Minerva’s time for wisdom

Global sanctuary rather than Tonga v Fiji war

The Minerva Reefs are a kind of diplomatic pub quiz that usually gets rival teams raising hostile voices.

Fiji says it owns them. Tonga, which used one of its gunboats to chase away Fijians who vandalised it, says they are Tongan. As a result, Suva and Nuku’alofa can not agree on their exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf border.

Overlooked is that Minerva do not qualify as legal islands. They have no role in setting EEZs or territorial waters. There is a better solution to be had; declare a natural sanctuary under the care and protection of Tonga and Fiji. It could, via a currently heavily fished high seas area, link into Aotearoa New Zealand’s Kermadec Island reserve, offering the world a three-nation million square kilometre marine reserve.

Two submerged atolls (at 23°40'S., 179°00'E.) 30 kilometres apart make up the Minerva reefs. They are named after an Australian whaling ship wrecked there in 1829. Although South Minerva’s lagoon offers a somewhat sheltered anchorage (popular with Aotearoa yachts going to and from Fiji and Tonga), both reefs only appear above sea level at low tide. For anything to qualify as an island, the 1958 Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone rules it has to be visible and able to be occupied at high tide. No one lives at Minerva. Claiming them is neither here nor there; in United Nations terms, there is nothing to claim. They are in Fiji’s EEZ, drawn from Tuvana-i-Ra, which at 310 km is the closest actual island to Minerva. Tonga’s Ata Island is 320 km away. Aotearoa would have an interest as its Raoul Island is 604 km to the south. The EEZ boundary shown on Global Fishing Watch is probably the one that will eventually be agreed upon. 

From Global Fishing Watch