Category: Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

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Wikileaks Cables Reveal Diego Garcia Marine Reserve Will Prevent Return of Chagos Islanders

Marine conservation zones as cultural genocide?    The British marine reserve in the Chagos islands was a deliberate attempt to prevent the return of the evicted Chagossians to Diego Garcia, one of America’s crucial military bases in the Indian Ocean.  The Chagos reserve was modeled on the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument and the proposed Mariana Island National Marine Monument, both of which contain broad exemptions for the military.  Mahalo to Marta Duenas for sharing the following comments and article:

The displacement of the Chagossian people of the island of Diego Garcia is justified using references to “strategic” purposes and “security.” These are the exact terms used in the rationale & promotion of the military buildup in Guam. The British Indian Ocean Territory – BIOT which encompasses the 55 islands surrounding and including Diego Garcia, and the Mariana Island National Marine Monument prohibit activities in the area. Military activities are EXEMPT from any of the prohibitions and regulations.

Diego Garcia and the Mariana Islands are poised to fulfill the United States Department of Defense “Full Spectrum Dominance Vision 2020.”

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-diego-garcia-uk

The Guardian UK

Wikileaks Cables Reveal Foreign Office Mislead Parliament Over Diego Garcia

UK official told Americans that marine park plan would end the ‘Man Fridays’ hopes of ever returning home

Rob Evans and Richard Norton-Taylor

Thursday, 2 December 2010

Diego Garcia islanders protest WikiLeaks cables suggest the Foreign Office knows its plan to declare Diego Garcia a marine park will end any chance of islanders winning the right to return Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

The Foreign Office misled parliament over the plight of thousands of islanders who were expelled from their Indian Ocean homeland to make way for a large US military base, according to secret US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks.

More than 2,000 islanders – described privately by the Foreign Office as “Man Fridays” – were evicted from the British colony of Diego Garcia in the 1960s and 1970s. The Foreign Office, backed by the US, has fought a long legal battle to prevent them returning home.

The islanders’ quest to go back will be decided by a ruling, expected shortly, from the European court of human rights.

New leaked documents show the Foreign Office has privately admitted its latest plan to declare the islands the world’s largest marine protection zone will end any chance of them being repatriated.

The admission is at odds with public claims by Foreign Office ministers that the proposed park would have no effect on the islanders’ right of return. They have claimed the marine park was a ploy to block their return, claiming it would make it impossible for them to live there as it would ban fishing, their main livelihood.

The disclosure follows years of criticism levelled at Whitehall over the harsh treatment of the islanders, many of whom have lived in poverty in other countries since their deportation.

In the past, National Archive documents have revealed how the Foreign Office consistently lied about the eviction, maintaining the fiction that the islanders had not been permanent residents.

The latest leaked documents are US state department cables recording private meetings between Foreign Office mandarins and their American counterparts.

In May 2009, Colin Roberts, the Foreign Office director of overseas territories, told the Americans Diego Garcia’s value in “assuring the security of the US and UK” had been “much more than anyone foresaw” in the 1960s, when the plan to set up the base was hatched.

“We do not regret the removal of the population since removal was necessary for [Diego Garcia] to fulfil its strategic purpose,” he added under a passage that the Americans headed “Je ne regrette rien”.

Roberts, admitting the government was “under pressure” from the islanders, told the US of the plan to set up the marine park on 55 islands around Diego Garcia, known as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). “Roberts stated that, according to [Her Majesty’s government’s] current thinking on a reserve, there would be ‘no human footprints’ or ‘Man Fridays’ on the BIOT uninhabited islands,” according to the American account of the meeting. The language echoes that used in 1966 when Denis Greenhill – later the Foreign Office’s most senior official – described the inhabitants as “a few Tarzans and Man Fridays”.

The leaked documents also record that Roberts “asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents”.

This private stance differs from the Foreign Office’s public line in April when a series of MPs asked if the marine park ruled out the islanders, known as Chagossians, ever returning home.

The Foreign Office told parliament the proposed park “will not have any direct or indirect effect on the rights or otherwise of Chagossians to return to the islands. These are two entirely separate issues”.

Leading conservation groups have supported the marine park plan. Roberts is quoted as telling the Americans that Britain’s “environmental lobby is far more powerful than the [islanders’] advocates”.

Attached is a copy of the cable archived by Wikileaks:

This is not the original Wikileaks document! It’s a cache, made on 2010-12-01 23:11:00. For the original document check the original source: http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/05/09LONDON1156.html
ID 09LONDON1156
SUBJECT HMG FLOATS PROPOSAL FOR MARINE RESERVE COVERING
DATE 2009-05-15 07:07:00
CLASSIFICATION CONFIDENTIAL//NOFORN
ORIGIN Embassy London
TEXT C O N F I D E N T I A L LONDON 001156

NOFORN
SIPDIS

EO 12958 DECL: 05/13/2029
TAGS MARR, MOPS, SENV, UK, IO, MP, EFIS, EWWT, PGOV, PREL
SUBJECT: HMG FLOATS PROPOSAL FOR MARINE RESERVE COVERING
THE CHAGOS ARCHIPELAGO (BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY)
REF: 08 LONDON 2667 (NOTAL)

Classified By: Political Counselor Richard Mills for reasons 1.4 b and d

¶1. (C/NF) Summary. HMG would like to establish a “marine park” or “reserve” providing comprehensive environmental protection to the reefs and waters of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), a senior Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) official informed Polcouns on May 12. The official insisted that the establishment of a marine park — the world’s largest — would in no way impinge on USG use of the BIOT, including Diego Garcia, for military purposes. He agreed that the UK and U.S. should carefully negotiate the details of the marine reserve to assure that U.S. interests were safeguarded and the strategic value of BIOT was upheld. He said that the BIOT’s former inhabitants would find it difficult, if not impossible, to pursue their claim for resettlement on the islands if the entire Chagos Archipelago were a marine reserve. End Summary.

Protecting the BIOT’s Waters
—————————-

¶2. (C/NF) Senior HMG officials support the establishment of a “marine park” or “reserve” in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), which includes Diego Garcia, Colin Roberts, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) Director, Overseas Territories, told the Political Counselor May 12. Noting that the uninhabited islands of the Chagos Archipelago are already protected under British law from development or other environmental harm but that current British law does not provide protected status for either reefs or waters, Roberts affirmed that the bruited proposal would only concern the “exclusive zone” around the islands. The resulting protected area would constitute “the largest marine reserve in the world.”

¶3. (C/NF) Roberts iterated strong UK “political support” for a marine park; “Ministers like the idea,” he said. He stressed that HMG’s “timeline” for establishing the park was before the next general elections, which under British law must occur no later than May 2010. He suggested that the exact terms of the proposals could be defined and presented at the U.S.-UK annual political-military consultations held in late summer/early fall 2009 (exact date TBD). If the USG would like to discuss the issue prior to those talks, HMG would be open for discussion through other channels — in any case, the FCO would keep Embassy London informed of development of the idea and next steps. The UK would like to “move forward discussion with key international stakeholders” by the end of 2009. He said that HMG had noted the success of U.S. marine sanctuaries in HAWAII and the Marianas Trench. (Note: Roberts was referring to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument and Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. End Note.) He asserted that the Pew Charitable Trust, which has proposed a BIOT marine reserve, is funding a public relations campaign in support of the idea. He noted that the trust had backed the HAWAIIan reserve and is well-regarded within British governmental circles and the larger British environmental community.

Three Sine Qua Nons: U.S. Assent…
———————————–

¶4. (C/NF) According to Roberts, three pre-conditions must be met before HMG could establish a park. First, “we need to make sure the U.S. government is comfortable with the idea. We would need to present this proposal very clearly to the American administration…All we do should enhance base security or leave it unchanged.” Polcouns expressed appreciation for this a priori commitment, but stressed that the 1966 U.S.-UK Exchange of Notes concerning the BIOT would, in any event, require U.S. assent to any significant change of the BIOT’s status that could impact the BIOT’s strategic use. Roberts stressed that the proposal “would have no impact on how Diego Garcia is administered as a base.” In response to a request for clarification on this point from Polcouns, Roberts asserted that the proposal would have absolutely no impact on the right of U.S. or British military vessels to use the BIOT for passage, anchorage, prepositioning, or other uses. Polcouns rejoined that
designating the BIOT as a marine park could, years down the road, create public questioning about the suitability of the BIOT for military purposes. Roberts responded that the terms of reference for the establishment of a marine park would clearly state that the BIOT, including Diego Garcia, was reserved for military uses.

¶5. (C/NF) Ashley Smith, the Ministry of Defense’s (MOD) International Policy and Planning Assistant Head, Asia Pacific, who also participated in the meeting, affirmed that the MOD “shares the same concerns as the U.S. regarding security” and would ensure that security concerns were fully and properly addressed in any proposal for a marine park. Roberts agreed, stating that “the primary purpose of the BIOT is security” but that HMG could also address environmental concerns in its administration of the BIOT. Smith added that the establishment of a marine reserve had the potential to be a “win-win situation in terms of establishing situational awareness” of the BIOT. He stressed that HMG sought “no constraints on military operations” as a result of the establishment of a marine park.
…Mauritian Assent…
———————-
¶6. (C/NF) Roberts outlined two other prerequisites for establishment of a marine park. HMG would seek assent from the Government of Mauritius, which disputes sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago, in order to avoid the GOM “raising complaints with the UN.” He asserted that the GOM had expressed little interest in protecting the archipelago’s sensitive environment and was primarily interested in the archipelago’s economic potential as a fishery. Roberts noted that in January 2009 HMG held the first-ever “formal talks” with Mauritius regarding the BIOT. The talks included the Mauritian Prime Minister. Roberts said that he “cast a fly in the talks over how we could improve stewardship of the territory,” but the Mauritian participants “were not focused on environmental issues and expressed interest only in fishery control.” He said that one Mauritian participant in the talks complained that the Indian Ocean is “the only ocean in the world where the fish die of old age.” In HMG’s view, the marine park concept aims to “go beyond economic value and consider bio-diversity and intangible values.”

…Chagossian Assent
——————–

¶7. (C/NF) Roberts acknowledged that “we need to find a way to get through the various Chagossian lobbies.” He admitted that HMG is “under pressure” from the Chagossians and their advocates to permit resettlement of the “outer islands” of the BIOT. He noted, without providing details, that “there are proposals (for a marine park) that could provide the Chagossians warden jobs” within the BIOT. However, Roberts stated that, according to the HGM,s current thinking on a reserve, there would be “no human footprints” or “Man Fridays” on the BIOT’s uninhabited islands. He asserted that establishing a marine park would, in effect, put paid to resettlement claims of the archipelago’s former residents. Responding to Polcouns’ observation that the advocates of Chagossian resettlement continue to vigorously press their case, Roberts opined that the UK’s “environmental lobby is far more powerful than the Chagossians’ advocates.” (Note: One group of Chagossian litigants is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) the decision of Britain’s highest court to deny “resettlement rights” to the islands’ former inhabitants. See below at paragraph 13 and reftel. End Note.)

Je Ne Regrette Rien
——————-

¶8. (C/NF) Roberts observed that BIOT has “served its role very well,” advancing shared U.S.-UK strategic security objectives for the past several decades. The BIOT “has had a great role in assuring the security of the UK and U.S. — much more than anyone foresaw” in the 1960s, Roberts emphasized. “We do not regret the removal of the population,” since removal was necessary for the BIOT to fulfill its strategic purpose, he said. Removal of the
population is the reason that the BIOT’s uninhabited islands and the surrounding waters are in “pristine” condition. Roberts added that Diego Garcia’s excellent condition reflects the responsible stewardship of the U.S. and UK forces using it.

Administering a Reserve
———————–

¶9. (C/NF) Roberts acknowledged that numerous technical questions needed to be resolved regarding the establishment and administration of a marine park, although he described the governmental “act” of declaring a marine park as a relatively straightforward and rapid process. He noted that the establishment of a marine reserve would require permitting scientists to visit BIOT, but that creating a park would help restrict access for non-scientific purposes. For example, he continued, the rules governing the park could strictly limit access to BIOT by yachts, which Roberts referred to as “sea gypsies.”

BIOT: More Than Just Diego Garcia
———————————

¶10. (C/NF) Following the meeting with Roberts, Joanne Yeadon, Head of the FCO’s Overseas Territories Directorate’s BIOT and Pitcairn Section, who also attended the meeting with Polcouns, told Poloff that the marine park proposal would “not impact the base on Diego Garcia in any way” and would have no impact on the parameters of the U.S.-UK 1966 exchange of notes since the marine park would “have no impact on defense purposes.” Yeadon averred that the provision of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea guaranteed free passage of vessels, including military vessels, and that the presence of a marine park would not diminish that right.

¶11. (C/NF) Yeadon stressed that the exchange of notes governed more than just the atoll of Diego Garcia but expressly provided that all of the BIOT was “set aside for defense purposes.” (Note: This is correct. End Note.) She urged Embassy officers in discussions with advocates for the Chagossians, including with members of the “All Party Parliamentary Group on Chagos Islands (APPG),” to affirm that the USG requires the entire BIOT for defense purposes. Making this point would be the best rejoinder to the Chagossians’ assertion that partial settlement of the outer islands of the Chagos Archipelago would have no impact on the use of Diego Garcia. She described that assertion as essentially irrelevant if the entire BIOT needed to be uninhabited for defense purposes.

¶12. (C/NF) Yeadon dismissed the APPG as a “persistent” but relatively non-influential group within parliament or with the wider public. She said the FCO had received only a handful of public inquiries regarding the status of the BIOT. Yeadon described one of the Chagossians’ most outspoken advocates, former HMG High Commissioner to Mauritius David Snoxell, as “entirely lacking in influence” within the FCO. She also asserted that the Conservatives, if in power after the next general election, would not support a Chagossian right of return. She averred that many members of the Liberal Democrats (Britain’s third largest party after Labour and the Conservatives) supported a “right of return.”

¶13. (C/NF) Yeadon told Poloff May 12, and in several prior meetings, that the FCO will vigorously contest the Chagossians’ “right of return” lawsuit before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). HMG will argue that the ECHR lacks jurisdiction over the BIOT in the present case. Roberts stressed May 12 (as has Yeadon on previous occasions) that the outer islands are “essentially uninhabitable” and could only be rendered livable by modern, Western standards with a massive infusion of cash.

Comment
——-

¶14. (C/NF) Regardless of the outcome of the ECHR case, however, the Chagossians and their advocates, including the “All Party Parliamentary Group on Chagos Islands (APPG),” will continue to press their case in the court of public
opinion. Their strategy is to publicize what they characterize as the plight of the so-called Chagossian diaspora, thereby galvanizing public opinion and, in their best case scenario, causing the government to change course and allow a “right of return.” They would point to the government’s recent retreat on the issue of Gurkha veterans’ right to settle in the UK as a model. Despite FCO assurances that the marine park concept — still in an early, conceptual phase — would not impinge on BIOT’s value as a strategic resource, we are concerned that, long-term, both the British public and policy makers would come to see the existence of a marine reserve as inherently inconsistent with the military use of Diego Garcia — and the entire BIOT. In any event, the U.S. and UK would need to carefully negotiate the parameters of such a marine park — a point on which Roberts unequivocally agreed. In Embassy London’s view, these negotiations should occur among U.S. and UK experts separate from the 2009 annual Political-Military consultations, given the specific and technical legal and environmental issues that would be subject to discussion.

¶15. (C/NF) Comment Continued. We do not doubt the current government’s resolve to prevent the resettlement of the islands’ former inhabitants, although as FCO Parliamentary Under-Secretary Gillian Merron noted in an April parliamentary debate, “FCO will continue to organize and fund visits to the territory by the Chagossians.” We are not as sanguine as the FCO’s Yeadon, however, that the Conservatives would oppose a right of return. Indeed, MP Keith Simpson, the Conservatives’ Shadow Minister, Foreign Affairs, stated in the same April parliamentary debate in which Merron spoke that HMG “should take into account what I suspect is the all-party view that the rights of the Chagossian people should be recognized, and that there should at the very least be a timetable for the return of those people at least to the outer islands, if not the inner islands.” Establishing a marine reserve might, indeed, as the FCO’s Roberts stated, be the most effective long-term way to prevent any of the Chagos Islands’ former inhabitants or their descendants from resettling in the BIOT. End Comment.
Visit London’s Classified Website: http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Unit ed_Kingdom
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Environmental Protection of Bases?

From Foreign Policy In Focus:

http://www.fpif.org/articles/environmental_protectionof_bases

Environmental Protection of Bases?

By David Vine. Edited by John Feffer, April 22, 2010

Just weeks before today’s Earth Day, and for the second time in little more than a year, environmental groups have teamed with governments to create massive new marine protection areas across wide swaths of the world’s oceans. Both times, however, there’s been something (pardon the pun) fishy about these benevolent-sounding efforts at environmental protection.

Most recently, on April 1, the British government announced the creation of the world’s largest marine protection area in the Indian Ocean’s Chagos Archipelago, which would include a ban on commercial fishing in an area larger than California and twice the size of Britain. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called it “a major step forward for protecting the oceans.

A representative for the Pew Charitable Trusts—which helped spearhead the effort along with groups including the Marine Conservation Society, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and Greenpeace—compared the ecological diversity of the Chagos islands to the Galapagos and the Great Barrier Reef. The Pew representative described the establishment of the protected area as “a historic victory for global ocean conservation.” Indeed, this was the second such victory for Pew, which also supported the creation, in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, of three large marine protection areas in the Pacific Ocean, around some of the Hawai’ian islands and the islands of Guam, Tinian, and Saipan.

The timing of the announcements for both the Indian Ocean and Pacific marine protection areas—on the eve of upcoming British parliamentary elections and in the days before Bush left office when he was trying to salvage a legacy—suggests that there’s more here than the celebratory announcements would suggest.

A Base Issue

Both marine protection areas provide safe homes for sea turtles, sharks, breeding sea birds, and coral reefs. But they are also home to major U.S. military bases. Chagos’s largest island, Diego Garcia, hosts a secretive billion-dollar Air Force and Navy base that has been part of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. The Pacific protection areas are home to U.S. bases on Guam, Tinian, Saipan, Rota, Farallon de Medinilla, Wake Island, and Johnston Island.

In both cases, the otherwise “pristine” protected environments carve out significant exceptions for the military. In Chagos, the British government has said, “We nor the US would want the creation of a marine protected area to have any impact on the operational capability of the base on Diego Garcia. For this reason…it may be necessary to consider the exclusion of Diego Garcia and its three-mile territorial waters.” In the Pacific, the Bush administration stressed that “nothing” in the protected areas “impairs or otherwise affects the activities of the U.S. Department of Defense.”

The incongruity of military bases in the middle of environmental protection areas is particularly acute since many military installations cause serious damage to local environments. As Miriam Pemberton and I warned in the wake of Bush’s announcement, “Such damage includes the blasting of pristine coral reefs, clear-cutting of virgin forests, deploying underwater sonar dangerous to marine life, leaching carcinogenic pollutants into the soil and seas from lax toxic waste storage and military accidents, and using land and sea for target practice, decimating ecosystems with exploded and unexploded munitions. Guam alone is home to 19 Superfund sites.”

Similarly, the base on Diego Garcia was built by blasting and dredging the island’s coral-lined lagoon, using bulldozers and chains to uproot coconut trees from the ground and paving a significant proportion of the island in asphalt. Since its construction, the island has seen more than one million gallons of jet fuel leaks, water fouled with diesel fuel sludge, the warehousing of depleted uranium-tipped bunker buster bombs, and the likely storage of nuclear weapons.

For all the benefits that marine protection areas might bring, governments are using environmentalism as a cover to protect the long-term life of environmentally harmful bases. The designation also helps governments hold onto strategic territories. Indeed, all of the Pacific and Indian Ocean islands involved are effectively colonies, including the Chagos Archipelago, which Britain refers to as the British Indian Ocean Territory and which was illegally detached from Mauritius during decolonization in the 1960s.

Ratifying Expulsion

The environmental cover-up goes deeper. In addition to the Mauritian sovereignty claim on Chagos, the islands are also claimed by their former indigenous inhabitants, the Chagossians, whom the U.S. and British governments forcibly removed from their homeland during the base’s creation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Since their expulsion, the Chagossians have been struggling for the right to return and proper compensation. Three times since 2000, the British High Court has ruled the removal unlawful, only to have Britain’s highest court overturn the lower-court rulings in 2008. The Chagossians have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights and expect hearings to begin this summer.

Again, the timing of the announcement of the Chagos marine protection area is far from coincidental. It could cement forever the Chagossians’ exile no matter the ruling of the European court. “The conservation groups have fallen into a trap,” explained Chagossian Roch Evenor, secretary of the UK Chagos Support Association. “They are being used by the government to prevent us returning.”

Others agree. In a letter to Greenpeace UK, Mauritian activist Ram Seegobin wrote, “Clearly, the British government is preparing a fall-back plan; if they lose the case in Europe, then there will be another ‘reason’ for denying the banished people their right of return.”

British lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, director of the human rights organization Reprieve, was even more direct: “The truth is that no Chagossian has anything like equal rights with even the warty sea slug.”

While the Pew Charitable Trusts, a foundation created by the children of one of the founders of Sun Oil Company, has been working behind the scenes for three years with British officials on the marine protection areas, other environmentalists have opposed the plan. “Conservation is a laudable goal,” Catherine Philp argued recently in The Times of London, “but it is a hollow and untruthful one when decided on behalf of the true guardians of that land who were robbed of it; not for the protection of the environment, but for a cheap media win and the easy benefit of the military-industrial machine.”

It did not have to be this way. The Chagossians, as one of their leaders, Olivier Bancoult, has said, once “lived in harmony with our natural environment until we were forcibly removed to make way for a nuclear military base.” The U.K. and U.S. governments could correct this injustice and protect the environment at the same time by finally allowing the Chagossians to return and serve as the proper guardians of their environment. It is not too late to correct this mistake. It is not too late to prevent the good name of environmentalism from being used to compound injustices that have been covered up for too long.

David Vine is assistant professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, DC, the author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press, 2009), and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

Recommended Citation:

David Vine, “Environmental Protection of Bases?” (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, April 22, 2010)

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U.K. proposes Chagos marine reserve that could block islanders’ return

Chagos is an Indian Ocean island possession of the UK, one of the colonies it held onto after decolonization. Britain evicted the native Chagossian population and leased the island to the U.S. military. Now Diego Garcia is one of the most important bases in America’s empire of bases. British courts except for the House of Lords have ruled in favor of the Chagossian’s right to return to their homeland, but the government has fought them every step of the way. Now the UK is proposing a marine reserve for Chagos. A nice environmentally friendly move, you might think. However, this designation could block the return of Chagossians and prohibit fishing in the reserve.

The Brits may have stolen this play right out of the U.S. play book: using marine environmental protection to dispossess the native people. The U.S. has created federal marine monuments in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and is proposing a similar monument in the Marianas. While the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument has created unprecedented protections for the coral reef system in the northwestern Hawaiian islands, the Bush administration slipped in an exemption for the military to conduct its activities within the reserve. The proposed Marianas marine monument contains similar provisions. Native Hawaiians have generally supported the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument and have helped to shape it to incorporate subsistence fishing and other cultural practices. Chamorros have been divided on the Marianas monument because any increased federal control means an erosion of the islands’ sovereignty and native rights. With the proposed U.S. military expansion in Guam and CNMI, the federalization of the marine ecosystem is viewed with warranted suspicion.

The U.S. military has realized that being environmentally friendly can have strategic value. Undeveloped nature reserves are less troublesome as neighbors of military bases and ranges than complaining suburban residents. So the Pentagon instituted a conservation buffer program to partner with environmental groups to preserve areas bordering bases as a way to prevent the “encroachment” of other users. Marine reserves that allow military activities to take place without competing users serves the same purpose.

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The Times
March 6, 2010

Chagossians fight for a home in paradise

Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent

chagos

(John Parker/Corbis) Designating the Chagos Archipelago as a marine protection area will end all fishing

If ever there was an oceanic treasure worthy of conservation, the Chagos archipelago, with its crystal-clear waters and jewelled reefs, is it. Yet the British Government’s plans have split the gentle world of marine conservation, created a diplomatic row with Indian Ocean states and turned the spotlight on to the archipelago’s place in Britain’s darker colonial history.

The British Indian Ocean Territory, as it is officially known, is the ancestral home of the Chagossians, the 2,000 people and their descendents that Britain removed forcibly from the islands in the Seventies to make way for a US air and naval base on the main island, Diego Garcia. Despite Britain repeatedly overruling court judgments in their favour, the exiled Chagossians have continued their struggle. This summer their case will be heard at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. By then, however — if David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, gets his way — the Chagos will have been designated a marine protected area (MPA), where activities such as fishing and construction are banned, denying them any legal means to sustain their lives.

It is, depending on your view, a sinister trick to prevent the Chagossians returning; an easy piece of environmental legacy building by a Government about to lose power; or an act of arrogant imperialism to rob the territory’s true owners of any say in its future.

Perhaps the most compelling case against the plan, however, is made by the swelling cadre of environmentalists opposing the project in the belief that — far from protecting this pristine paradise — it could hasten its destruction. “Even if I didn’t care about human rights, I would say this is a terrible mistake,” said Dr Mark Spalding, one of the world’s foremost experts on reef conservation.

“The world of conservation is littered with failures where the people involved were not consulted. If the Chagossians win the right to return, why should they want to co-operate with the conservation groups running roughshod over them?”

The Government’s proposal acknowledges that the entire plan may have to be scrapped if the Chagossians are allowed to return. “That would make it the shortest-lived protection area in the world,” Dr Spalding said. “So you have to ask: what’s the rush to get this done before [the Strasbourg ruling and] a general election?”

Mr Miliband will begin to examine the cases for and against the reserve next week, after public consultations ended yesterday. A decision is expected within weeks, but the Foreign Secretary already sounds convinced. “This is a remarkable opportunity for the UK to create one of the world’s largest marine protected areas, and double the global coverage of the world’s oceans benefiting from full protection,” he wrote.

Many of the world’s leading conservation groups have thrown their weight behind the proposal, which emphasises the advantage of the islands being “uninhabited”. They are not: the original islanders were removed from Diego Garcia to make way for a military base that houses 1,500 US service personnel, 1,700 civilian contractors and 50 British sailors. The island, which constitutes 90 per cent of the landmass of the Chagos, is, in effect, to be exempt from the protection order.

Peter Sand, a British environmental lawyer who has investigated the US base’s impact, has documented four jet fuel spills totalling 1.3 million gallons since it was built and has lobbied unsuccessfully for information on radiation leakage from nuclear-powered vessels there. “To say that a small group of Chagossians could have a greater impact than the base is just crazy,” Dr Spalding said.

The plan has also sparked a diplomatic row with Mauritius and the Seychelles, from whom the Chagos Islands were taken and to whom Britain has agreed to cede them when they are no longer needed by the US military. Britain faces further embarrassment over allegations that Diego Garcia was used to moor US prison ships where “ghost” prisoners were tortured.

The Prime Minister of Mauritius said last week that he was “appalled” by the decision to press ahead with plans for the reserve, “It is unacceptable that the British claim to protect marine fauna and flora when they insist on denying Chagos-born Mauritians the right to return to their islands all the while,” Navin Chandra Ramgoolam said at the inauguration of a building for Chagossian refugees in the Mauritian capital. “How can you say you will protect coral and fish when you continue to violate the rights of Chagos’s former inhabitants?”

Britain originally offered the US the Aldabra atoll for its base but backed down after uproar from environmentalists. Aldabra, now a World Heritage Site, was uninhabited by humans but home to hundreds of thousands of giant tortoises. “The British had refused to create a base on Aldabra in the Seychelles not to harm its tortoise population,” marvelled Olivier Bancoult, head of the Chagos Refugees Group. “Now they are trying to create a protected area to prevent Chagossians from returning to their native islands.”

Shifting sands

1960s The Chagos archipelago, originally part of Mauritius, is secretly leased to Britain. Together with the Aldabra archipelago, taken from the Seychelles, they become the British Indian Ocean Territory

1970 Britain and the US agree to set up a military base on Diego Garcia, and Britain begins deporting the 2,000 Chagossians to Seychelles and Mauritius

1983 £1m compensation is paid to the refugees on Mauritius

2000 British High Court rules in favour of Chagossians demanding the right to return

2004 Government issues a royal prerogative striking down the court’s decision

2006 The Court of Appeal dismisses the Government’s appeal, saying its methods are unlawful and “an abuse of power”; 102 Chagossians are permitted to visit Diego Garcia for a day to tend relatives’ graves

2008 Law lords vote 3-2 in favour of Government, overruling High Court

2009 Foreign Office launches public consultation on the creation of a protected marine area

2010 The European Court of Human Rights is set to hear the Chagossians’ petition to return this summer

Source: Times database

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Nominations sought for workshop on Pihemanu Kauihelelani (Midway Atoll)

Pihemanu Kauihelelani (Midway Atoll) is one of the oldest kupuna (elder) islands of the Hawaiian archipelago and was one of first places visited by Pele (goddess of the volcano) and her family on her epic journey to her present home in Hawai’i island.  Pihemanu Kauihelelani is also one of the last places traveled by the spirits of the deceased as they journey westward back to po (the darkness).   The birds rule there. Kaupu (Black-footed Albatross) and Moli (Laysan Albatross) are two of the more spectacular birds to nest there.  It is also a crime scene where thousands of albatross chicks die every year, starved and poisoned from the ingested plastic.  The kaupu is the kinolau (physical manifestation) of Lono, god of peace, fertility, agriculture and the arts.

Pihemanu Kauihelelani was the first offshore islands annexed by the U.S. government, as the Unincorporated Territory of Midway Island.  It was administered by the United States Navy.  Pihemanu Kauihelelani is also the site of a major naval battle during WWII and a turning point in the war.

NOAA is taking nominations for a workshop to learn more about Pihemanu Kauihelelani and the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument.

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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091119/BREAKING01/91119057/Nominations+sought+for+Papahanaumokuakea+workshop+on+Midway+Atoll

November 19, 2009

Nominations sought for Papahanaumokuakea workshop on Midway Atoll

Advertiser Staff

Educators and conservation leaders can learn more about Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument’s wildlife and cultural resources through a workshop being offered on O’ahu and Midway Atoll in 2010. Nominations to attend the workshop are being sought from now through Jan. 4.

This workshop is designed to create a greater understanding of the monument and to inspire community environmental stewardship at a grassroots level. The program, Papahanaumokuakea ‘Ahahui Alaka’i, which was offered for the first time in 2009, will take place June 12-22, 2010.

The first three days will be spent on O’ahu preparing, learning natural and cultural history, and meeting with past participants. The remaining seven days will be spent on remote Midway Atoll within the monument, located 1,250 miles northwest of Honolulu. Participants will need to provide their own transportation to O’ahu as well as lodging and meals during the three days in Honolulu. At Midway Atoll transportation, lodging and food costs will be covered by the workshop.

The Papahanaumokuakea ‘Ahahui Alaka’i program is accepting nominations from educators in formal and informal settings, community leaders, and people in positions that support community change and stewardship. Up to 12 people will be chosen to participate. Both U.S and international nominees are welcome. Participants will be chosen based on their written nominations, their letters of support, and their capacity to fulfill the program’s need for a strong variety of skills and abilities. In addition, potential participants are asked to submit a draft plan for an environmental stewardship project that will be modified throughout the workshop and implemented in their communities.

More information about the workshop is available at http://papahanaumokuakea.gov or by contacting linda.schubert@noaa.gov or 933-8181.

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Mokumanamana – native ecosystem, ancient cultural sites, and bomb craters

An article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin stated: “The scientists found more than 30 craters from bombings and shrapnel fragments next to heiau sites but are not sure who caused the damage.”  Umm, let’s take a guess…the military?

In another article by the AP, the sacredness of Mokumanamana to Kanaka Maoli as a leina a ka uhane (souls’ leap) is described:

Mokumanamana has an unusually high concentration of heiau — at least 34 on just 46 acres.

Kikiloi believes Hawaiians built the shrines there because Mokumanamana was considered the gateway to the afterlife. He said he plans to address this theory in his doctoral dissertation.

Mokumanamana lies on the Tropic of Cancer. This means the sun — which represents life and death in Hawaiian tradition — goes directly over the island on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.

Moreover, the Tropic of Cancer is called “Ke ala nui polohiwa a Kane” in Hawaiian, or “The Dark Shining Path of Kane,” and is often used as a metaphor for the path to the afterlife.

“When spirits separate from the body after someone passes away, they go on a second half journey to return to the source that everything is created from,” Kikiloi said.

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MOKUMANAMANA (NECKER) ISLAND

Isle of mystery

Archaeologists are intrigued by the ancient sites on a remote northwest Hawaiian island

By Helen Altonn

Sep 18, 2009

After living 18 days on a remote island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Kekuewa Kikiloi is reveling in the “incredible” experience and still nursing sore feet from the rugged volcanic terrain.

“There is definitely a little bit of mystery and suspense” about Mokumanamana (Necker) island in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, said the University of Hawaii graduate student in anthropology.

Kikiloi and Anan Raymond, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional archaeologist based in Portland, Ore., were dropped off on Mokumanamana by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship Hi’ialakai during a monthlong marine and archaeological expedition.

The ship returned to Honolulu on Sept. 6, but Kikiloi said he is still recovering from the “feat” of living in a remote environment with no fresh water or trees about 460 miles northwest of Honolulu. He described the expedition at a news conference yesterday in Honolulu with Raymond speaking from Chicago by teleconference.

The monument has been nominated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site.

Kikiloi said he has been to the monument nine times and four times to Mokumanamana, second in the northwest chain after Nihoa. He and Raymond studied 34 heiau (religious structures) on the 46-acre island.

It was the longest archaeological research project ever conducted there. Kikiloi said the island’s “archaeological record as a whole” was the most significant discovery.

“There are few cases in Hawaii where you can see an intact cultural landscape” with nearly 100 percent native plants and animals,” he said.

The scientists found more than 30 craters from bombings and shrapnel fragments next to heiau sites but are not sure who caused the damage. Nonetheless, Kikiloi said, “The landscape is un-compromised by human development. It is incredible … invigorating to go there.”

Even so, he said, they were “counting the days” until the ship picked them up. “We were in a time warp.”

“How did they do it?” Kikiloi asked, regarding the island’s early inhabitants. “We can barely do it today, and we have all this technology. How did they get water? These people were stronger than we ever thought.”

He said Mokumanamana has “some of the most interesting archaeology in Hawaii, if not the Pacific.”

It was an “awesome” experience, both as an anthropology student and native Hawaiian because of the religious significance of the heiau, Kikiloi said. How the people survived and constructed large monuments remains a puzzle, he said. Only three agricultural terraces were found, and the source of the stone for the structures is unknown.

Raymond said the island is a dangerous place to walk around because the 15 million-year-old volcanic rock crumbles easily with the weight of feet or a hand. And thousands of birds cover the island. “Where you would like to put your hand or foot has seabird chicks. You have to move very slowly. It is extremely rugged. You have to travel on all fours in many locations.”

The heiau has upright structures along the crest of the island, perhaps oriented to astronomical phenomena, the scientists said. Kikiloi said there are similar upright structures on Hawaii’s mountain peaks.

Stone images have been collected from the island, most of which are in the Bishop Museum and some in the British Museum, he said.

Source: http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090918_Isle_of_mystery.html

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Military ignored conditions set by state regulators on undersea warfare exercises

The Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) established a regulatory regime to create more consistency in regulating coastal resources, by delegating certain regulatory powers to approved state CZM agencies. This means that on matters of Coastal Zone Management, the federal government should be in accordance with the regulatory guidelines set by the Hawai’i CZM agency. However, in its 2008 annual report, the Hawaii Coastal Zone Management Program reported that in several instances, the U.S. military simply “issued a notice of intent to proceed over both the conditions and objection” of the Hawaii CZM Program. One instance involved the use of sonar and live fire exercises by the Navy undersea warfare exercises (USWEX). The other involved the Navy Hawaii Range Complex. There have been reports of massive fish kill off the island of Ni’ihau and Kaua’i and dead whales washing ashore on Ni’ihau and Kaua’i. It was reported by the Hawaii Independent that the Navy and the DARPA conducted classified exercises in the vicinity of Ni’ihau and Kaua’i during a USWEX event in the Hawaii Range Complex. Here’s an excerpt from the 2008 Hawaii CZM Program annual report:

Federal Consistency Program

The CZMA requires federal agencies to conduct their planning, management, development, and regulatory activities in a manner consistent with federally-approved state CZM programs. The informational and procedural requirements for CZM federal consistency reviews are prescribed by federal regulations.

Because there is a significant federal presence in Hawaii, federal consistency is a valuable State management tool. Federal planning, regulatory, and construction activities have direct and significant effects on land and water environments statewide.

The federal government controls vast tracts of land. The range of federal activities and permits reviewed is extensive and includes harbor projects, beach nourishment projects, military facilities and training exercises, fisheries management plans and regulations, open ocean aquaculture, and dredge and fill operations. In addition, projects funded by certain federal grant programs are reviewed for potential impacts to CZM resources.

Public notices for all federal consistency reviews are published in The Environmental Notice.

The following are noteworthy examples of federal consistency activities:

1. Makua Military Reservation Training Activities: The U.S. Army’s live-fire training exercises at Makua Military Reservation on Oahu were reviewed for impacts on resources in areas beyond the reservation. The reservation itself is a federal area that is excluded from CZM review. However, the CZM Program was concerned about the effects of live-fire training, particularly wildfire on State natural area reserves, critical habitat for endangered species, and historic and cultural resources. Federal consistency negotiations with the Army resulted in mitigation measures to ensure protection of natural and cultural resources.

2. U.S. Navy Undersea Warfare Exercises (USWEX): The CZM Program reviewed a series of USWEX, which are anti-submarine exercises involving the use of mid-frequency active sonar in waters around the State. The primary concern with sonar is its potential to harm marine mammals such as whales and monk seals. USWEX also involves land-based training exercises such as aerial bombing of Kaula Island off of Kauai and Pohakuloa Training Area on the Island of Hawaii. Operational conditions and mitigation measures were required for the sonar use for consistency with CZM enforceable policies. An objection was issued over the use of Kaula Island until a monitoring plan and baseline survey of birds is completed. In response to the Program’s consistency decision, the Navy issued a notice of intent to proceed over both the conditions and objection.

3. U.S. Navy Hawaii Range Complex (HRC): The HRC is one of the Navy’s range complexes used for training operational forces and military systems. The HRC covers 235,000 square nautical miles around the Main Hawaiian Islands, and a 2.1 million square nautical mile Temporary Operating Area of sea and airspace. The biennial Rim of the Pacific naval exercise is included as one of the major activities covered by the review. One of the primary concerns was the Navy’s use of mid-frequency active sonar and its impacts on marine mammals. The CZM Program required mitigation measures for the sonar use to be consistent with CZM enforceable policies. An objection was issued to the use of Kaula Island for bombing until a monitoring plan and baseline survey of birds is completed, and the development and operation of a directed energy (laser) weapon facility at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, until potential hazards are identified and operating procedures and safety requirements are developed. The Navy declined to agree and issued a notice of intent to proceed over the conditions requiring sonar mitigation and the objection to the bombing of Kaula Island. However, the Navy is developing a management plan for seabirds at Kaula in response to the CZM review and also agreed to submit a separate CZM review for the directed energy facility when the details are developed.

4. Hawaii Superferry Security Zones: The CZM Program issued federal consistency concurrences for the U.S. Coast Guard to establish security zones for the Hawaii Superferry at Nawiliwili Harbor, Kauai and Kahului Harbor, Maui. The security zones were necessary in consideration of the large number of protestors who prevented the Superferry from entering Nawiliwili Harbor. The Program’s consistency concurrence ensured that public access was maintained by requiring that canoe and boating clubs, small commercial businesses, and Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners be given consideration for access to resources during the activation of the security zone. The Program also required that when the security zone is inactive, public access to and use of established public areas in and around Nawiliwili Harbor and Kahului Harbor be allowed.

The Hawaii CZM Program facilitates cooperation among government agencies in reviewing applications for federal, State, and County permits. Also, pre-application consultation is highly encouraged. Consultations occur by telephone and email, as well as through meetings involving applicants and agencies.

The CZM Program continued its involvement with the federal and State agency coordination initiative involving quarterly meetings with regulatory and resource agencies, and various branches of the military. The meetings are hosted by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and the U.S. Navy. This forum provides the participating agencies an opportunity to discuss and coordinate on current and future projects, activities, and issues.

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Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Management Plan Finalized – Military Exempted

The management plan for the Papahanaumokuakea (Northwestern Hawaiian Islands) National Marine Monument has just been released.   Although establishing the Monument designation was a major win for the movement, the processes and management structures for the Monument are turning out to be a problem that allows huge loopholes and creates obstructions for meaningful public involvement.  One serious problem in the proclamation by George W. Bush that created the Monument is the exemption of the military from all of its protections. Here’s an excerpt from the website FAQ page:

Military Use

25. How are the Co-Trustees working with the Navy to ensure that Navy activities within the Monument cause no harm?

A. Presidential Proclamation 8031 specifically exempts lawful activities and exercises of the Armed Forces, including the U.S. Coast Guard, from its prohibitions. The Co-Trustees have no authority to regulate such activities. The requirement that the Armed Forces avoid to the extent practicable adverse impacts on Monument resources and qualities is to be addressed by the military agency conducting the operation, not the Monument Co-Trustees. The Navy is the primary DOD agency that periodically conducts activities in the Monument and they have expressed their commitment to support the spirit and intent of the Proclamation.

So the Monument turns out to be another beautiful, secluded, playground for the Navy and Missile Defense Agencies to blast their sonar, crash missiles, and fly air-breathing hypersonic aircraft.

Click here to go to the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument, where you can download the full management plan.

Also, visit the KAHEA website for their background information and critique of the plan.

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Military training in the NW Hawaiian Islands

National Monument, watery grave?

What does the U.S. Navy have against whales?

Joan Conrow
Mar 19, 2008

When President Bush signed a proclamation June 15, 2006 making the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and surrounding waters a national monument, many Islanders believed the region would be kept safe from harm.

But conservationists contend that the triad of state and federal agencies charged with overseeing Papaha-naumokua-kea-the nation’s first marine monument and world’s largest marine conservation area-has been lax in developing a management plan and enforcing regulations, while largely excluding the public from the decision-making process.

As a result, environmentalists say, hundreds of persons-including participants in an extreme canoe paddling event-have been granted access to the remote, fragile, 137,797 square mile ecosystem over the past 21 months, and scientists on one of the first research expeditions cultivated coral disease aboard their vessel and dumped contaminated water overboard.

And now, critics say, the Monument Management Board (MMB) that oversees Papahanaumokuakea is standing idly by while the monument faces perhaps its biggest threat: Military activities staged by the U.S. Navy.

“This is like the next thing and I thought surely they [MMB]‘d say something about this,” says Marti Townsend, program director for KAHEA, the Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance. “But no, they said it was out of their jurisdiction.”

Military activities that could be conducted within the monument include shooting down aerial targets and using high- and mid-intensity sonar, which has been linked to death and stranding in whales and other marine mammals.

“I was very shocked to hear that the Navy plans to use the monument for training exercises,” said Jessica Wooley, an O’ahu attorney and member of the Reserve Advisory Committee (RAC). The panel-created to provide public input into plans to make the NWHI a marine sanctuary-was shelved, but not disbanded, when it became a monument instead. “It’s a complete mystery to me why they chose that area.”

Capt. Dean Leech, environmental counsel for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, says the Navy wants to operate in the monument, which lies within the Hawai’i Range Complex, “because when these guys are training, they need a lot of space.” And they can’t train outside the monument’s boundaries, he says, because the Navy often is “integrating a number of exercises simultaneously” within the Range that must be proximate to one another.

Wooley, Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff, KAHEA members, former commercial fisherman Buzzy Agard and others who worked for years to gain protective status for the NWHI say they never dreamed things would turn out like this. “How did we go from trying to define how many more years some very minor commercial fishing interests could fish to allowing the military to move in? It’s not looking good for the resource,” Wooley says.
Where’s the public input?

Conservationists pin much of the blame on the MMB, which includes members from the federal Departments of Commerce and Interior, the state Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The panel meets in private to vet use permits and develop management and use plans. “It doesn’t seem there is any interface with the public,” Atchitoff says. “The whole focus now seems to be to let scientists do research and the military do what it wants.”

Dan Polhemus, director of the DAR, responds that he understands “the frustration” of those who worked to protect the NWHI and now feel excluded. MMB recognizes the need for a community advisory council, he says, but the Monument was created under the federal Antiquities Act, which includes no provision for citizen participation. “So we’re trying to figure out how to do that,” Polhemus says, noting that the public does have the right to comment on use permits that go before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources.

The public, though, has little time to respond to permit applications once they go before the Land Board, where only very broad conditions can be imposed, KAHEA’s Townsend says, adding, “These are public resources and they need public oversight and transparency.”

Polhemus says public hearings will be held on the management plan, due out in April. However, he isn’t certain when the MMB will create a mechanism for ongoing public involvement in Monument affairs, largely because the panel has been focused on other issues, he says. These include adapting a management plan originally developed for a sanctuary into one that is suitable for a monument-all while meeting National Environmental Protection Act regulations. “We had a monument handed to us and overnight we had to figure out how to manage it,” Polhemus says, comparing the process to living in a house while installing the electricity and plumbing.

As for military activities, Polhemus says he agrees that “that could be a major issue,” but noted that the proclamation establishing Papahanaumokuakea “does give the military some pretty broad exemptions in terms of what it can do.” The decision on whether to take a stand regarding military activities likely would be made by the “senior executive board,” which includes top officials from each participating agency, rather than the MMB, Polhemus says. The MMB “might provide candid analysis and comment,” to the executive board, Polhenums says, while noting, “I haven’t looked at the military’s plan in detail and it hasn’t been sent to me.”
Navy seeks authorized takes

Last August, the Navy released its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Hawai’i Range Complex-encompassing 235,000 square nautical miles, all 18 Hawaiian Islands, Ka’ula rock and Johnston Atoll. It has already completed public hearings on the draft, and is now staging informational meetings on a draft supplement that deals specifically with the use of sonar (see sidebar). That issue has been the subject of litigation both in California and Hawai’i, where federal district Judge David Ezra issued an injunction on Feb. 29 prohibiting the Navy from carrying out its undersea warfare activities without adding measures to protect marine mammals. The ruling, issued in response to a suit brought by Earthjustice on behalf of several plaintiffs, also requires the Navy to prepare a new and separate EIS on the impacts of its high-intensity, mid-frequency active sonar.

The Navy’s draft EIS “does not predict any marine mammal mortalities” or serious injuries from sonar activities, while it does concede that mammals may die during the training. “However, given the frequency of naturally occurring marine mammal stranding in Hawai’i (e.g. natural mortality), it is conceivable that a stranding could co-occur within the timeframe of a Navy exercise, even though the stranding may be unrelated to Navy activities.” But because the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) advised the Navy to consider “scientific uncertainty and potential for mortality,” according to the draft EIS, the Navy is requesting that it be granted 20 serious injury or mortality “takes” over five years (from July 2008 to July 2013) for seven species of marine mammals-including melon-headed whales, bottle-nosed dolphins, pygmy killer whales, short-finned pilot whales and three species of beaked whales.

The draft supplement also acknowledges that sonar exercises within the Range will result in marine mammal behavioral changes that NMFS classifies as “harassment.” That doesn’t sufficiently convey the potential harm, according to Atchitoff. “The Navy still refuses to acknowledge the potentially lethal behavioral impacts [on marine mammals]. It’s basically the Navy and Navy-funded research against the world,” Atchitoff says.

Capt. Leech says that while the Navy is allowed to conduct sonar activities within the monument, “I don’t foresee guys going up there much, if at all,” because most of the acoustic monitoring devices are placed on the ocean floor off the west coast of Kaua’i.

Navy activities that likely will be conducted within the monument, according to Leech, include “sink exercises,” in which old boats and other unmanned craft are destroyed with missiles or torpedoes, and using missiles launched from Kaua’i to shoot down targets over Nihoa and Necker (also known as Mokumanamana).

“Who knows what kind of contamination this [missile destruction] will rain down on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands?” Townsend asks. Leech dismissed concerns that shoot-downs could be detrimental to reefs and ocean water quality, saying, “Any of the contaminants would be destroyed when the missile hits. The amount of energy that’s released when those go off is extraordinary. We don’t even use explosives. It’s sheer kinetic energy.”

There will be debris falling, however, according to the draft EIS, which states, “Some current flight trajectories could result in missiles such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) flying over portions of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. Preliminary results of debris analysis indicate that debris is not expected to severely harm threatened, endangered, migratory or other endemic species on or offshore of Nihoa and Necker Islands. Quantities of falling debris will be very low and widely scattered so as not to present a toxicity issue. Falling debris will also have cooled down sufficiently so as not to present a fire hazard for vegetation and habitat.”
Training in NWHI doesn’t make sense

Mimi Olry, the state’s Marine Conservation Coordinator and a Hawaiian monk seal expert, was surprised to learn the military is planning activities within the monument-the primary breeding habitat for monk seals. Such exercises “would be detrimental,” she says. “The seals are in a crisis situation already. Any more disturbance, introduction of invasive species and diseases or disruptions of the reef system and ecology there would further harm the population.” Although the monk seal population in the main Hawaiian Islands is slowly increasing, Olry says, “We’re losing the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands population at a greater rate. The young seals [in the monument] aren’t making it the first year. They’re starving. Something’s not right in the ecosystem up there.”

According to the most recent report of the Monk Seal Recovery Plan, the current population of 1,200 seals is “predicted to fall below 1,000 animals within the next three to four years. This places the Hawaiian monk seal among the world’s most endangered species,” the document states. Olry also expresses concern about military activities involving Nihoa and Necker, because seals reside on those two small islands and swim between Ni’ihau and Kaua’i. It’s unclear why seals are coming to the main Hawaiian Islands, Olry says, but it’s certain that they face grave risks here. A number of seals have died in recent years after contracting bacterial diseases carried by livestock, cats and dogs and others have drowned in gill nets.

With regard to the fragile Monument ecosystem, Wooley says that military activities within Papahanaumokuakea are a particular concern because they violate the “precautionary principle,” a concept that served as the fundamental premise in drafting plans to protect the NWHI. “The idea was to not take any action unless you know it’s not going to cause harm,” she says. “The military makes mistakes. It’s pretty much impossible to restore or replace resources that exist in the monument.”

Leech says he believes military uses are compatible with the Monument’s role in preserving a unique marine ecosystem “and here’s the reason why. Our people have incredible resources in place to protect those areas so they can continue training. When it comes to these live fire areas, we have a vested interest in taking care of them. We know there won’t be any more created, but they’re critical for our people to train in.”

Others point out that the military may, to say the least, have different priorities when it comes to preserving areas for training. “The military has done a lousy job of protecting the environment. I’ve seen what the military has done to Pearl Harbor, Makua Valley, Kaho’olawe. We no need screw up our islands any more,” Ray Catania, a member of the Kaua’i Alliance for Peace and Social Justice, said in testimony delivered at last week’s Navy hearing on Kaua’i.

Regardless, Leech says the military can’t be excluded from operating within the Monument. “Not the way the proclamation [creating the monument] is written now,” he says. That may be true, Townsend responds, “But those same regulations also say that the military has to minimize and mitigate their activities to the maximum extent practical. But enforcing that comes down to political will on the part of the Monument co-managers. And only public support for the protections will create that political will.”

Townsend, Wooley and others aren’t convinced the MMB has the political will to stand up to the military or monitor its compliance with mitigation measures, given that it’s already approved permits for research, ecotourism and recreational activities that, they contend, also violate the precautionary principle.

“People think they’re doing no harm,” says Agard, who spent years fishing in the NWHI until rapidly declining fish populations prompted him to become an ardent conservationist. “But every time the human presence occurs out there, it has caused a problem. I think a better criteria would be no human footprint.”
The cost of preservation

Critics also are concerned about the $2 million to $3 million in federal funds allocated annually for research in the Monument, saying permits are being granted without full public review or adequate oversight, and without adoption of an overall research plan. “That money is an added incentive for people to develop an idea in the name of research so they can visit the place, take in the sights and get bragging rights,” Agard says. “People are sitting down dreaming up ways to get in there.”

Townsend agrees. “When you have millions of dollars in federal research money coming in, it creates an opportunity for everybody to go astray.

Polhemus counters that the MMB has provided good oversight and the research is needed because “it’s very difficult to manage what you don’t understand. I’d say we can use all the information we can get at this time.”

But according to Agard, in order for the Monument to regenerate and ultimately help repopulate depleted fisheries in the main Islands, “people need to stay away and leave it alone.” His views are shared by Dr. Carl Safina, founder of the Blue Ocean Institute, who wrote in Eye of the Albatross (Henry Holt & Company, Inc. 2003) about the NWHI: “These tiny sites are the reproductive generators of wildlife inhabiting many millions of square miles of ocean … without these safe havens wildlife populations throughout the North Pacific would shrivel.”

“Surely,” Agard says, “one little place in the world ought to serve as an example of what we should or might do.”

For more by Joan Conrow visit [kauaieclectic.blogspot.com].
Take that, monk seals! Hard rain gonna fall

State and federal processes that address U.S. Navy plans for the Hawai’i Range Complex, including the Papaha-naumokua-kea National Marine Monument, are currently under way.

The Office of State Planning is reviewing the Navy’s Draft EIS for the Range to determine if proposed activities are consistent with the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA). As part of that review, it can impose additional mitigation measures.

Meanwhile, the Navy conducted public information meetings throughout the state on a Supplemental Draft EIS that specifically addresses the use of sonar within the Range.

At the first session, held last Thursday on Kaua’i, a resident of that island expressed confusion at how military activities could occur in a national monument. “What [President] Bush just declared is protected lands, you’re gonna start bombing on them,” said Craig Davies. “Things are all mixed up.”-J.C.

Comments on the CZMA can be submitted through March 24 and the Navy’s supplemental EIS through April 7. Visit [govsupport.us/navynepahawaii] or [kahea.org] for details.

Source: http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2008/03/national-monument-watery-grave/

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