The South Pacific Problems, Issues, and Prospects

The Geographic location of the Island States in the South Pacific gives them a political and economic importance transcending their small size. Regional tranquility was disturbed in the late 1980s by pockets of instabilities, posing difficult policy challenges to near and distant observers. Wall of Death driftnet fishing tugs at the heart strings; subsistence economies pull at purse strings; events divide heart (defence of indigenous rights) from mind (unacceptability of overthrow of democratic government, imposition of racist constitution, denial of human rights); nuclear testing seems to defy all reason; and rising sea levels caused by global warming capture the imagination but threaten to drown island nations of the South Pacific.