MADRID, 16 DECEMBER 2019 (FIJI GOVT) – Fiji’s Minister Voreqe Bainimarama has called on Pacific leaders to lobby and bring together 100 nations by 2025 to agree to an integrated management of their whole Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) which would be determined by a set of guidelines and targets.
Prime Minister Bainimarama, while delivering his remarks at the Oceans Management side-event, with the theme; Integrated Management of 100 Per Cent of EEZ with up to 30 percent Marine Protected Areas By 2030 said Fiji has found great hope in the many friends of the ocean that have shown their support to our cause.
“Now, we need to turn those friendships into commitments that will aggressively protect our vital ocean ecosystem before irreversible damage is done,” he said.
“We’ve come together to build on the momentum of our ocean-focused negotiations and pull together a group of forward-facing nations that are committed to achieving 100 per cent integrated ocean management of our exclusive economic zones.
“Fiji has already committed to the 2030 target of 100 per cent sustainable management of our EEZ, with at least 30 per cent to be declared Marine Protected Areas. Today, we officially challenge others to follow our lead.
“A 100 per cent EEZ strategy can provide a regulated and managed ocean buffer between growing coastal populations and the high seas by limiting pollution, controlling fisheries markets, increasing fish-stock, protecting biodiversity, rebuilding ecosystems, and monitoring shipping, among other benefits.”
In the Pacific, the Prime Minister said that the oceans are the lifeblood of our environment, economies an planet.
“In Fiji, we have called for a 10-year moratorium on seabed mining which would last through to 2030 and this will pave the way for a decade of scientific research that allows us to better understand the impact of human activity on our oceans,” he said.
“We stand here today in support of the idea of a coalition that will reshape the world’s EEZs at a time when big, blue ideas have never been needed more. We call on all those that are already forward-thinking in their commitment to 30 per cent MPAs by 2030 to join us here because without a holistic policy across all our blue space, we will not be able to fully ensure our MPAs.
“Together, we have the potential to forever turn the tides in the campaign to save our oceans, so let us seize this opportunity before it’s too late.”
UN Special Envoy for the Ocean Peter Thomson, who was also a guest speaker at the event, said the health ecosystem is essential to the survival of humanity.
“Every country in the world with EEZ should have Marine Protected Areas,” he said.
“We have a plan which is the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Development Agenda and it’s crucial that we have faith in the implementation of this plan.”
Prime Minister Bainimarama also officiated at the closing of the Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion last night where he shared Fiji’s stand on oceans.
“Priority number one this week has been advancing the Oceans Pacific Pathway. It has been an honour to stand with our Pacific family as we push the rest of the world to create a channel in the UNFCCC process to recognise that climate crisis is an oceans crisis,” he added.
“As Pacific leaders we’ll be arriving in Glasgow, next year with immense and immovable expectations for global action, our eyes and the eyes of billions of concerned global citizens are on the leaders of developed economies. In achieving net-zero, we will be accepting zero excuses.”
