MAJURO — A move to bring international recognition to a pristine, turtle-breeding atoll in the Marshall Islands gets a big boost next week with the arrival of a high-powered research team that includes 13 American and Australian scientists.
The U.S. government is funding the survey that aims to provide the basis for nominating uninhabited Ailingnae Atoll as the first World Heritage site in the Marshall Islands.
Rongelap Mayor James Matayoshi, whose government has jurisdiction over this neighboring atoll, is spearheading a three-pronged development program that includes future sports fishing and scuba diving at Rongelap together with designation of neighboring Ailingnae as a protected area that will be nominated as a World Heritage Site.
Matayoshi’s local government has already invested more than $20 million in basic facilities at Rongelap — a power plant, water-making machines, paved airstrip, new dock, and facilities to house visitors — to develop the infrastructure needed to support small-scale tourism development. A World Heritage listing would stimulate a tremendous amount of visitor and scientific interest in the uninhabited northern atoll, Matayoshi said.
Historically, residents of neighboring Rongelap used Ailingnae as a food-gathering atoll. The atoll supports large populations of green turtles and nesting seabirds, but has not been the subject of intensive study before. In the 1950s it gained some notoriety because a small group of Rongelap islanders were on Ailingnae when the 1954 hydrogen bomb test “Bravo” at Bikini spewed radioactive fallout on the two atolls.
Rongelap leaders asked for and are getting assistance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the University of Hawaii, the U.S. National Park Service, the University of Queensland, the University of California at Santa Cruz and the College of the Marshall Islands. The U.S. Department of the Interior is spending $45,000 to underwrite the basic costs of the two-week Ailingnae survey.
There are almost no marine protected areas in the Marshall Islands or the rest of Micronesia, according Dr. James Maragos, the scientific team’s leader. Because of this, “the possibility of formal protection for uninhabited and relatively undisturbed Ailingnae Atoll takes on greater regional and international significance,” he said.
The survey is the first step in the process and will inventory marine and land plants, animals and habitats.
Matayoshi said that a side benefit of the two-week survey is that eight Rongelap islanders — six scuba divers and two who will work on land — will be trained as part of the survey.
This is a crucial aspect of the survey because Rongelap islanders will be trained to count and monitor various land and marine life that will be documented over the next nine month leading to a final report in time for submission for World Heritage consideration in mid-2003, according to John Fysh, Rongelap Resettlement Program project manager.
Matayoshi expressed concern about illegal fishing and poaching of marine life at Ailingnae by foreign fishing boats, adding that “this is a good initiative to protect the atoll from poachers.”
The scientific work at Ailingnae is the beginning of “potential future opportunities for Rongelap” to develop low-impact tourism activities, Matayoshi said. In addition to diving and fishing, a World Heritage listing “will attract tourists to visit,” he said. “They can commute from Rongelap to Ailingnae.”
