Opening Address By the Hon. Ralph Regenvanu

Opening Address By the Hon. Ralph Regenvanu

Minister for Land and Natural Resources, Government of the Republic of Vanuatu at the Pacific ACP States Regional Training Workshop on Social Impacts of Deep Sea Mining Activities and Stakeholder Participation

10-14 June, Holiday Inn, Port Vila

Find attached a copy of the opening address given by the Hon. Ralph Regenvanu, Minister for Land and Natural Resources at the Pacific ACP States Regional Training Workshop on Social Impacts of Deep Sea Mining Activities and Stakeholder Participation today.

NOTE in particular the Minister’s comments under the heading “Lack of consultation in Vanuatu”:

When I learnt that this workshop was going to happen, as the Minister responsible I decided to find out what I could about this issue.  In undertaking my research, I made a very disconcerting discovery, something that in my five years as a parliamentarian and just over one year (accumulated) as a minister of state I never knew: that in the past five years, the Government of Vanuatu has issued about 145 licenses for offshore mining exploration and prospecting, and another 3 for offshore oil exploration.

By announcing this discovery of mine today, I am also making this information public in Vanuatu for the first time, and I have no doubt that this will be the first time that 99% of the population of this country is aware of this.

Needless to say, these licenses have been issued without any proper national regulatory framework for seabed mining or for scientific research, let alone any proper understanding of what the prospecting process entails and what lies on our seabed – this is, after all, the common situation all our countries find ourselves in when engaging with seabed mineral issues.

What concerns me most, however, is that the government has been proceeding down a path of action without the people it is supposed to represent agreeing to or even knowing about what we are doing.

Further information on this point is as follows:

·        When SOPAC was given the mandate by Pacific Island countries (including Vanuatu) to oversee the development of seabed mineral exploitation in the Pacific at the 37th Session of SOPAC in Tuvalu in October 2008, the Vanuatu delegation reported that 29 seabed mineral prospecting and exploration licenses has already been issued by the Government of Vanuatu to two companies, Bismarck Mining Corporation and Nautilus Minerals Offshore Limited.

·        Since then, the total number of seabed mineral prospecting and exploration licenses has increased to 145, almost all to the two same companies, Bismarck and Neptune.  Most of these 145 licenses were granted by successive Ministers of Lands in the period 2010 to 2012 – by the Hon. Paul Telukluk, the Hon. Alfred Carlot and the Hon. Steven Kalsakau.

·        In the absence of an offshore mining provision in administering and managing offshore mining exploration and prospecting, these licenses have been granted under the provisions of the Mines and Minerals Act [CAP 190].

·        The issuing of these licenses was not approved by either the Council of Ministers or Parliament, but only by the Minister of Lands himself. 

Given this information now being made public by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the Minister wishes to advise the public that there will be wide consultation before any further activities to do with seabed mineral exploration can occur in the country.

ENDS

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