Listen Now: 
Download AudioMaori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says there is a clear call from Pacific Island nations for more protection for their environment including a moratorium on seabed mining.
Ms Ngarewa-Packer is back from Portugal, where she attended the United Nations Oceans Conference as part of a Pacific parliamentary alliance.
She says the line up of Pacific prime ministers and president made an effective contribution which is now being played out at diplomatic and political levels.
“Indigenous-led nations actually have their own solutions and want to return to that in how they preserve our planet. That’s the call we need to keep heeding and that’s certainly what we will be pumping n in my capacity in parliament as well,” Ms Ngarewa-Packer says.
Meanwhile, the Green Party is crying foul at NIWA support for a deep sea mining project near Nauru.
Pacific Peoples spokesperson Teanau Tuiono says the crown research institute is helping Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, develop an environmental management plan for miners TMC – The Metals Company.
He says New Zealand cannot credibly claim to be supporting Pacific interests when it refuses to join the call for a moratorium on deep sea mining, while at the same time a crown agency advances work that supports deep sea miners.
RELATED NEWS
