The Cook Islands Live in the Real World

 By Henry Srebrnik, Charlottetown Guardian

The idea of the South Pacific islands as an idyllic paradise never seems to disappear. Read this excerpt from “The Pacific Islands that Don’t Want to be Hawaii,” a March 23 BBC article by Pam and Gary Baker:

“Landing on Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands chain felt like stepping back in time. Gazing out of the taxi from Rarotonga airport to our resort, we were immediately struck by the absence of high-rise hotels, fast-food restaurants and corporate chains. There were no traffic lights, only coconut palms lining the road, the scent of salt and frangipani drifting through the air and the jungle meeting the ocean in a seamless panorama. It felt uncrowded, laid-back and refreshingly authentic.”

It was this vision that lured artists and writers like Paul Gauguin and Robert Louis Stevenson to the south seas. Stevenson found the islands exceptionally alluring and declared, “no part of the world exerts the same attractive power upon the visitor. The sense of isolation was profound and refreshing.” For Gauguin, “There were landscapes to discover -- new and more primitive sources of inspiration.” 

The travel writer Paul Theroux, who had visited the region in 1990, noted in The Happy Isles of Oceania that “the islands had endured sixty years of colonial rule, and yet in Gauguin’s paintings -- in the fragrant vision he created for himself -- Polynesia is inviolate.” 

One of the more pristine countries, the Cook Islands, an archipelago of 15 islands between New Zealand and Hawaii, has been self-governing in free association with New Zealand since 1965, sharing a military, foreign affairs, and passports. New Zealand also provides the Cook Islands with budgetary assistance. Its population of 15,040 is dwarfed by more than 90,000 who identify as Cook Island Maori and who live in Aotearoa, the Maori name for New Zealand.

It is of course true that places like the Cook Islands wish to attract tourists through sustainable preservation of their beauty, so they don’t want to create another Honolulu. Instead, they have committed to conservation, low-impact tourism and sustainable practices that benefit both locals and visitors.

In 2017, the country established the Marae Moana Marine Park, creating the world’s largest multi-use marine protected area, covering 1.9 million square kilometres. The legislation also bans large-scale commercial fishing and seabed mining within 50 nautical miles of each island.

But tourism by itself is not enough. As Cook Islanders recently celebrated 60 years of self-government, Garth Henderson, Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Management, noted that the country established a $57 million Stabilisation Fund, just eight months before the COVID pandemic struck and impacted tourism. “We kept people in work, maintained essential services, and stabilised our economy.”

But the irony of the growth pre-COVID was the “graduation” from Official Development Assistance (ODA) eligibility, when a developing country’s Gross National Income per capita reaches a threshold considered “high-income” by international institutions like the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and OECD Development Assistance Committee.

It meant reduced access to concessionary finance and grants, even as the country continued to face the unique vulnerabilities of a Small Island Developing State: geographic isolation, small populations and markets, a narrow economic base, and increasing climate and disaster risk.

While tourism has returned, investing in modern infrastructure, expanding digital connectivity, strengthening financial services, and responsibly exploring ocean and maritime resources remain of paramount importance.

“With an infrastructure gap of more than $600 million, we have had to be more assertive in engaging development partners, negotiating more favourable terms, and seeking new opportunities,” Henderson pointed out. “These constraints have also made our efforts to pursue meaningful economic diversification even more essential.”

Until now, the islands have looked to New Zealand for help, but it’s not enough. And China is filling the gap, even though, as Henderson put it diplomatically, this has caused “recent differences in interpretation with Aotearoa New Zealand,” which is unhappy with this turn of events.

He was referring to the nation’s new strategic partnership with China, signed in February, citing the need for diverse international partners to fund a $650 million infrastructure plan that New Zealand alone cannot support. It will cover infrastructure, tourism, technology and perhaps crucially, deep-sea mineral exploration. In a fit of pique, New Zealand, the former colonial power, has paused millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands. Not a wise move.