenges the Pacific region is faced with, such as the impact of climate change on our biodiversity, so that international communities and partners may be able to provide the support needed to address these challenges.

“Attending this meeting will require a lot of financial support, the meetings will be very intense and a one person delegation will not be able to cover all the issues they would like, so we are hoping to get some financial assistance from partners.”

Seni Nabou of Greenpeace Pacific attended the three day meeting to learn more on the country and Pacific approach at the coming meeting in October, for which she will also be attending.

“I think this meeting was worthwhile for the Pacific, it was a great opportunity to meet the parties attending the international conference in Nagoya and to understand where the Pacific will be in terms of positions and priorities.

The region now has less than two months to finalise strategic positioning at the COP, which will be 10 days of long intense negotiations and meetings. Tania Temata, who represents the Asia Pacific Group on the Bureau for the Convention on Biological Diversity, advises that countries finalise their positions and get ready for the Nagoya meeting.

“When you come to Nagoya, bring your stamina with you, don’t leave it behind as you’ll need it all the way and be prepared for the long house and for the unexpected, you never know what can happen.”

The 10th Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity will be held from 18 to 29 of October in Nagoya, Japan.

Photo Caption: Island Ecosystems Programme Manager for SPREP, Mr. Stuart Chape.