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hello my name is alan tidwell i'm the director of the center for australian and new zealand studies at georgetown university and i'm pleased to present to you today blue pacific futures featuring uh dame meg taylor secretary general of the pacific island forum i'm pleased to uh introduce this event today uh this is a wonderful new partnership between the center for australia and new zealand and pacific studies at georgetown and the center for pacific island studies at the university of hawaii at manoa and this is uh an occasional talk and we're so pleased that uh kicking off this talk is uh dame meg taylor and let me introduce meg to you and uh she'll speak for a little while and then we'll have two discussions uh uh uh professor uh tara kapitalaka of the university of hawaii at manoa and jerry finnen an associate at the center for australian new zealand and pacific studies at georgetown as discussants let me introduce to you dame meg taylor dame meg is a native of papua new guinea and she is the secretary general of the pacific island forum a role she started in 2014 she's the first woman to take that role and to lead the pacific island forum uh into this this what will be hopefully a postcode world um before taking on this role dame meg was the ombudsman uh for the international finance corporation and the multilateral investment guarantee agency of the world bank prior to that dame meg was ambassador to the united states canada and mexico from 1989 to 1994. she holds her llm from harvard university and an llb from the university of melbourne it's my pleasure to introduce you to dame meg taylor and ask meg to speak to us about blue pacific futures what does the future hold for the pacific day meg thank you very much alan and good morning from the forum secretariat uh in suva fiji to all of you around the world i'm very pleased to join you all this morning at this inaugural webinar series on blue pacific futures to begin my reflections allow me to introduce very briefly the pacific island forum and pacific regionalism the pacific island forum grouping comprises 18 members made up of independent self-governing states as well as two territories indeed this is the pinnacle of much broader regional architecture that underpins operationalizes and progresses regionalism in the pacific region the pacific islands forum is representation of our collective effort as one pacific region to advocate our priorities and progress our regional positions within the broader global context the pacific islands forum was formally established in 1971 and reaches its 50th anniversary in august next in all respects the pacific islands forum was the very demonstration of pacific regions of up until recently to appreciate this grouping and how it has evolved today one has to understand the history and context within which it was established one could say that this that the forum was birthed out of political frustration a frustration of the independent pacific island states who wish to have great autonomy and authority in discussing political matters that concern them collectively including regional development indeed rather so commerce emara a founding father of the pacific islands forum eloquently recounts the rationale for the establishment of the forum in his memoir the pacific way so i urge you to try and read that book to put it simply pacific island nations were racing towards independence and with this newfound power and independent identity pacific island nations wanted to have a greater say in their development trajectories and the related political discussions required riding on the coattails of this newfound regional identity was the success of regionally coordinated pursuits on matters that were important to the region the establishment of the nuclear-free zone in the pacific through the rarotonga nuclear free treaty in 1985 and the successful conclusion of the negotiations on the law of the sea uh to name um a few it is near five in its um near five decade history the pacific islands forum has continued to shape and guide pacific regionalism including its efforts at internet regional integration this journey has not been easy and indeed it has registered successes as well as failures and still we continue to work together to identify issues whereby our collective voices will ensure its successful progression we continue to demonstrate collective efforts in areas that are pertinent to our development as a region including in the areas of trade sustainable economic development social inclusion governance human rights self-determination and security on sexual issues the key focus really is on our fisheries from a global perspective it is easy to question the relevance and ongoing value of a collective grouping such as the pacific islands forum given its size and characteristics it is always easy to overlook the significance of the forum when compared to the might of other regional groupings such as the european union the african union asean and the caribbean community to name a few however to do so i would say death would be a grave mistake the pacific region is nestled between some of the world's largest economic powers together pacific nations are custodians of the largest and richest ocean resource in the world the pacific ocean which is the pacific ocean and indeed it is on this very resource that the pacific islands forum has galvanized and reinvigorated its collective solidarity since 2017 under the blue pacific identity at the multilateral level the votes of the forum island countries and together with other small island developing states are a more formidable grouping whose votes are sought after particularly for the u.n security council seats but historically the forum has demonstrated its importance as a strategic asset amidst the geopolitics and tensions at the global level indeed some would offer that the 1987 multilateral treaty on fisheries between pacific island countries and the united states was concluded as a result of increasing russian interest in the region during the cold war perhaps an indication of how the region would drive competing external interests in the region in years to come with that context in mind allow me to turn to the present and pacific regionalism as we know it today i assume the role of the secretary-general to the pacific island forum in the latter end of 2014 the first woman to hold this position in the history of the forum as a secretary general to the pacific island forum i had the pacific island forum secretariat the institution tasked with delivering on regionism in the pacific region i came into this position on at the end of the summit miranda-led 2013 review of the pacific plan a robust and comprehensive regional review of the effectiveness of the pacific plan amongst other matters the review considered the governance and priority setting of pacific regionalism and to what extent the regional institutional architecture supported the strategic directions of the pacific plan what the 2013 review had found was the pacific regionalism had i quote lost its polities and that the entire regional agenda was now driven by technocrats and that citizens voices about the kind of pacific that is emerging are not heard in the absence of coherent effective regional governance end of quote by maratha so therefore my work was clear and i had to firstly reignite the politics in regionalism through a prioritized and impactful regional agenda and secondly institute a process that would ensure that the voice of the pacific people was heard and needed so what ensured from these two tasks were a range of activities which taken together were to affect what was recommended through the 2013 um review of the pacific we instituted a gradual yet systematic change to forum structure though in no particular order firstly the implementation of the framework of pacific regionalism which included the institutionalization of inclusivity in the forum structures and processes achieve this formal spaces were established on the margins of standing forum meetings for our civil society and private sector to have a voice and feed into the discussion of the forum members at both the ministerial and at the leaders at the leaders retreat during the pacific island forum meetings itself secondly strengthening political relationships between and on behalf of the pacific island forum and the collective identity that is the blue pacific identity testament to this is also the settlement of key political declarations in regional security and climate change uh firstly the boy declaration of 2018 the security declaration um the kanakai law declaration for urgent climate action now in 2019 and just recently the pacific humanitarian pathway on covert 19. thirdly the reform and refocus of the forum secretary in its operations to ensure that it was fit for purpose and would deliver a prioritized regionalism agenda for the pacific and fourthly the implementation of the sustainable funding strategy which was designed to ensure that the secretariat delivers independent and robust regional policy advice to the forum with adequate and predictable funding from its membership a key tenant of this strategy and this is really important was ownership and the rebalancing of the assessed membership contribution of the pacific island forum to 51 49 and a 49 ratio whereby the forum island members would contribute 51 and australia and new zealand contribute 49 of total assessed membership contributions whilst we worked on these key initiatives within and amongst ourselves as the pacific island forum around us we were beset with unparallel unparalleled geostrategic interests which were beginning to permeate throughout the region and in the bilateral and regional relationships that were being pursued in and by the pacific region but let me turn to the securing of the blue pacific continent first in 2017 samoa assumed the role of chair of the pacific island forum and with that it set a new impetus for collective action in the pacific through the blue pacific identity the blue pacific sought to recapture the collective potential of our shared stewardship of the pacific ocean based on an explicit recognition of our shared ocean identity ocean geography and ocean resources it strengthens collective action as one blue pacific continent by putting the blue pacific at the center of the policy making and collective action for advancing the pacific island forum leader's vision for our region indeed to strengthen our claim to the blue pacific identity we must ensure that we are able to secure the blue pacific continent for us and for our future generations in effect we must formalize our boundaries as provided for under the 1982 law of the sea convention to date 13 of the 48 shared boundaries remain to be concluded and five high c limits remain to be declared work has also begun on the region in the region to ensure that members maritime zones are set into perpetuity and once delineated cannot be challenged or reduced particularly as a result of sea level rise and climate change i am of the firm belief that our identity secures our collective home the blue pacific continent which is designated by our exclusive economic zones that cover over 40 million square kilometers with these foundations in place the region now works towards the 2050 strategy for the blue pacific continent as mandated by leaders in 2019 this strategy comes at an opportune time and will inform the region's trajectory over the next three decades at its core the 2050 strategy is about securing the future and development aspirations of our blue pacific and recognizes that this will require strong regional collective action and align support from our international partners the challenges to regionalism that i've observed coming into the role of secretary general has since been severely altered as a result of the covert 19 pandemic however i will offer a few thoughts on the matter perhaps the most prominent challenge i was immediately faced with as secretary general was the relevance of the pacific island forum and by relation the pacific island forum secretariat indeed some have commented that the suspension of fiji as a member of the forum in 2009 had resulted in the increased prominence of sub-original groupings in the pacific including the melanesian spearhead group and the pacific small island developing states grouping a consequence of this was the perceived demise in the relevance of the pacific island forum whilst it reinforced the urgency with which to implement my two key taskings i set out under 2013 review i grew to appreciate the role of sub-regional groupings and their purposes we could not have achieved our collective positions in climate negotiations without them with regard to geopolitics we continue to navigate with the increasing external interest in the pacific region coupled with increasing preferences for bilateral engagements and relations to support national priorities and positions these serve to further divert interest in a collective forum wide approach to development-oriented partnerships with our forum dialogue partners whilst bilateralism is important the collective can be the powerhouse of external engagement and diplomacy in recent years we've begun to see global politics play out in the regional context the increasing yet quiet presence of china in the pacific has triggered a range of pacific focus track strategies and aid programs in our region these sentiments are not a secret and indeed pacific leaders have commented on the ongoing tussle fight publicly at the end of the day pacific leaders will manage these competing interests and leverage opportunities that will benefit their nations at a regional security level we recognize the need to strengthen regional security efforts given the changing political geostrategic trends in the region this resulted in the 2018 boy declaration which built on the bikitawa declaration and further expanded the definition of regional security beyond its traditional definition to now include matters such as human and climate security however however moving forward the regional security landscape as with other key sectors will continue to be shaped now and into the immediate future by covert 19. climate change is the single greatest threat to the livelihoods security and well-being of the peoples of the pacific it is by far the largest and most influential trigger of regionalism and collective action in recent years and has triggered strong advocacy efforts the world over and has catapulted the pacific region to the forefront of international politics and advocacy perhaps one of the most memorable events of strong coherent and coordinated pacific advocacy would be the region's efforts at cop21 in paris france in 2015. however to be frank climate action also continues to be the most challenging of regional initiatives admittedly whilst it should be the one issue that everyone is committed to the balancing of contrasting views on climate action and advocacy continues to be a challenge as a consequence we continue to see how members utilize various forms of regional groupings to progress and advocate priorities at the global rebel however moving forward to 2019 we uh or back to 2010 we have seen the political settlement of what has become the strongest political declaration on climate change by the pacific island forum and that is the kanakai declaration on urgent climate action now so i offer these views as me observations from my tenure as secretary general and in conclusion um i just want to say that regionalism is not an easy task to balance the different views and positions of 18 members who are quite different in political economic and social characteristics is an onerous task regionism is a long game the fruits of your labor are not immediate but they will eventuate if we continue to remain committed to it and its ideals and at the end of the day we must remain true to our commitment to our people our countries and our region if we serve in their interest then we come out better for it at the end and finally and perhaps most importantly regionalism can only work if we have strong leaders who may who remain committed to this ideal leadership is absolutely crucial to t e prosecution of regionalism in the pacific region history has indeed confirmed this the strength of the collective is very much dependent on the appetite of the political leadership to continue to commit to regionalism so i thank you for giving me the time thank you so much dame egg that was an inspiring and thoughtful uh presentation i'd like to now turn to our two discussants and we'll start off with kabba dalaka the director of the center for pacific island studies at the university of hawaii and just tara before i throw to you just a quick comment if i could i'd like to encourage our audience members to use the q a function uh to to lodge questions so please anytime uh that a question comes to you by all means do lodge a question in the q a function tara over to you uh thank you alan and thank you tomas uh meg for the wonderful presentation uh and thank you for the opportunity uh to comment i'll i'll be really really brief uh a couple of things that i want to mention uh just to highlight some of the things that they made taylor mentioned and the first one is you know the the blue pacific as a mechanism for enhancing regional uh regionalism and collective efforts in collective diplomacy something that we've seen work in the past uh and for the for for things like what meg mentioned in relation to the anti-nuclear movement rarotonga treaty uh the collective efforts from fisheries and so forth and so it has proven that collective diplomacy does work for pacific island countries and we've seen it work in the past and therefore looking forward uh to see how we can utilize it particularly for issues such as climate change uh which is specific wide a couple of things to talk about though is that you know as i see it the blue pacific is not only an attempt to enhance regionalism but also an attempt to assert pacific island interest in a rapidly changing global order and saying to people out there that yes some of the issues that you have raised are important but for pacific island countries for instance at the center of a lot of the interest for pacific countries is issues such as climate change and so it is a mechanism for interception of pacific island interest in this changing global order uh and in these the two major powers and and uh perhaps uh they may tail i can talk about this later is that the two major powers that have influenced the space that we call the pacific are the u.s and increasingly china the us and its allies and particularly the u.s indo-pacific strategy and how that influences not only relationships with pacific island countries but also relationships between pacific island countries and therefore you know the politics within members of the pacific island forum and on the other hand we have china's growing interest especially associated with the maritime silk road and in these relationships one thing that made mention is the fact that these countries china and the us and to a certain extent australia and new zealand have bilateral relationships but at the same time they have this multilateral commitment as post-forum dialogue partners and so the perhaps you know sometimes the the disconnect or maybe the tensions between bilateral relationships and multilateral relationship is something that perhaps worth looking at and in this discussion as well you know it sometimes bring to mind the kinds of tensions or the kinds of politics that existed during the cold war period and how is this playing out in the region is this what we are seeing a reoccurrence of the cold war era kind of politics between superpowers and pacific island countries are caught in between and trying to negotiate how they fit into this the second point i want to raise is the membership of the pacific island forum and that has changed over time and i'm wondering whether the changing membership particularly the inclusion of places like french polynesia racist tensions within the forum and whether it's friend polynesia that has become a member of the forum or is it france and so discussions about changing membership and whether or not that gives space for others like take for instance places like uh guam or american samoa or other pacific territories u.s territories to then want to become member of the pacific islands forum uh the final thing i wanted to mention or two more things the first one is covet 19 and i was wondering you know so there are both bilateral or national responses to covet 19 and there are also multilateral responses and i know that the pacific island forum has put in place the pacific humanitarian pathway as a response to covet 19. now outside of the leaders discussions amongst a lot of pacific islanders corporate 19 has provided an opportunity for us to not only examine how we respond to it but also look at alternative ways or pathways to development that these gives us the opportunity to look at are there other ways of doing things that are different from what we had prior to covet 19. so i'm wondering whether that discussion is only taking place amongst ngos and church organizations or is it beginning to filter in with discussions among specific island leaders and my final comment is other regional organizations as we know the pacific island forum is not the only regional organization there are others and there are lots of them out there both intergovernmental as well as non-government organizations and i'm wondering how they fit into the blue pacific and moving forward so those are my comments for now and thank you again uh meg for sharing your time and wisdom and experience on this issue jay meg um i'll leave this to you would you like to respond to tara's comments or should we go to jerry and take the the two uh discussions together what's your preference ira i'll respond to tara if i may yeah please thank you so let me um first of all just go to the geopolitics um way as secretary general the way i i see it terrible on the geopolitics sir china has a very strong relationship with our many of our countries and our countries have also signed up to the belton road or the built in seaways those relationships um you know around the economic issues but there's strong political political relationship you see other countries that have a relationship with a stronger relationship with the united states than others the focus of the us very much being in the north and not in the southern pacific there's been an absence although there's been greater activity uh over the last year with covert 19 you see uh the interesting united states you also see the the progress of the indo-pacific strategy and the partners to that japan australia new zealand united states are very much more active within the region how does the pacific and how did the leadership handle that well i think the pacific leaders know the art of diplomacy and they really use this uh to their advantage so that what the benefits for uh for our countries are in terms of the relations they have with these two big powers but also with other with other powers that are in the region we have an agreement called the 1992 arrangement of the countries that recognize china and taiwan and in all our meetings and we also remind both both of those countries that um that everybody is treated equally and accorded um the respect because we had because member states had recognized different countries so that's the way it's done through the forum uh we've had our ups and downs at some points but would try to keep this maintained just over the last year particularly though you notice um china's role very much more subdued strong relations with its bilateral partners and it supports us in our trade work in china and then of course you've got the u.s now trying to make a re-entry back into the southern pacific with regards to the membership of the forum the decision to enter to allow the the two french territories new caledonia and french polynesia was very much it was the decision of the leaders the implications of um the membership of the forum i think also bears on what you raise as your fourth point on on regional architecture because you have uh metropolitan powers that also sit on as members of some of our crop agencies these are the regional organizations and i um sit as chair of the crop agencies and i am very frank about this now that as i'm leaving it is it is hard work because the decisions of the pacific island forum should be the most the most important the paramount decisions for this region but you've got other institutions that have members like the united states the uk and france as members and then the influence that they can have in those other agencies is is also important so the part of the 2050 strategy there is a component of that that will be a review of regional architecture and i think that that review should be very very robust so that you get some alignment in this region as to what the leaders of the pacific want and what we should be doing there is i'm not dismissing regional park dialogue partners i'm not dismissing the partnerships that we have with the european union and other other countries but it's about the region taking control of its own destiny and that for the future um you mentioned the issue around curvature 19 and the work that we've done in the development of these eight protocols which have been very important for the movement of people but particularly the movement of health supplies into our member states i think what we've found is there are three key one of the key issues that has emerged for for us is that there is a real weakness in our health system so we have to strengthen that to be able to look after our own people there is also countries that invested very heavily in tourism have suffered a lot because they because of the jobs that people had so economic recovery and in that deliberation of course people are talking about well what kind of economic recovery and does it have to be what it used to be is there other should we we should be diversifying what should we be diversifying into to sustain ourselves first and then if we're going to trade how we trade and we're looking at from where we sit at the secretariat looking at e-commerce etc so that uh people have an opportunity train i think the the broader debate on the future and how we manage all this and the well the the philosophy i guess that will emerge from the blue pacific will be in the future the leaders have asked for a meeting on this in their retreat in december and hopefully through that we'll get some direction from the top um the foreign ministers have deliberated on it but they're really looking at how we're going to manage this going forward in terms of recovery and what assistance that's needed to get into make sure that we our people are secure i'll leave it at that thanks thank you tomas thank you very much dameg let's now turn to jerry finnen an associate of the center for australia new zealand and pacific studies at georgetown and also an adjunct faculty member at cornell university jerry over to you uh good good morning and and thank you dame meg for that very thought-provoking and wide-ranging reflection uh my questions largely complement those of of taras perhaps with a little more specificity uh you've you've mentioned uh the us and uh the the cold war and uh as you know hawaii congressman ed case along with colleagues has been instrumental in forming a bipartisan pacific islands caucus uh in in july of this year he also introduced something known as the blue pacific act which lays out a new vision for u.s foreign policy in the pacific islands region and proposes one billion dollars per year to pacific island nations over the next five years without wanting to be cynical about it i'm just wondering uh from your perspective to what extent might this be a transactional replay of cold war efforts to repulse soviet influence in the pacific islands or alternatively uh perhaps a long-term framework for sustained us engagement and partnership with its neighbors in the region certainly that's been getting a lot of attention of late around washington and so i would just really value your perspective on that the second thought that came to mind as i was was listening to your reflections uh has to do with uh the way in which the north pacific and south pacific sort of fit together as as one region in light of the strong linkages that exist among the three pacific island nations in free association with the us as well as the solidarity recently articulated by kiribati and nauru uh with respect to the selection of the next pif secretary general i'm just wondering in a more general way uh to what how do you foresee uh things going these are either north and south pacific do you foresee a difficult path ahead for regionalism that includes uh both parts of the region uh are there their cultural differences that make that uh more of a challenge than it might uh otherwise be and then just uh in conclusion i was wondering if you would be kind enough to offer uh some thoughts uh as your tenure as your six-year tenure as pacific island forum secretary general concludes uh what are some of the accomplishments that you take greatest pride in uh what are some of the things that you feel most optimistic about going forward thank you very much jerry um let me uh let me look at yes let me go to this um blue pacific act uh um i think some of my colleagues may have had a a read of it i've not really paid a lot of attention to it i have to be really honest only because um if i was going to be passing legislation in a parliament that or a congress that takes the name of the pacific it would be nice to have some discussions about the future and the relationships but obviously the congressman doesn't see that as necessary um is it a transaction replay it could be but the question here would be if you're going to put a billion dollars how how best is it used and what part of the pacific is going to be focused on and if you look at um what what if i was asked a question where would i put the emphasis on it'd be on education and making sure that you had scholarships available to students to come to hawaii but then to go beyond hawaii onto the mainland into some of the top schools there and make sure that you have that in in for a decade to two decades to three decades so that you get you build up um a cadre of people that have a really an interest an understanding of the of the united states have a relationship with people there in the united states and i've learned from institutions in the united states it just makes a big difference in people's lives so i look at the thousands of students that are hundreds of students that go from the pacific and then from all the countries themselves through a bilateral relationship to china and i can drive through beijing and i kid you not and come to a traffic light and all these papua new guineans shouting out my name because we just have students in many parts of that city um what we'd like to see is an investment in the future generations i think that um i i think that uh you know a billion dollars is a lot of money but it's how it's going to be spent and this is going to be spent to ensure that the us's position is secured and how and then the question is how best you do secure that miss it through the relationship with people or is it through relationships with institutions or is it about the broader militarization of the pacific um i'd like to see a sustained partnership and i think the only way that that can happen is through investment in people and you ask the question about you know the differences in the pacific well there are there's melanesia polynesia and micronesia and um i think what it's at the very heart of it is what i've been trying to emphasize is that yes you have regionals you have sub-regional groupings etc um can you just move that it's distracting sorry um but the but the at the at the heart of it is that recognizing that there are differences but that's the most important part of us is we have different music we have different languages my country itself has that you know a third of the world's languages but what we do is we bring it together uh as a regional solid with through regional solidarity i would really uh be very saddened if there was a split b tween the north and the south we've brought our countries together there are different political alliances with the united states but then you've got the french territories and as tara has asked about you know the french influence or the french being at the table when you have french polynesia in my and new caledonia at the at the table and you have those influences the job of the secretary general is to help the leaders to navigate that particularly those political political relationships i think um the cultural differences are our they they do enrich us because when we visit and go to each other's countries for the forum meetings it's uh sharing all those differences but what is it that holds the pacific together and this is this is at the very heart of what the blue pacific is it's about how we value our customs our value our families value our community and those decisions and the processes we make decisions for all of us are so very very important now the third one you gave me i've just asked my nicola to look at so the accomplishments that we've done over the over the my tenure i think the one that uh i value has the most has been inclusivity i'm a great proponent of that uh we have 13 million people in this region the voice of people the voice of young people women but making sure that the future generation is secured and that what they have to say is important is really what i have tried to make sure is implemented and i had the you know that was what the outcome of the review the third 2013 review was and we've done we've come a long way i don't think there's anywhere else in the world where the representatives of the private sector but the csos actually meet with the forum leaders on the days of their meeting um what i would be most concerned about oh no no i'm just going back to that the second thing that i'm really i take away that i am pleased with is that i think we've brought politics back into the discussions and politics back into the region and it was very evident in the negotiations of the kanakalu declaration on climate and i know many people were uncomfortable with that but politics is uncomfortable but that's what political leadership is about is to have those tough discussions and then find the way forward and that's you know we we've been able to do that and nobody got seriously burnt by that process if anything it showed it showed that pacific leadership can have very different views and they will come to a conclusion at the end that is satisfactory to them fragmentation of the region as i've said earlier in that question you asked about micronesia i think that would be my that would be something that i'd be very disappointed with uh and i hope that through the process that we put in place now for the leaders to select the next secretary general that we will get a candidate that will serve the region ably um and that everyone in the region will get behind that secretary general so he or she can do her do a job you know it's been a an incredible uh honor to serve here uh it's had its ups and downs i can certainly say that it's had its times but um i hope i go back to my own country uh a much richer person for for being here thank you damage thank you so much and uh jerry thank you so much for your questions day meg there are a couple of questions in the q a that i'd like to uh to offer to you if i could uh the first comes from gregory brown greg is wondering uh if you could say more about the pacific island countries and more broadly the application of the un convention of law of the sea if eezs are frozen greg asks does the proposal only address the potential loss of jurisdiction due to rising sea levels or does it also propose to curb increasing jurisdiction for states with expanding territory what ideas uh for how many countries eezs may be preserved if all the land becomes submerged and that's that's a very confronting question uh the second comes from uh april her levy i'll give you these two meg if that's okay and and we can tackle them together and uh the april asks if she finds your discussion of the pacific islands for a focus on inclusivity to be quite inspiring what can regional institutions elsewhere in the world learn from the pacific island forums in this area of inclusivity so let me leave those with you if i could damage very much and thank you to the two questions uh first of all the one on the uh sea level rise we had a really extraordinary uh conference here which you can go online i think on our website and see some of the discussions or the the results from that on maritime boundaries the key issue here for us is that whether we will lose territory with the sea level with sea level rise and they the purpose is to secure our eaz now and ensure that they stay like that in perpetuity the work that we are doing is in early stages some of our missions in new york have expertise there that are further ahead on this than the rest of us but what we are doing is working very closely with the international law commission to make sure that uh whatever suggestions we put forward on this that we can get them uh we can we can get some traction on it there is a lot a lot of discussion uh within the region about the creation of uh customary international law that as we delineate our boundaries and then we pass legislation in our own parliaments that we can then deposit the depositors at the united nations and that will uh that will be part of the process in terms of securing our boundaries for the future if we can secure all our boundaries and it's recognized and then say in in time we do lose our islands i should hope that legally we will always have claim over those territories even if they are under the sea and that is about access to resources fisheries and deepsea mining or whatever countries want to do with their with their with their boundaries but it's also about people psychologically it's about uh who they are as people that they once lived there but that's not a discussion at the moment the key discussions at the moment is really to make sure that we work with the international law commission to see uh how we can pursue this discussion and i'm sure i'm i'm not the expert on it but my deputy secretary general is very much the expert on it and he's chairing the work going forward on this uh with this with sp um with experts to to put this take this work back to the leaders for the meeting next year thank you um the issue of inclusivity i think that uh it it should be i know that i know that um at the commonwealth secretariat anyway they have a whole organization that works with civil society and that's the the commonwealth foundation i think at the u.n you have meetings that civil society have and senior people the secretary general comes to those meetings but for us here yes we are smaller and i think it's really important that you hear that we have the voices of the people of the pacific depart to be part of this because traditionally we come from of of customs where leaders speak and nobody else is a word and in particular women and what i'm trying to encourage uh within my own the secretary guy head is to help our women who work here particularly our young smart uh staff is to be not afraid to voice an opinion and contribute to the discussion that is about the development of our region but thank you for your interest in that and if there's anything i can do to help where you are let me know thank you damig we've got two more questions uh emil freiberg from the government accountability office is asking if you could give a follow-up on the concerns around sea level rise what are the regional plans and approaches to arrange for migration rights if that were to become necessary and a second question i i have to admit is from from me and uh i i'm i'm curious uh damage as your expertise as a problem solver as a negotiator as a peacemaker i was wondering if i could ask you to reflect for a minute or two um on whether you have concerns for peace and stability amongst the pacific island countries particularly in the face of growing tensions between the united states and its allies and the and the uh people's republic of china um is there space for greater understanding of conflict resolution methodologies is there an opportunity for the pacific islands forum or or others in the amongst the pacific islands to promote and support uh conflict resolution perspectives and address some of those the issues there and i'll leave it there and uh we've got another question coming up in just a moment but dame meg over to you for the time being let me uh turn to the second question first and that's around peace and stability well you know what what would help before you get to a concrete resolution a stage would be is to have a conversation about what the uh what uh the the superpowers wanted to want to do in the region um the issue of um the indo-pacific strategy very few people in the region actually really know what it's all about and particularly our leaders huh i think over the last year much more heightened awareness of it but there was a time when um it was being really pushed hard by one of the northern members of the indo-pacific strategy and uh nobody had had the courtesy to have a discussion uh with pacific leaders and i think this is what i find uh really quite extraordinary in this region is that somebody will ask a question of us and if we say well when we want to express an opinion they say oh it's okay we've already discussed it with australia uh about what's happening in the region well as much as australia is a member of the forum it doesn't speak for all of all the members of the forum and i think that i hope that the united states will take that on board and have conversations directly with the member states and not through our bigger states that we have good relation that are a member of the forum participate uh willingly and i think try to give advice to others but i think member states of the forum the pacific island countries need to be heard and to be part of conversation so that there is no conflict the chinese have a very from what my observation just a very different strategy it's not uh as rambunctious it's not uh pushing a certain agenda that we're all sitting here watching in the last in the last year if anything i've noticed uh it's much quieter and very focused on what's going to be the development agenda in this region and but the final decision in any country will be the parliaments of those countries and hopefully um hopefully we won't have that conflict i don't think that uh i think that if there is a a need for conflict resolution and we had a conflict resolution officer here but they're more in terms of what was happening in countries i think that um there's always room for that but i think sharing information sharing your purpose what you want to do in this region and making sure that the sovereignty of the pacific is acknowledged and recognized would be a really good way to start to begin with on the sea level issue that was raised as a result of the forum foreign ministers meeting just recently we have now set up a subcommittee within the region that will be working on this and it will look at all aspects of the implications of uh sea level rise it will also i'm sure take into consideration uh the migration issues huh and uh it's it's an interesting i think that some countries talk about migration others don't some countries that talked about it a lot in the past now have a very different narrative for themselves and i refer to kiribati kiribati who under their previous administration bought large trucks of land in fiji so that if there was to be resettlement there would be places for them to go and live but with the government that is under president marmol the narrative there has totally changed it's about we are stewards of these atolls of this of this ocean here and we are here to stay and we will do everything to make sure that that we secure our secure our um our island so that we can stay and um that from primary school into high school uh into government you hear that narrative and a very deep commitment to that so one could argue oh well is that naive because sea level rise c is going to rise well i think that we're in a very dangerous period of our time in terms of sea level rise if temperatures for the earth keep going up then um our atolls we will lose our adults but we won't be the only place in the world that will be losing places to live it will happen to everybody thank you for your question day meg thank you so much uh we have um it looks like three questions in and um oh even more so let me uh give you a a couple and and um we'll go from there so this is a question from richard pruitt of the stevenson group he says you've discussed the threat of the pacific island forum fragmentation one of the issues related to this result revolves around the issue of who is to succeed dame may who is to be the next secretary general the micronesian nations believe it's their turn they have even hinted at leaving the the forum if what they regard as a gentleman's agreement is not honored on the other hand other nations have nominated some strong candidates when why might we expect the succession issue to be decided and then the second question is from satu lemay of the east west center satu asks his question relates to education and in the pacific islands and satu his asking you mentioned hawaii as a destination is this because of the specialized fields offered there or other considerations what are some of the top fields of education educational need for pacific island countries realizing of course that there may be different needs in different places but is the education needed technical professional general what sort of education and um dame meg let me let me pause there and um the selection of the next secretary general it'll be that hopefully the third week of december and the choice of the secretary general will be uh on merit so we will see what will happen that will be a decision of the leaders and the leaders alone thank you on education i mentioned hawaii because there's been a relationship with the university of hawaii and eastwood center over the years that's that's virtually dissipated now we don't um see a lot of students from the pacific going there uh it's also closer to the region but i'm not saying that that's the full stop it's to get people right across onto the mainland of the united states if there was an opportunity for scholarships the demands for the different professions also it ranges from the technical and wealth to the academic and there's a big investment uh particularly by australia in the region in terms of making sure that there is strong technical uh education uh with schools so that uh people can be mobile with the skills but people also want to have the to be technically trained so that they serve and serve their own within their own countries and not necessarily necessarily to move abroad when it comes to the academic side uh it's the wide range just like in any other part of the world huh from engineers to um your doctors to your financiers to your agricultural economists particularly to your fisheries experts and i think each country decides what's the quotas that they want to do and put forward and they'd be the ones that would set that we have a regional university here the university of south pacific and it offers a wide range of courses you have the legal school that's based in vanuatu but there are also opportunity we want also opportunities for students to be able to do further studies uh internationally and a lot of students go as i said china takes a huge number of our students now we also send students to the united kingdom and like to see a large number of students being educated in the united states and if they are coming from within governments to go and study that they should be bound to come back and to serve the term away back in their own country so that we're not getting a brain drain i hope that answers your question thank you so much a couple of other questions uh juan picks up this theme day meg on migration that uh several have already touched upon and uh this is from henry westerman who is an undergraduate at georgetown univers ty and enrolled in the certificate for australian new zealand and pacific studies so he's one of my students i i get a little thrill there but henry is asking about uh in addition to this question of migration is also wondering about what nations pacific island nations can do with regard to mitigating the consequences of sea level rise um and so what he wants to know broadly what about what what efforts are being made towards mitigation on sea level rise and then another another uh question comes in day meg wanting to know what diasporic pacific leaders students and professionals can do to contribute to the next step in pacific regionalism so we'll pause for your your answers uh let me just come back to migration it's really interesting that there's a a lot more discussion externally and i've had people from other universities in the united states on that co at one point uh asking what what works being done on this on migration and but regarding mitigation etc um in the pacific we've actually moved beyond mitigation because we're feeling the impact of climate change and whilst a lot of financing or climate financing financing in the world goes to mitigation purposes much smaller amount goes to mitigation and sorry adaptation my apologies into adaptation so what we've had to do here in the region is think about what do we do to protect ourselves so around the islands in fiji you will see mangroves being planted everywhere where there aren't mangroves looking at also moving people who are right on the water into higher ground already here in fiji and in other parts of the pacific we've had to do that we need a lot of emphasis on what we see adaptation is about being resilient to prepare ourselves for what we know is going to come because the rest of the world is still living many people are still living the lives that they've always lived and not really making those differences in terms of what's going to impact us in terms of the climate change temperatures so what we're seeing here is uh acidification in the ocean we know from our scientists as the pacific community that our tuna stocks are going to start moving from west to east because of the warming of the ocean so what's that going to mean in terms of food security for us in the region we try to make these uh issues known to the world but i don't think a lot of people really pay attention within the forum where i work at the pacific island foreign secretariat we've now set we are in the hoping to have a pledging event around the pacific resilience fund facility which will be um a facility that would like to raise about 1.5 billion to start with and then move it upper but this is really to get money into communities so that they are building their own adaptation projects or their resilience uh what is it does the community need because we know that cyclone 5 cyclone 4 and cyclone 5 will come what is it that the community needs they need security they need safety they need health centers there and buildings where people can go into and know that they are safe and not and when they build their homes now is building much more secure homes uh in the outer islands etc so mitigation is not a big part of the conversation here it is really around adaptation but if you look at the funding that is available for adaptation around the world it's far less than it is for mitigation thank you and day meg uh the the other question we had uh was on your advice for young diasporic leaders students and professionals who want to contribute to the next step of pacific regionalism and if you don't mind let me we have one other question that's come in so let me offer this to you as well and this is from jacob levin and jacob is curious about the ongoing dialogue between bougainville and the government in papua new guinea in port moresby and over the question of separation and independence and jacob wonders for secretary for you whether this is specifically uh an interest of yours uh from the farm's perspective but also what interest and what perspective do you have as a papua new guinean um how does this affect you do you do you spend time thinking about it so i'll leave you with those two questions please thank you desperate i apologize for not answering this for young people um if we can help you to get um the information that you need so you can be advocates for us around the world that is the most that you can do in every community that you are in that you can participate in the the future of this specific by telling people of the issues that are important to us the particular issues that are important to us are the issues around climate the issues around health and one of the health issues that is so important for us is that non-communicable diseases that we have a lot of diabetes in this region and we lose a lot of our population to that but it's making sure that people know that we won't survive on these islands if we have poor health we will not survive if people keep living the lifestyles that they want we need the commitment of the paris agreement we need the resources that were committed so that the pacific can prepare itself for the future so that we can have a life um for the next 100 years or more here we can also provide information on where we are in terms of our maritime boundaries work so that you can educate people around what is happening here now uh in the marine sector here or at maritime boundaries but also on our fishing sector so um my um you can always contact me here meg t at forumsec and from there i'll be able to supply you through our communications people so that you can be advocates for us thank you i thank you jacob for the comments on broganville um the referendum has happened and the people of boganville have decided what they want the current discussions between the government of papua new guinea and bougainville i apologize i am not privy to those conversations i think it's very much between the cabinet and the cabinets of the two governments and we'll see what the future holds in that um as a papua new guinean um you know there was a there was a what's the word there was a sadness in my heart when i saw the result of the vote but i understood it and i respected it um i grew up at a time when we were forging independence self-government and independence and i was at that time working as private secretary to the chief minister and then we gained independence and john mummason people were very involved of course in the constitution and the debates around provincial governments so we always knew that boganville had aspirations for itself but i think when you've shared um dreams with bogan billions my friends at that time through the political parties that we belong political party that we belong to in the aspirations it was always about all of us and but history has taken us down a road because of things that have happened but also because of the loss of life and the fact that people want to define to determine their own future and in that sense whilst there is a sadness in my heart i respect the people and for what they want and i hope that the journey forward between papua new guinea and bougainville will be a very strong one thank you very much day meg um i we it looks like we have one last question if if we could and it's a it's a crisp question and peter rosenblatt asks what do the forum member states need the most from the united states and this is probably going to sound really uh a little bit harder but i've been to two pacific pacific island forum meetings where the representatives of the united states just didn't understand where they were and kept referring to us as the um the theater the pacific theater and when um leaders said to me what do they mean by the word theater it was about you know it's the military theater where the war was fought well you know we've all moved on from there we and look that this is not out of a respect for those soldiers from the united states who fought in our waters and on our lands and lost their lives for what freedom that we have now however in this century what i would like to see from the united states is a respect for the pacific countries and to let the voice of the pacific be heard and when they come to this region is to really ask of us what we want and not be told what is needed in this region and it's so i'll leave it at that before i get into a whole deliberation around the relationships we have with very all the different powers but thank you for your question thank you hey make thank you so much for your presentation today uh i we i think we've all very much learned a great deal and enjoyed hearing what you have to say about the blue pacific future and you paint a a you paint a picture that is full of challenge but you also paint a picture that has hope and it has hope uh as you underscore the importance of leadership and i'm quite sure that the pacific islands will continue to generate uh leaders who are able to to uh point out uh the needs and the interests of of the pacific island peoples for others uh in the broader community and uh i want to wish you all the best and thank you so much for your time and i will say good night and or good morning or wherever you are in the world and i wish everyone all the best thank you you