Deep Sea Tension: The Kingdom of Tonga and Deep Sea Minerals

Pulu, Teena Brown

doi:10.24135/tekaharoa.v6i1.62

Cited by 4 publications

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“…If Tonga was open, it could be easily penetrated. Natural resources of the Tongan islands, in particular deep sea minerals and fisheries (Brown Pulu, 2013a, and the small society logic that land cannot be bought by foreigners, cannot be owned by people who have no Tongan bloodline, could be reformed, modified, manipulated to fit the international "order of things" which was private not community ownership, and definitely not intergeneration inheritance such as the nobility's estates (Foucault, 1971). Whether the Tongan majority comprehended that democratic reform is economic integration was doubtful.…”

Section: Economic Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Reform? Reform Stories in the Kingdom of Tonga

Pulu¹

2013

tekaharoa

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What is the likelihood that the Kingdom of Tonga will go to a general election in 2014 and the same pool of leaders, middle-aged and older men, will get voted back to parliament? For the small island developing state of Tonga that has a population of 104,509 thousand, the Legislative Assembly is elected every four years. Comprising of seventeen people’s representatives voted in by constituencies of registered voters on the general roll, and nine nobles’ representatives voted in by the landed gentry of thirty three estate holders, historically, parliament is overpoweringly men. Tongan society’s patriarchal structure and the widespread practice of Christianity as the state religion, has led to the prevalence of male political leaders being accepted as symbolic of culture. What outside forces dismantle cultural constraints in an island Kingdom? Reform is said to be at work, stirred by Tonga’s 2010 shift to a democratised state. Parliamentary representatives from the people now outnumber the nobility. So who are the reformers? Is there resistance against free market trade because farmers and fishermen have less access to business? And how do New Zealand’s economic reform policies effect change for this small island nation?

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Section: Economic Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Reform? Reform Stories in the Kingdom of Tonga

Pulu¹

2013

tekaharoa

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Incorporating transparency into the governance of deep-seabed mining in the Area beyond national jurisdiction

2018

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Off the Deep End: Tonga's Continental Shelf Politics

Pulu¹

2014

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Tonga had gone off the deep end. It proposed to grow its ocean territory in length by 60 nautical miles southeast and southwest. Hardly anyone knew the particulars, apart from a select group of senior bureaucrats in the Government of Tonga persevering to make it happen. The Tongan public paid closer attention to who might come into government at the November 2014 election and whether any women would get voted into parliament. Local media had spoon fed this slant to the masses which uncritically they consumed as the top news feed. Alternatively, raising awareness about continental shelf politics failed to appear on the public information menu. Why should it matter to ordinary Joe Blog Tongan scratching out a living in a distressed economy? The story unfolds that Lord Ma’afu, the Minister for Lands, Environment, Climate Change, and Natural Resources entered office after the first partial submission on the outer limits of Tonga’s continental shelf had been prepared. His predecessor Lord Tuita tabled the document for consideration at the United Nations in April of 2010. Ma’afu was tasked with overseeing a second partial submission to acquire 60 nautical miles in the Lau-Colville Ridge, which he delivered to the United Nations headquarters in New York on April 23rd 2014. It would be weighed up the following year in 2015 (United Nations, 2014). This essay prods two pressure points. Firstly, how did securing Tonga’s continental shelf further than the 200 mile exclusive economic zone relate to deep sea mining? And secondly, what prompted Fiji’s 2005 objection to the International Seabed Authority about Tonga’s sovereign declaration over the Minerva Reefs? In the current geopolitical climate, how would the Tongan state navigate the ocean currents?

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Deep Sea Tension: The Kingdom of Tonga and Deep Sea Minerals

Cited by 4 publications

References 1 publication

What Reform? Reform Stories in the Kingdom of Tonga

What Reform? Reform Stories in the Kingdom of Tonga

Incorporating transparency into the governance of deep-seabed mining in the Area beyond national jurisdiction

Off the Deep End: Tonga's Continental Shelf Politics

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