Niue's survival the cheaper option

The island's public sector wage levels could rise if Nuie was to become an offshore borough of New Zealand, an expert tells ANGELA GREGORY

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We have seen the photos of mangled buildings and destroyed homes, read the stories of tragedies and narrow escapes, and watched the locals plead for help.

But Cyclone Heta, probably the most severe storm to hit Niue, did not just smash a path over the island's physical landscape.

It has shaken people's belief that the country - the smallest independent territory in the world - can continue with self- government, if indeed survive at all.

Niue became self-governing in free association with New Zealand in 1974 after a referendum. But despite its unshackling, it has remained heavily dependent on aid to stay afloat. Its aid per capita is the highest in the Pacific.

Total aid provided by New Zealand in 2003-04 was $8.25 million, which included $2.5 million tagged for economic initiatives.

In the previous decade the aid had averaged around $6.5 million, peaking at $9 million in 1994-95.

Throughout that period migration continued to reduce Niue's resident population, which now numbers between 1400 and 1700 residents, depending on who you ask. Ten times as many (about 20,000) Niueans live in New Zealand.

Fondly called the Rock of Polynesia, the island is an isolated speck in a huge ocean. Its nearest neighbours are Tonga, the southern Cook Islands and Samoa.

Agriculture, both subsistence and limited export, used to be its largest activity but it is unreliable, hampered by thin topsoils, water problems, infrequent offshore transportation and a tiny economy which struggled to compete. Islanders had hoped to develop fishing and tourism.

Niue is the world's largest raised atoll, at 260sq km including its narrow fringing reefs, but it does not present the cliched Pacific island image of white-sand beaches graced with coconut palm trees which slope gently into azure seas.

Instead its attraction to tourists was its difference - a unique ecosystem noted for its remarkable caves, chasms and native forest cover.

But tourism, up 44 per cent in the last quarter, has been knocked flat, and so has a new fishing processing plant which had offered new employment to locals.

The Rock has been shaken to its core by this month's rogue cyclone which headbutted the vulnerable island with no outer reef to act as a breakwater to soften its blow.

Cyclones have always been part of the cycle of nature for Niue and other Pacific islands. But Heta, with winds said to have peaked at a phenomenal 300km/h, whipped up mountainous waves that caused the most severe damage on the west coast, where the capital, Alofi, perches precariously.

Such was its magnitude that it is being described as a freak event and one that could not have come at a more unfortunate time.

About 200 years ago Niueans built their villages inland, where the high winds could still scour the land but the menacing seas remained beyond reach. However, that changed with the advent of missionaries and sea traders in the 19th century which saw the villagers move out to the cliffs.

And the 20m to 30m high cliffs where Alofi took shape were on a particular angle, which put the town on a collision course for cyclones that roared past from the northwest.

Waikato University anthropologist Dr Tom Ryan, who has been visiting Niue since the 1970s and speaks the language, is about to publish a book on the island.

He admires the "egalitarian" people who, unlike other Pacific cultures, have no chiefly system. But he is critical of the poor advice the islanders have been given by outsiders. In his view Niue's biggest problem were consultants, whether from New Zealand, the World Bank or Unesco.

"They were fly-ins and fly-outs ... they stay a few days, make important decisions and yet are not accountable for them."

Dr Ryan said Niue's future was particularly bleak. Whenever there was an "event", whether a cyclone or loss of jobs, some uncertain Niueans would always take the excuse to pack up and leave.

He foresaw significant departures after Heta, but also said a significant number would be determined to stay.

"Maybe some will even return ... there have always been people going back there."

Niue could now chose reabsorption with New Zealand or the status quo "to some degree". Another choice - full independence - was no longer viable.

Dr Ryan said there had always been Niueans who did not favour self-government, even in the 1960s. But he doubted the practicality of absorbing Niue back into New Zealand.

For example, the wage structures in Niue were much lower than New Zealand.

"The salaries of positions held by those in the ministries of police and justice would be about a third of those in New Zealand."

And if Niue was to be treated like some offshore borough of New Zealand, could it then have a different structure? "The so-called savings would be negated over time."

Another difficulty was that more than 90 per cent of the land in Niue was held in traditional tender, which presented immediate legal problems should the island revert to New Zealand control, where private title ruled.

And he was worried that Niue's land court records may have been destroyed, with the birth, deaths and marriages records already known to be ruined with the Justice Department seaside buildings at Alofi.

"They are important legal documents which have been collected and collated for over 50 years."

In many cases it was the land ties that still linked New Zealand Niueans to their island home, providing an ongoing concern for the island's future.

A senior lecturer in human geography and development studies at Victoria University, Dr Warwick Murray, is more optimistic.

Life was harsh on Niue but the people had a proven record of resilience, he said. Between 1920 and 1990 26 cyclones hit the country, five classified as severe and a further three as moderate/severe.

Three severe cyclones hit between 1989 and the present (including Heta), in 1989, 1990 and 2004.

Dr Murray said there was some evidence to suggest cyclones were becoming more intense and frequent, attributed by some to the impacts of climate change and ocean warming.

Conventional science argues that these changing weather patterns are related to greenhouse gas emissions, which come principally from industrialised nations in the Northern Hemisphere.

"It is possible that countries such as Niue are picking up the bill for the increased affluence of a minority of the world's population."

Dr Murray said Niue had managed to re-build after cyclones in the past, albeit at great human and economic cost. The threat to Niue's independence was not environmental, but politico-economic.

"Globalisation as it is currently practised, not tropical cyclones, are wrecking the Pacific Island nations."

Dr Murray said there was no doubt Cyclone Heta would have a devastating economic effect, with efforts to stimulate tourist development and agro-export development taking time, investment and possibly years to recover.

But he thought it possible the implications in terms of sovereignty had been exaggerated.

Officially, the Niuean Government was adamant its independence was not open for negotiation.

Dr Murray said his own research suggested most Niueans were staunchly proud of their country and their identity was inextricably linked to the survival of Niue as a place.

Much of what was spent in aid flowed back to the New Zealand private sector in terms of manufactured and food export revenue, he said.

He doubted there would be a re-annexation of Niue. Although New Zealand was responsible for its foreign policy and defence, it did not have the power to simply reverse the agreement that took force under United Nations auspices in 1974.

"I am not convinced that the majority of Niueans would allow this."

Dr Murray said the future of a nation should be based on more than its profit book.

"After all, we are talking about a culture and environment that is unparalleled in the world. Taking part in its destruction would be a highly regressive thing to do."

Niue had previously weathered economic storms of considerable magnitude.

In the 1990s its government sector was almost halved as part of the restructuring of aid toward more market-friendly policies designed to stimulate economic self-sufficiency. Today, around 45 per cent of islanders were employed by the sector, though not all of them full time.

Dr Murray said resultant unemployment had an impact in terms of migration, but many stayed on the island and chose instead to cultivate agro-exports and semi-subsistence crops.

He noted that in 1997 public sector employment at Niue accounted for just over 50 per cent of total employment but that had fallen from levels of more than 80 per cent in the early 1980s.

From the early 1990s New Zealand had also radically altered the nature of its assistant policy, shifting the emphasis from budget contributions to specific project aids.

In 1989-90, $7 million of New Zealand's total $9.7 million aid donations went to the Government budget.

Eight years later only $4.3 million of the $6.8 million contribution went to the budget, and 30 per cent was allocated to private sector development initiatives.

A population expert, Dr Ward Friesen, senior lecturer in geography at Auckland University, said Niue was not the only Pacific country unsustainable but for aid. Tuvalu and Tokelau were in the same position.

But he said if the Niuean population dropped to about 500, as had been suggested, the level of support it was getting in aid became absurd.

"Per capita it would be hundred of times more than other less developed countries."

Dr Friesen said speculation that Niue could revert to its old status at that point might seem logical, but that was a decision for the islanders.

There would be benefits in reducing costs inherent in a self-governing country with its little parliament and ministries.

"It could be more like a local council, rather than a country sending representatives to New York at times."

But Dr Friesen stressed he was not saying the situation was all necessarily downhill.

An academic who opposes pulling the plug is social anthropology lecturer Dr Okusitino Mahina, who teaches Pacific culture at Auckland University.

Dr Mahina believes New Zealand should commit itself to maintaining the present state of affairs.

"I would not like to see the culture left dead or dying."

He was wary about a return to the past, which could be perceived as rule by domination.

Dr Mahina said he was sure Niuean culture would continue to survive, but wanted to see Niueans living in New Zealand go back and contribute to that.