Ministerial Conference on
Environment and Development
in Asia and the Pacific 2000
Kitakyushu, Japan 31 August - 5 September 2000
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| REVIEW OF THE STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS CONTENTSI. Introduction II. Overview of environmental conditions and trends
A. Large High Islands III. Shared Environmental Concerns
I. INTRODUCTION1. The Small Island Developing States of the Pacific sub-region have a wide range of environmental problems. Their relative importance varies according to social, economic, and geographic conditions but all islands share common concerns such as natural disasters, climate change, depletion of coastal fisheries, destruction of nearshore nursery habitats, loss of biodiversity, supply of freshwater, soil degradation, urbanization, management of wastes, and problems related to tourism, energy, and access to information. II. OVERVIEW OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS AND TRENDS2. The Pacific Ocean influences all aspects of development for the Pacific Island developing countries. Environmental issues of the Pacific islands have common themes based on isolation, exposure to natural disasters, vulnerability to externally induced economic shocks, fragile natural resource base, and lack of adequate capacity for response. Yet the sub-region is diverse, politically, economically, geographically, and ethnically. 3. The Pacific sub-region can be subdivided into three distinct zones, based on resource endowments, size, and the state of economic development. Each zone has environmental problems distinctive to their economic and ecological features, but all the countries share in a variety of global threats that endanger the ocean and the atmosphere. A. Melanesian countries4. The high islands of the Western Pacific (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Fiji) are rich in mineral and forestry resources, and have the largest human population. They can be sub-divided into two socio-economic groups: 5. In Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, about 85% of the people live in rural environments and have a subsistence economy. About 80% of Papua New Guinea’s work force and 90% of Solomon Islanders are farmers. These three countries have an almost undiluted Melanesian culture with a total of 4.9 million people. Despite their rich natural resource base, they have a low ranking on the United Nations Human Development Index (Papua New Guinea 128; Solomon Islands 122; and Vanuatu 124). 6. The French Territory of New Caledonia has a rich and diverse cultural base with 201,000 Melanesian, Asian, and European people. The 801,000 Melanesian, Polynesian, Indian, and European people living in Fiji, are also share a diverse cultural base. The economies of both these island areas are more stable and diversified than the other three Melanesian countries. About 35% of Fijians are employed in Agriculture and 54% live in rural communities. Only 14% of New Caledonia’s work force are employed in Agriculture and 29% of the people (mostly the Melanesian people) live in rural communities. Both Fiji and New Caledonia are considered economically developed countries. 7. The main environmental problems for the high islands are; land degradation, unsustainable deforestation, water pollution from mining, invasion of exotic species, local depletion of coastal fisheries, and (with the exception of Fiji and New Caledonia), rapid population growth. The cities of Melanesia are among the fastest growing in the world (7.3% in Vanuatu, 6.2% in the Solomon Islands, 4.1% in Papua New Guinea). These countries face serious urban issues of unemployment, poverty, sanitation and housing. Droughts, fires, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are major environmental disasters for these islands. B. Mid-sized islands of Polynesia and Micronesia and the small high Island Territories of the United States.8. The mid-sized islands of Polynesia (Tonga, Samoa, French Polynesia) and Micronesia (Palau, Federated States of Micronesia) and high island territories of the United States (Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) have limited land resources, minimal or no commercial forests, and no commercial mineral deposits. The people of Polynesia and Micronesia are predominantly agrarian and rural. Their cultures are almost entirely Polynesian or Micronesian. Guam and Saipan, are primarily urban communities with a mixed cultural heritage. Tonga and Samoa have relatively good food security, and receive high levels of remittances from expatriate island communities living in Pacific Rim countries. 9. French
Polynesia is a territory of France, while Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and
American Samoa are territories of the United States. These islands enjoy a high
standard of living from subsidies, and have few tradable natural resources and
virtually no manufacturing capabilities. C. Small, low island states11. The small, coral islands, especially the atoll states (Cook Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Niue, Nauru, and the Republic of Maldives in the Indian Ocean) have very limited land resources yet they are spread over vast areas of the ocean. Sixty thousand Marshall Islanders live on 181 km2 of coral islets giving each person only 0.3 hectares of land. Their population is expected to double in only 17 years and their urban areas are growing at 8.2%. Including every sandy islet above mean high water, the people in these countries average 0.8 hectares of land per person. On the other hand, each person in these small island states has economic control over 41.4 km2 of ocean. 12. These islands are the most vulnerable places on Earth to the adverse impacts of climate change and sea level rise. Some of the islands of Tuvalu, Tonga, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, the Maldives and the Cook Islands may submerge entirely. Coastal erosion is already a serious problem in many of these islands and at least two low-lying islands have already eroded below sea level. 13. The most serious environmental problems for most of these countries are; vulnerability to storms and droughts, fresh water availability and pollution of ground water with sewage and salt, agricultural land availability, solid waste disposal, food security, and rapid population growth in urban areas. III. SHARED ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNSA. The Pacific Ocean; A common resource14. The Pacific island nations control Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) reaching 200 nautical miles from their coasts. This represents a significant portion of the offshore fisheries and sea bed mineral wealth of the ocean hemisphere. The marine environment can be divided into five management zones, linked to biological and mineral resources. These are: (i) the coastal zone, (ii) near shore deep and pelagic fisheries grounds, (iii) offshore fisheries, (iv) sea bed minerals and offshore oil deposits and (iv) the sea surface. 15. Each of these zones has specific environmental management challenges for the nations of the South Pacific. Coastal and near shore zones are the responsibility of individual nations, while all the countries work together on sustainable management of offshore fisheries and sea bed resources. 16. The most serious environmental issues of the Pacific Ocean in the coastal and marine management categories are: (i) coastal areas - coastal erosion, depletion, destruction and pollution of mangrove forests, sea grasses, coral reefs, coastal food species; (ii) depletion of slow growing deep water coastal and bottom dwelling fish; (iii) maintaining co-operative management of offshore fishery resources, including tuna and other pelagic fish species, prevention of destructive long drift net fishing, commercial by-catch of sea birds and marine mammals, and whaling; (iv) sea-surface conditions, including red (toxic) phytoplankton blooms, oil pollution, floating and suspended solid wastes and destruction of fish and invertebrate eggs at the air/sea interface through chemical pollution and UV-B radiation; (v) geophysical (global warming) conditions, causing sea level rise, increased storm activity, climate change, and die-backs of shallow water and coastal marine life. B. Natural disasters17. Natural disasters are a common occurrence in the Pacific islands. The Pacific Rim of Fire is a region of severe seismic activity extending from the Northern Mariana Islands in the north to Vanuatu in the South. Earthquakes, volcanic activity and tsunamis are major threats. The impact of these disasters can be highly localised, but severe. For example, on the 17th of July, 1998, a series of tidal waves caused by an offshore earthquake struck the North west of Papua New Guinea in the Sandaun Province. The waves swept over low, sandy islets at Sissano about 30 kilometres west of Aitape. Whole villages vanished and thousands of people were killed or injured. 18. The sub-region’s tropical and sub-tropical climate is punctuated by climatic extremes; cyclones, floods and drought. These extremes have far reaching impacts on land-use, and serious environmental consequences - especially when combined with unsustainable development practices. 19. Cyclones are the most prominent and wide-spread natural disaster in the Pacific. With the exception of equatorial islands, between 5 degrees North and South of the equator, all Pacific islands have been subjected to cyclones. Almost every Pacific island north or south of 10 degrees latitude has been hit by major cyclones. 20. Cyclones are especially damaging to low-lying atoll islets. Between January and April of 1983, five cyclones struck French Polynesia; more in two months than in the previous 150 years. Sea level rose 4 to 5 meters and waves were 8 to 10 meters high. Many villages on the atolls were totally submerged. Some atoll villages completely disappeared. The water lens was salted, all boats were destroyed, all fishing equipment and pearl aquaculture rafts were destroyed. Big blocks of coral were torn from the reefs and thrown onto the reef flats. Vegetation was severely damaged and roughly half of the coconut trees were blown down. Waves from Cyclone Ofa swept over the islands of the Tokelau atolls, washed away topsoil, salted the land so crops would not grow, and contaminated the ground water making it unfit to drink. 21. Cyclones also cause severe damage to high islands. Ofa, for example, devastated Samoa, destroying fringing coral reefs, gardens and homes. Storm damage was amplified by the loss of resilient traditional housing and farming practices and loss of mangrove areas. Poor logging and farming practices now result in greater flooding and soil loss and these, in turn, cause loss of valuable soil from the land and siltation of coastal coral reef and sea grass communities. In Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, for example, large scale clearing of upland forest for commercial kava plantations resulted in massive landslides after a severe cyclone in 1997. The landslides caused loss of life, destroyed plantations, and damaged coastal coral reef communities. Destruction of mangrove forests expose coastal areas to greater storm damage. 22. Cyclones have moved from annual events to disaster status because of unsustainable human behaviour. The most vulnerable communities are impoverished peoples occupying marginal environments (such as low-lying filled mangrove swamps, urban areas of atoll islets, or steep-sloped mountain areas), with high population density and dependence on a single source of sustenance. C. Climate change, global warming, and sea level rise23. Global warming, caused by atmospheric pollution from burning of fossil fuels, especially in the industrial countries, is having increasingly serious effects on the Pacific Ocean. Most marine organisms live within narrow temperature regimes, and even short-term extreme temperature increase can have a dramatic impact. In the past two decades, for example, short-term extreme high temperatures contributed to a decline of coral reefs throughout the tropics. Corals, stressed by high temperatures, may eject their symbiotic algae. Coral bleaching, as this is called, renders the corals less able to cope with additional physiological stress and many of the colonies die. In November 1998, 350 reef managers, biologists and government representatives attended the International Tropical Marine Ecosystems Management Symposium in Townsville, Australia. The scientists revealed that the coral bleaching episodes of 1997-1998 were the most geographically widespread ever recorded and probably the most severe in recorded history. This has significant impacts on organisms, such as fish, that depend on the living coral structures. In 1994, elevated sea temperatures killed over 90% of the living corals of American Samoa from the intertidal zone to a depth of 10 meters and fishing catches declined drastically in the wake of the coral death. 24. Sea level rise is believed to be causing significant damage to coastal areas throughout the Pacific where villages, cities, agricultural land, tourist facilities and infrastructure are concentrated in the coastal zones. 25. Computer models predict that global warming will shift rainfall patterns, resulting in extended drought conditions in some areas, and excessive rainfall in others. Recent increases in severe droughts in the Pacific have been attributed to El Niño weather patterns. These have become more frequent since 1977, bringing an increase in rainfall in the Northeast Pacific and a rainfall decrease in the Southwest. These more frequent El Niño events are believed to be associated with global warming. D. Freshwater resources26. Freshwater is an essential, and threatened, resource. Throughout the Pacific, smaller islands, and the leeward side of large high islands, experience difficult, and sometimes life threatening, deficiencies of unpolluted water supplies. Population growth and development activities, including construction, agriculture and tourism, may elevate water use to unsustainable levels. 27. Agricultural droughts occur throughout the region, and are a particular problem for the atoll nations and the leeward side of larger islands. The El Niño event in 1997/98 brought some of the worst droughts on record in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, The Marshall Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and American Samoa. The Marshall Islands received slightly over two inches of rain from January to March 1998, just eight percent of the norm. From August 1997 to March 1998, the highlands of Papua New Guinea experienced one of the worst droughts on record, creating a national crisis and the need for an airlift of emergency food and water supplies. Many Pacific island fresh water streams are contaminated by silt and sewage. Groundwater supplies, especially in islands with highly porous limestone aquifers, are endangered by sewage and agricultural chemical pollution. In Niue and Tonga, for example, weed killers and pesticides have been detected in groundwater supplies. 28. The Pacific island developing countries also face critical water supply and contamination problems because of the inability of governments to maintain ageing water reticulation and treatment systems set up during the colonial period. Peri-urban settlements have grown substantially in the past decade and are rarely supplied by water in any Pacific island country. The water is not safe to drink, even in the capitals of all but two of the independent Pacific island developing countries. Fiji and Vanuatu filter and chlorinate their water supplies. Tonga, Kiribati, and the Solomon Islands try to treat their water but do not always have access to adequate amounts of chlorine and chlorine injection systems fail from poor maintenance. Even where the fresh water source is protected from pollution, tap water from urban systems is seldom safe to drink because of leaky pipes and negative water pressure during times of high use. E. Biodiversity
30. New Caledonia, for example, has been isolated from other lands for 80 million years. Seventy six percent of the flora and fauna evolved on the island. Several plant species, unique in the world, are limited to only a small area of one mountain and are represented by only a few specimens. 31. The decline of the biodiversity of the Pacific islands began with the arrival of the first humans. In the Marquesas, for example, the Polynesian settlers exterminated eight of twenty species of sea birds, including shearwaters, petrels, and boobies. Fourteen of the 16 land birds, primarily flightless rails, pigeons, doves, parrots and songbirds became extinct. 32. The loss of terrestrial biodiversity, is most advanced in the Polynesian and Micronesian islands. Surviving indigenous species have either been adopted within the traditional social structure, or tolerated in inaccessible areas. Unfortunately, with the advent of modern agricultural practices, the habitats for many of the formerly adopted plants - useful for medicinal or aesthetic or other values - are being destroyed in favour of cash cropping, construction or other activities. 33. Melanesian islands have the greatest reserve of unaltered terrestrial biodiversity in the sub region. Commercial logging, rising populations, and the rapid spread of unsustainable agricultural techniques are major threats to the terrestrial biodiversity in these islands. However, the extremely rugged topography of the Melanesian islands, land ownership issues, and traditional practices have, so far, preserved the biodiversity of much of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and parts of Fiji. 34. Marine biodiversity is threatened near urban areas by pollution, dredging and filling of coastal habitats and destructive fishing techniques such as dynamite, use of poisons to collect fish, and excessive use of gill nets. F. Pollution of terrestrial, coastal and marine areas35. Pacific island countries, like the rest of the world, face serious problems with disposal of wastes and pollution. Organic and most metal wastes can be recycled, but this is only practised in a limited way. Increased urbanisation and growing populations have accelerated problems with the collection and disposal of both solid and liquid wastes. Every year the importation of packaged consumer goods, cars and machinery adds to the growing amount of non-biodegradable waste. Pollution from industrial waste and sewage and disposal of toxic chemicals are significant contributors to marine pollution and coastal degradation. Dumping of solid wastes is a common problem that both harms the aesthetic tourism value of the islands and creates breeding sites for disease bearing mosquitoes. 36. Synthetic chemicals, many of them toxic, can be difficult to recycle and expensive to destroy. Most wastes, hazardous or not, are therefore dumped together at the nearest available plot of land. In Fiji, Tonga, and Vanuatu, for example, such unregulated disposal of wastes threaten the ecological integrity of mangrove forests and adjacent marine areas. 37. Hazardous chemicals and nutrient pollution find their way into the marine environment via effluents, dumps, storm runoff, sewage, and wind-blown dust. These jeopardise inshore estuarine and marine environments and are especially damaging to coastal marine nursery areas like wetlands, mangrove forests, sea grass beds, and coral reefs. 38. Even more catastrophic, oil pollution, wind blown dust from poisoned agricultural areas, urban fall-out, and plastic trash contribute to extensive damage to the sea surface micro-layer. The sea surface is a vital nursery for the vast majority of all marine organisms and, because of its special characteristics, is easily polluted by man-made chemicals. Scientists are concerned that this problem may be contributing to the global decline in marine communities and fish populations. G. Population growth and urbanisation39. Population pressures vary dramatically between different island groups. In the Polynesian and (to a lesser extent) Micronesian countries, emigration is an important population safety valve. Although these countries have high fertility rates, the steady stream of people moving to the Pacific Rim countries keeps the resident population growth reasonably low. For example, the Tongan population increased by only 0.3% per annum over the last twenty years but the fertility rate is 4.2 births per woman. In the Cook Islands, each woman had an average of 3.3 children but emigration kept the population growth at below 0.4% per annum. More than 20,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, compared to 19,000 in the islands themselves. On other islands, populations have soared (4.2% in the Marshall Islands, 5.6% in the Northern Mariana Islands, 2.9% in Nauru, 2.6% in Palau). Melanesian people seldom emigrate and populations are rapidly increasing on their islands (3.4% in the Solomon Islands, 2.8% in Vanuatu, 2.6% in New Caledonia, and 2.3% in Papua New Guinea). 40. People who cannot migrate overseas, migrate from rural areas to urban areas. Moving overseas offers environmental and economic advantages to an island society, but domestic rural-urban migration poses environmental and economic difficulties. In the Marshall Islands, the annual urban growth is 8.2% and Ebeye’s population density is now over 23,200/km2. American Samoa’s Pago Pago is growing 8.2% per year. Port Vila, Vanuatu is growing 7.3% per year. Honiara in the Solomon Islands is growing by 6.2% each year. Suva, Nadi, and Lautoka (Fiji), Port Moresby and Lae (Papua New Guinea), Port Vila (Vanuatu), Honiara (Solomon Islands), Noumea (New Caledonia) and Nuku’alofa (Tonga) now have populations of unemployed people living in poverty in squatter housing. 41. Squatter housing is often on marginal land. In Nuku’alofa, for example, there has been substantial new housing development and squatter sites in prior mangrove swamps. The people in these areas are vulnerable to storm flooding, water borne diseases, and sanitation problems. 42. As populations increase, the added number of people places more stress on the limited natural resource systems, food and water supply and waste disposal infrastructure of the small island nations. Added costs of education, housing, health care, and administration place severe constraints on government budgets. H. Unsustainable agricultural practices43. Modern commercial agriculture is the most pervasive and environmentally destructive human activity in the sub-region. Its primary impacts are; (i) the disruption of existing ecosystems; (ii) biodiversity loss; (iii) destruction of soils; (iv) pollution of the surface and ground waters with agricultural chemicals; (v) pollution of wetlands and the marine environment with silt and agricultural chemicals; (vi) a major contributor to global warming through the loss of trees and generation of methane; and (vii) a contributor to landlessness. 44. Agriculture is the leading cause of permanent deforestation in the Pacific islands. Habitat removal and replacement with imported ecosystems caused serious and permanent loss of biodiversity. Sustainable traditional farming systems diminished as farmers entered the cash cropping system. Small productive mixed crop gardens with abundant trees were either burned or bulldozed to create large clearings. 45. In Fiji, widespread burning to clear land or remove sugar cane debris, continues to be a disaster for wildlife, and contributes to soil loss by altering soil characteristics making it more prone to erosion. On smaller islands, burning in combination with goat grazing, has devastated terrestrial ecosystems. Steep slope farming on the high islands has resulted in serious soil erosion, making these areas more vulnerable to the impact of cyclones and drought. In Samoa, for example, prior to the taro blight, 2,400 hectares of forest were being cleared a year for planting commercial fields of taro on steep slopes. 46. Agricultural toxins, used to control pests or clear vegetation, are carried by rain runoff throughout the island ecosystems. There have been numerous discoveries of pesticides in soils, water supplies, marine sediments and organisms in the sub-region. 47. Agricultural chemicals adhere to soil particles or are absorbed in organic compounds in the soil. During drought conditions these are blown off the island as dust and settle on the surface of the sea. The compound is dissolved in the organic microlayer of the sea and become concentrated in slicks on the sea surface. The slicks are a critical habitat for most species of fish and invertebrates (including sea grasses and corals), and the concentrated poisons endanger the reproductive capacity of marine organisms and the micro-organisms that form an important link in the oceanic food chain. I. Forestry48. Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu have extensive tropical rainforests. Commercial hardwood volumes of 30 to 80 m3/ha, exist in some parts of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Both governments have authorised commercial logging at unsustainable rates, causing global concern amongst conservationists and considerable strife between the local people, Asian logging companies, and the national governments. 49. In the Solomon Islands, licences have been granted to harvest up to 97% of the existing rainforests. The notably high rate of logging, while unsustainable over the medium and long-term, provides a large part of the nation’s foreign exchange needed to pay for expensive imports of fuel, machinery, vehicles, and electronics. 50. Commercial large scale logging activity results in severe erosion, soil degradation, reduction in carbon dioxide absorptive capacity and loss of biodiversity. This has carry-over effects of siltation of streams and coastal coral reefs. Aside from pollution of drinking and bathing water and loss of sea foods from siltation, the people living in logging areas become deprived of fuel wood for cooking, readily available timber and other materials for construction, medicinal plants, and important wild foods found in the forests. 51. Fiji and New Caledonia have important forest plantations. These are monoculture forests of rapid growing, easily cultivated hardwoods or pine trees. While monoculture plantations have considerable economic value for the woodchip, construction and paper industries, pine plantations are not suitable habitats for most of the indigenous plants and animals of these areas. J. Coastal and Marine52. Subsistence fisheries are of great importance to national food security and the coastal areas are not adaptable to sustained commercial fishing pressures, especially not destructive commercial fishing using dynamite, gill nets, diving equipment and poisons that rapidly destroy coral reef habitats and deplete species with slow growth rates. 53. In addition, pollution and habitat loss have depressed the ability of inshore stocks to recover from fishing pressure. Sea grass beds, coral reefs, mangroves, and the sea surface microlayer are all critical nursery habitats for marine plants and animals. Siltation, pesticides, hazardous chemicals, petroleum products and heavy metals have damaged many of these nursery habitats. 54. Deep reefs and sea
mounts, ranging from 100 to 500 metres below the surface, were believed to hold
great promise for commercial fishing. Subsequently, it was discovered that the
large fish in these depths were also very old, many not reaching maturity for
decades. Some of the fish harvested were over 40 years old. Fishers in Tonga,
for example, began to deplete sea mounts - one after the other - within a few
years after their discovery. K. Mineral extraction56. Mining is a non-renewable activity and environmental management is essentially a process of removing the minerals with minimal harm to the environment and maximum profit to society. There are three kinds of mining in the Pacific islands: (i) mineral extraction (nickel, gold, silver, copper, iron); (ii) construction mining (for fill, building stone and cement); and (iii) oil and gas extraction. Each activity has it’s own environmental impact during extraction, processing, and transport. 57. Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia and Fiji are the major mineral mining centres in the sub-region, and Papua New Guinea also produces petroleum and natural gas, mostly from off-shore wells. Mining in all these countries results in considerable localised environmental damage. Regulations attempt, with varying degrees of success, to mitigate damage from mine tailings, processing fumes, and siltation of streams and rivers. In New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea, for example, minerals are taken by strip mining in mountainous areas. The more rugged the terrain, the more practical difficulties in preventing massive siltation of waterways. Prior to the 1980’s there were few, if any, environmental precautions taken with mining activities. Siltation of waterways and coastal areas was common. Even after regulations were enacted, the practicalities of mine operation in rugged terrain often precluded effective environmental protection. For example, siltation settlement ponds at the OK Tedi gold mine in Papua New Guinea were destroyed by an earthquake yet the mine was allowed to operate. 58. Mining for construction material is universal in the Pacific islands and is a problem of increasing concern, especially on the smaller islands. Removal of sand (for concrete) from beaches causes coastal erosion and loss of valuable tourism resources. Dredging of coral reefs and lagoon sand flats, and use of corals for building material often causes permanent damage to coastal ecosystems. L. Tourism59. Tourism, especially ecotourism, is one of the fastest growing industries in the Pacific sub-region. Of all the industries, tourism holds the most promise for accomplishing the sustainable goals of Agenda 21. The Pacific islands are wealthy when it comes to natural beauty. Tourism has been included in the top eight priority sustainable development areas for the Pacific Island Countries. The smaller Pacific island nations have much less success in all sectors of tourism than Australia and New Zealand. Fiji, Guam, Saipan, Cook Islands, New Caledonia and French Polynesia are the major tourist destinations in the Pacific islands. 60. Although the tourism industry is sensitive to the need to preserve local ecosystems, local pollution and availability of water supplies, un-scenic litter, peri-urban shanty towns, and high costs of feeding, housing, and transporting the tourists make it increasingly difficult for the Pacific islands to compete with other destinations. 61. Tourists themselves place considerable additional stress on local ecosystems. Tourists are likely to use more water and demand larger amounts of high quality local and imported foods. Visitors to the Pacific islands consume large amounts of sea foods and thus increase fishing pressure, especially for unusual or luxury foods. In some countries, like New Caledonia - sport fishing boats outnumber local fishing boats. Tourism also adds significantly to the solid and liquid waste stream. |
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