Sonny Whitelaw

Politicians and fishing practices in Vanuatu

This author had two separate altercations with the government over the protection of cetaceans and marine mammals.

The first involved an attempt by shady 'oceanarium' operators who wanted to capture dolphins for the marine mammal trade. Greenpeace declined to assist my one-person campaign (read 'battle' in the literal sense) to protect marine mammals in Vanuatu waters. However, thanks to Sea Shepard (particularly Sue Marshall in Sydney) who offered help, time, legal advice, moral support in my darkest hours, and the coordinated backing of multiple smaller organisations around the world on one memorable day, cetaceans are now protected under Vanuatu law.

In the second altercation a few years later, dolphins were 'accidentally' trapped by local villagers in Erakor Lagoon. Thanks to the expertise of Trevor Long, Marine Operations Manager of Sea World (Australia) a coordinated effort resulted in a world first successful release of delphinus delphis. Lest anyone mistake Sea World for being 'just another theme park with captive dolphins' what few realise is that this park is viewed by many of its employees as the revenue generating arm of their highly successful marine research and rescue organisation. Trevor and I have the interesting distinction of, after having been threatened by an entire group of outraged villagers, being verbally drawn and quartered by the then Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Maxim Carlot, for releasing 'their' dolphins. The tirade is something of which I am particularly proud :-). Suffice to say this event was a major contributing factor to why I no longer live in Vanuatu.

Legislation notwithstanding, Vanuatu has a shipping registry in New York. Despite its own laws and being a signatory to CITES, Vanuatu does not monitor the activities of registered vessels, specifically those who use tuna nets. When there's that much money to be made, why be picky, hm?

Vanuatu has since sold out its entire marine habitat future to tropical fish collectors. Sadly, with no legislation to protect the reefs or monitor harvesting, these 'collectors' are using every illicit trick in the book to decimate entire reef systems. In the words of one Australian tropical fish importer, 'It's open season in Vanuatu, we can strip the place clean.'

Long term thinkers they ain't.

Still, Vanuatu is a nice place to visit, so... Other web sites featuring 20 years of commercial landscape, underwater and ni-Vanuatu photography: