I am speaking for the first
time as Head of State. However, in 1977 I appeared
with my country’s delegation before the Trusteeship
Council, seeking independence. In 1994, the
trusteeship ended and we took our place as a Member
of the United Nations. Our independence is testament
to the success of the International Trusteeship System,
for which we are grateful. The legacy of our experience
is a Constitution that incorporates the rights and
freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights: freedom, democracy, equal protection
and the rule of law.
We thank the permanent members of the Security
Council, which recognized our sovereignty: the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the
French Republic, the Russian Federation, the People’s
Republic of China and the United States of America.
The United States was our Administering Authority,
and we express our deep appreciation to it for
becoming our close partner under the Compact of Free
Association, a relationship we cherish and one that we
hope will endure.
As a new and young Member, Palau has
shouldered its responsibilities in the community of
nations, including the deployment of peacekeepers to
Darfur, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands. When
signing international conventions and meeting our
counter-terrorism obligations, as set forth by the
Security Council, we remember and honour the legacy
of the United Nations.
While our political progress has been satisfactory
since independence, I must report to you that we are
now confronted with several looming threats to our
continued peaceful way of life, and indeed to our very
existence. Climate change, environmental degradation
and the world financial crisis are challenges that we
will only be able to overcome if we work with the
international community.
We associate ourselves with the statements of
concern on climate change which we heard in this Hall
earlier this week. We applaud the commitments made
and note that we must use our best efforts to stop this
slow-moving tsunami that threatens to engulf us. To
this end, Palau and our neighbours in the Federated
States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall
Islands have adopted a joint policy, known as Green
Energy Micronesia (GEM) to move to renewable
energy as a pillar of our collective energy security.
Furthermore, Palau has signed the Statute of the
International Renewable Energy Agency, and we look
forward to the exciting work that will emanate from the
United Arab Emirates. We are hopeful that the
combined efforts of all our nations will lead to a
fruitful outcome in Copenhagen.
We note in particular the statement of the new
Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama. Japan’s
vision and commitment to save our planet are
inspiring. This is one of the many reasons we support a
permanent seat for Japan on the Security Council.
We reiterate that climate change is indeed a
cross-cutting issue and that all aspects of it, especially
the security impact of climate change, need to be
examined. This is why Palau and the Pacific Small
Island Developing States initiated General Assembly
resolution 63/281, on “Climate change and its possible
security implications”. We look forward to meaningful
action by the Security Council on that resolution.
Palauans have lived throughout history in
symbiosis with the sea. Now, though, the sea, which
has long been the source of our sustenance, is
simultaneously rising in rage to destroy us and
becoming barren. This fury was caused by abuses by
humankind, and we therefore must take every
necessary action to allow the oceans to heal
themselves. In days gone by, the traditional chiefs of
Palau would declare a bul — a moratorium to protect a
resource that had become scarce. This traditional
concept, now popularly known as conservation, shows
the way for us to move forward. As Mahatma Gandhi
said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s
need, but not every man’s greed”.
This is why the world must declare a bul on
destructive fishing practices like deep-sea bottom
trawling, unsustainable harvesting of shark for their
fins and overexploitation of tuna stocks. The odious
fishing practice of bottom trawling, where a weighted
net is dragged along the sea floor, crushing nearly
everything in its path, is contributing to the rapid loss
of a critical ecosystem, our coral reefs. We have
outlawed deep-sea bottom trawling in Palau, but, no
matter what we do in our own waters, there must be an
international solution. For several years, we, along
with our Pacific neighbours, have advocated a
09-52463 8
moratorium on this practice. The sustainable fisheries
resolution adopted by the General Assembly in 2007
(resolution 62/177) urged nations and regional fishery
management organizations to stop trawling in sensitive
areas by 2009. We have waited for compliance, which
has not come, and we now renew our call for a
worldwide moratorium on this practice.
An equally destructive fishing practice is shark-
finning. We have banned it in Palau and call upon the
world to address this issue in order to save sharks from
extinction. The physical strength and beauty of sharks
are a natural barometer of the health of our oceans.
Therefore, I declare today that Palau will become the
world’s first national shark sanctuary, ending all
commercial shark fishing in our waters and giving a
sanctuary for sharks to live and reproduce unmolested
in our 237,000 square miles of ocean. We call upon all
nations to join us. The need to save sharks and our
environment far outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of
shark’s fin soup.
It is anomalous that Palau is experiencing
economic difficulty while it sits in the middle of the
richest fishing grounds in the world, the Pacific Ocean.
We can no longer stand by while foreign vessels
illicitly come to our waters to take our greatest
resource, our tuna stocks, without regard for their
conservation and without regard for adequate
compensation to the island States that own the fishing
grounds and rely on this resource. Palau believes that
the best model for a regional effort to conserve our
tuna resources and maximize the benefits to us is the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC). I will therefore work for the establishment of
OTEC, the Organization of Tuna Exporting Countries,
and I now call on our friends in OPEC to come forward
and help us to understand and obtain fair value from
our threatened resource and to make tuna fishing
sustainable.
I come now to the economic crisis that my
country is facing. As a developing nation, we are
grateful for the grants provided by our allies and
partners to advance our development. They have been
helpful.
Mr. Martínez Bonilla (El Salvador) Vice-
President, took the Chair.
But we must acknowledge that outright grants do
not always create meaningful employment. Jobs
created are illusory and temporary. In the absence of a
strong local economy, our children, our most valuable
resource, are leaving our shores for opportunities
elsewhere. The continuing downward cycle created by
their departure must be stopped, or else it will destroy
the very fabric of our society. Our allies and partners
can help us stop this cycle by promoting the
development of private enterprise through investment
in our country. We need capital and entrepreneurial
expertise.
I implore our allies and partners to consider
providing incentives to their nationals to encourage
them to invest in our islands, to come to our islands
and launch partnerships with our talented people to
create a viable economy. Let us once and for all put
aside the fiction that we need handouts. What we need
are partners and investment to help advance our
economy, put an end to the out-migration of our people
and propel Palau towards economic self-sufficiency.
We note with satisfaction the decision by the
People’s Republic of China to invite Taiwan to attend
the World Health Assembly. The health and safety of
the world’s peoples are at the heart of the ideals of the
United Nations. In order to further promote those
ideals, we recommend that Taiwan be invited to
participate meaningfully in the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change coming up
in Copenhagen and other international organizations
and forums.
We have heard the voices of world leaders from
countries small and large, powerful and vulnerable. We
have heard the voice of science. Let us heed those
voices, fulfil our obligations to our people, now and in
the next generation, and work for a strong economy
and a healthy planet.