Island nation takes on the world’s polluters

Jaspreet Kindra in IRIN: A Russian film crew arrived in Palau at the end of 2013 to shoot the reality show ‘Octpob’ on one of the archipelago’s more than 500 islands. The show leaves contestants in isolated locales with limited water and food to test their survival skills. In 2004, the US version of the show, Survivor, was also shot in Palau.

Palauans welcomed the TV crew and its glittering cast of celebrities - it did, after all, bring in much-needed revenue. But the situation presented an uncomfortable irony: while Russian and American contestants have tested their survival abilities in Palau, Russia and the US have adopted strong positions at the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) talks, which could threaten Palau’s own chances of surviving as sea levels rise.

The UNFCCC talks aim to come up with a treaty that assigns responsibility for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and for the provision financial and technical support to vulnerable countries, like Palau, that have not contributed to global warming. The talks have met resistance from the developed world and emerging economies like China and India, which say they are not responsible for past emissions and should not be held accountable for emissions in the future.

Time is running out for low-lying islands like Palau. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a recent assessment, “if the world were to stay on the current fossil-fuel intensive growth model” dealing with the impact of changing climate in 14 of the Pacific Ocean islands, including Palau, could cost them 12.7 percent of their collective annual GDP equivalent by 2100....

NOAA image of shark silhouettes near Palau

Palau to focus on tourism, prohibit commercial fishing

Taipei Times via AP, United Nations: The president of Palau on Tuesday announced that his Pacific island nation will ban commercial fishing and become a marine sanctuary.

Palauan President Tommy Remengesau said in a keynote address to a UN meeting on “Healthy Oceans and Seas” that once current fishing contracts with Taiwan, Japan and some private companies expire, only fishing by island residents and tourists will be allowed in its 200 nautical mile (370.4km) exclusive economic zone.

Remengesau said establishing “a 100 percent marine sanctuary” will enable Palau to preserve “a pristine environment” and promote snorkeling, scuba diving and ecotourism as an alternative way to grow its economy. “It will make a difference if it’s just a matter of feeding ourselves and feeding the tourists,” he told a news conference. As it is right now, we’re feeding the tourist and ourselves plus millions of people outside the territory,” he said.

Palau’s population of about 20,000 people is spread across 250 islands. It shares maritime boundaries with Indonesia, the Philippines and Micronesia.

The country announced in 2009 it was creating the world’s first shark sanctuary by banning all commercial shark fishing in its territorial waters. It has also adopted the most restrictive law against bottom trawling. In 2012, its Rock Islands Southern Lagoon was named a UNESCO World Heritage site...

An aerial view of Peleliu in Palau, shot by US National Park Service