By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 6 2005 (IPS)

The world’s 37 small island developing states (SIDS), which are both economically fragile and perpetually threatened by cyclones and major floods, will make an urgent appeal for better disaster preparedness at an international gathering of world leaders in Mauritius next week.

The world’s 37 small island developing states (SIDS), which are both economically fragile and perpetually threatened by cyclones and major floods, will make an urgent appeal for better disaster preparedness at an international gathering of world leaders in Mauritius next week.

“I am sure a proposal for some kind of global early warning system will be initiated by many states, and I believe such a system should be set up immediately,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for SIDS Anwarul Karim Chowdhury told IPS.

Chowdhury, who also doubles as the secretary-general of the U.N. International Meeting on SIDS scheduled to take place in Port Louis, Mauritius from Jan. 10-14, says that last week’s tsunami destruction came on the heels of a number of recent climatic disasters that have devastated many island nations.

More than 20 island states – including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Haiti, the Solomon Islands, St. Lucia and Vanuatu – have been hit more than once by hurricanes, typhoons or major floods over the last two years.

A hurricane that hit Grenada last September wiped out two of the Caribbean island’s major export crops, cocoa and nutmeg, causing over one billion dollars in damage, according to Prime Minister Keith Mitchell. Most of the tourist hotels were also damaged.

“Yet their plight received little international attention,” he complained, pointing out that the tsunami disaster should serve as a wake-up call for the international community to act immediately.

Chowdhury said the destruction of life and property in low-lying coastal areas once again highlights the vulnerability of small island developing states.

Asked about the need for an early warning system, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters in Jakarta Thursday: “There is a tsunami early warning system in the Pacific, but we didn’t have it in the Indian Ocean.”

Annan, who was attending a summit meeting of mostly Asian leaders in the Indonesia capital, said the United Nations would take the lead in establishing such an early warning system.

“I hope such a system will offer early warning to be able to protect people and mitigate against the consequences of another tsunami,” he added.

The tsunami tidal wave that claimed the lives of over 150,000 people in south and southeast Asia hit several island nations, including Sri Lanka and Indonesia, an archipelago of over 13,500 islands.

The island of Mauritius, the venue of the SIDS conference, was spared, although two islands in the Indian Ocean region, Seychelles and the Maldives, were hit by the tsunami.

Chowdhury said he is expecting about 2,000 participants, including some 25 world leaders, at next week’s meeting. “This will be the first time that any U.N. conference will be focusing on how to implement its plan of action during the conference itself.”

In April 1994, the United Nations hosted a Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of SIDS in Barbados. The conference adopted what it called the Barbados Programme of Action (BPoA) spelling out specific actions and measures aimed at helping small island states.

Chowdhury said the Mauritius meeting, which is also billed as a 10-year review of the BPoA, will adopt “a pro-active strategy” stressing priority areas such as natural disasters, climate change, wastes, marine resources, freshwater, energy, biodiversity, transport and tourism.

The conference will also address emerging new issues such as market access, the spread of HIV/AIDS and new security concerns relating to the global war on terrorism.

Seeking to reverse their trade losses, small island states are demanding market access preferences and trade liberalisation. Under the rules of the World Trade Organisation in 2002, all preferential arrangements were dismantled, thereby affecting commodities such as sugar, bananas, coffee and coconuts, which most small islands relied on for their exports.

In St. Lucia, export revenues from bananas declined from 46.5 million dollars in 1996 to 21.7 million dollars in 2002.

The United Nations says that small size and isolated geography also combine to render island economies highly dependent on external markets for imports while agricultural activities are dominated by crops intended mainly for export for revenue generation.

But the biggest single threat is from rising sea levels, with some island nations in danger of being wiped off the face of the earth.

As a result, some countries are building expensive seawalls to prevent flooding and the dangers of an encroaching ocean. The capital of Maldives, where more than 65 people lost their lives in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster last week, is partially ringed by a system of protective barriers called tetrapods.

In February last year, the nine islands of Tuvalu were submerged by “king tides,” which are a common occurrence every year.

“Most countries are already experiencing disruptive changes consistent with many of the anticipated consequences of global climate change, including extensive coastal erosion, droughts, coral bleaching, more widespread and frequent occurrence of mosquito-borne diseases, and higher sea levels making some soils too saline for cultivation of traditional crops,” according to a report published in 2003 by the government of Japan and the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme.

Addressing the 59th session of the U.N. General Assembly in September, several political leaders from small island states specifically highlighted the dangers of rising sea levels.

Fradique Bandeira de Melo de Menezes, president of Sao Tome and Principe, told the General Assembly that his country’s “very existence was threatened by global warming.”

“Our shorelines erode, our national territory shrinks as the seas rise. Is my small country to end up nothing but a tiny volcanic peak sticking up above the waves with the last of our people clinging to the land left unclaimed by the rising sea?” he asked.

Sandra Pierantozzi, vice president of Palau, told delegates that the images of swaying palm trees and white-sand beaches in the world’s imagination were only one part of the small islands story.

“In truth and in fact, the remoteness and isolation of island such as Palau make it a very difficult place to develop a self-reliant economy, provide medical care and education to its people, and deter aggression and terrorism,” she said.

Fuel and transportation prices are among the highest in the world, she said, “and our most promising hope for the development of our sustainable economy – our pristine environment- is threatened by factors beyond our control, such as the failure of all industrial nations to come to an agreement to implement the Kyoto Protocol” on climate change.

Excerpt:

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 6 2005 (IPS)

The world’s 37 small island developing states (SIDS), which are both economically fragile and perpetually threatened by cyclones and major floods, will make an urgent appeal for better disaster preparedness at an international gathering of world leaders in Mauritius next week.

"I am sure a proposal for some kind of global early warning system will be initiated by many states, and I believe such a system should be set up immediately," U.N. Under-Secretary-General for SIDS Anwarul Karim Chowdhury told IPS.

Chowdhury, who also doubles as the secretary-general of the U.N. International Meeting on SIDS scheduled to take place in Port Louis, Mauritius from Jan. 10-14, says that last week’s tsunami destruction came on the heels of a number of recent climatic disasters that have devastated many island nations.

More than 20 island states – including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Haiti, the Solomon Islands, St. Lucia and Vanuatu – have been hit more than once by hurricanes, typhoons or major floods over the last two years.

A hurricane that hit Grenada last September wiped out two of the Caribbean island’s major export crops, cocoa and nutmeg, causing over one billion dollars in damage, according to Prime Minister Keith Mitchell. Most of the tourist hotels were also damaged.

"As many as 14 major tropical storms in the Caribbean during the latest hurricane season alone had caused about 20 billion dollars in economic losses, while rising sea levels in the Pacific region have threatened to completely submerge the islands of Nauru, Maldives and Tuvalu," Chowdhury said.

Chowdhury said the destruction of life and property in low-lying coastal areas once again highlights the vulnerability of small island developing states.

Asked about the need for an early warning system, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters in Jakarta Thursday: "There is a tsunami early warning system in the Pacific, but we didn’t have it in the Indian Ocean."

Annan, who was attending a summit meeting of mostly Asian leaders in the Indonesia capital, said the United Nations would take the lead in establishing such an early warning system.

"I hope such a system will offer early warning to be able to protect people and mitigate against the consequences of another tsunami," he added.

The tsunami tidal wave that claimed the lives of over 150,000 people in south and southeast Asia hit several island nations, including Sri Lanka and Indonesia, an archipelago of over 13,500 islands.

The island of Mauritius, the venue of the SIDS conference, was spared, although two islands in the Indian Ocean region, Seychelles and the Maldives, were hit by the tsunami.

Chowdhury said he is expecting about 2,000 participants, including some 25 world leaders, at next week’s meeting. "This will be the first time that any U.N. conference will be focusing on how to implement its plan of action during the conference itself."

In April 1994, the United Nations hosted a Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of SIDS in Barbados. The conference adopted what it called the Barbados Programme of Action (BPoA) spelling out specific actions and measures aimed at helping small island states.

Chowdhury said the Mauritius meeting, which is also billed as a 10-year review of the BPoA, will adopt "a pro-active strategy" stressing priority areas such as natural disasters, climate change, wastes, marine resources, freshwater, energy, biodiversity, transport and tourism.

The conference will also address emerging new issues such as market access, the spread of HIV/AIDS and new security concerns relating to the global war on terrorism.

Seeking to reverse their trade losses, small island states are demanding market access preferences and trade liberalisation. Under the rules of the World Trade Organisation in 2002, all preferential arrangements were dismantled, thereby affecting commodities such as sugar, bananas, coffee and coconuts, which most small islands relied on for their exports.

In St. Lucia, export revenues from bananas declined from 46.5 million dollars in 1996 to 21.7 million dollars in 2002.

The United Nations says that small size and isolated geography also combine to render island economies highly dependent on external markets for imports while agricultural activities are dominated by crops intended mainly for export for revenue generation.

But the biggest single threat is from rising sea levels, with some island nations in danger of being wiped off the face of the earth.

As a result, some countries are building expensive seawalls to prevent flooding and the dangers of an encroaching ocean. The capital of Maldives, where more than 65 people lost their lives in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster last week, is partially ringed by a system of protective barriers called tetrapods.

In February last year, the nine islands of Tuvalu were submerged by "king tides," which are a common occurrence every year.

"Most countries are already experiencing disruptive changes consistent with many of the anticipated consequences of global climate change, including extensive coastal erosion, droughts, coral bleaching, more widespread and frequent occurrence of mosquito-borne diseases, and higher sea levels making some soils too saline for cultivation of traditional crops," according to a report published in 2003 by the government of Japan and the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme.

Addressing the 59th session of the U.N. General Assembly in September, several political leaders from small island states specifically highlighted the dangers of rising sea levels.

Fradique Bandeira de Melo de Menezes, president of Sao Tome and Principe, told the General Assembly that his country’s "very existence was threatened by global warming."

"Our shorelines erode, our national territory shrinks as the seas rise. Is my small country to end up nothing but a tiny volcanic peak sticking up above the waves with the last of our people clinging to the land left unclaimed by the rising sea?" he asked..

Sandra Pierantozzi, vice president of Palau, told delegates that the images of swaying palm trees and white-sand beaches in the world’s imagination were only one part of the small islands story.

"In truth and in fact, the remoteness and isolation of island such as Palau make it a very difficult place to develop a self-reliant economy, provide medical care and education to its people, and deter aggression and terrorism," she said.

Fuel and transportation prices are among the highest in the world, she said, "and our most promising hope for the development of our sustainable economy – our pristine environment- is threatened by factors beyond our control, such as the failure of all industrial nations to come to an agreement to implement the Kyoto Protocol" on climate change.

Excerpt: