Pacific urged to chart waters for benefit of economy

Transcript

A New Zealand applied scientist says training Pacific nations in the science of hydrography could boost Pacific economies and even save lives.

Under international law, coastal states are required to provide official charts and maps of oceans, ports and harbours so ships can navigate a safe voyage in their waters.

New Zealand's national hydrographer, Adam Greenland, is in Fiji this month to help provide training to a range of Pacific nations including Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Cook Islands, Tonga, and Samoa.

Mr Greenland spoke to Amelia Langford about the importance of hydrography to Pacific countries, especially in light of the region's growing cruise ship trade.

ADAM GREENLAND: Well many of these countries will not have capability, or capacity, or expertise, or awareness and so they just don't know or understand their obligations. And in many cases, the primary charting authority is taken up by another country so for instance over the years competent charting authorities like NZ or Australia have provided charting coverage. However, over the last 100 years many of these areas have not been surveyed to meet modern standards and meet the needs of contemporary shipping like cruise tourist liners or some of the big tankers, say.

AMELIA LANGFORD: And the countries you are talking to, or the people, the representatives, are they showing a lot of interest in this field?

AG:Oh, yes they are. They understand that in order to grow their economies they need infrastructure and charts provide infrastructure. It allows trade, enables trade, the safe passage of people, and will allow them then too gain economic benefit from this. It will also allow the increase of a cruise liner tourism - cruise liner tourism needs a number of - a certain density if you like - of ports and harbours to call in and all of those larger ships they now use electronic charts and that is a mandatory requirement around the world so the Pacific Island countries are very very aware that they need this infrastructure, it will grow their economies and attract more cruise liners and tourism to those countries.

AL: How key is it that countries do become aware of hydrography and start implementing it?

AG: It is absolutely critical. As I say, it is not an obligation it's a mandatory requirement that they provide for hydrographic services and if they don't their economies will suffer and they won't reach their full potential and there could be an adverse outcome in terms of ships grounding because you don't have adequate and appropriate charts and there could be a loss of life so it is absolutely critical.  You know, when we talk about infrastructure most people think of roads but in terms of the high seas and ports and harbours and for islands critical infrastructure is charting and proper maps to navigate by to enable trade to make it efficient and safe and the analogy would be say if you build a golf course and you don't have any roads going to it, nobody is going to go there, it is not going to be sustainable they are not going to be able to grow the economy of those golf courses, get income, and so the analogy would be the same - if you don't have charts then people aren't going to come to the Pacific Islands.

AL: I am assuming a lot of people don't know about hydrography?

AG: Well, no, they don't. But if you can imagine, trade around the world would never have happened if it wasn't for hydrography. If Captain Cook hadn't created his charts vessels wouldn't have had safe passages in bringing trades and goods back to Europe. Between Europe and faraway countries and same with Flinders around the coast of Australia. So hydrography comes from exploration and the need to trade and grow and also to grow strong economies. But in light of the international SOLAS convention [the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea] that came about from the sinking of the Titanic. When the Titanic sank there was a huge loss of life and from that globally, the world, the United Nations or the League of Nations came together to put through an international convention to ensure that ships were properly equipped to save the lives on board - that's life jackets, life boats, and also requirements came in - where they were required to carry up to date nautical charting so that is the international convention under which we operate and which we are required to provide hydrographic services.

AL: It all goes all the way back to the Titanic...

AG: It does, that's right.  And another example in terms of what this means on the ground well cruise ship tourism is growing exponentially within the region. It hasn't been really explored this market and it hasn't been properly charted but many countries are now experiencing huge growth in cruise ship tourism, the large cruise ships, and figures are projected to rise initially to one million cruise ship tourists by the year 2020 - now that figure is likely to be reached in 2017. And more vessels are coming down to the region and these vessels carry thousands of tourists, these big cruise liners,  and they have also got one or two thousand crew onboard. So you are looking at a potential of four to five if not more cruise liners and this is going to grow in the future so it's a massive boost for the economies of these countries but also there is a need to be safe for these vessels to carry proper charts to make sure our citizens are safe. Many cruise ships will go to less remote areas or areas of historical interest like for example Tonga where the meeting on the Bounty happened and many of those areas are not properly charted so these very large cruise vessels with very large numbers of passengers and crew on are going to areas which are not properly charted.

AL: Right, okay, so once these international companies, those cruise ship liners, know that that water has been charted it will be a game changer?

AG: Oh it will be, yes, and the cruise ships are now lobbying hard for proper surveys of these areas because they need a certain density of port areas and remote islands, beaches, where they can call to make their itineraries viable. That is happening very successfully now in Vanuatu so Vanuatu is a success story as far as that is concerned.

Land Information New Zealand's national hydrographer, Adam Greenland.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, also known as SOLAS, require coastal states to carry out hydrographic surveys and provide nautical charts.