Palau, 2009

I am speaking for the first

time as Head of State. However, in 1977 I appeared

with my country’s delegation before the Trusteeship

Council, seeking independence. In 1994, the

trusteeship ended and we took our place as a Member

of the United Nations. Our independence is testament

to the success of the International Trusteeship System,

for which we are grateful. The legacy of our experience

is a Constitution that incorporates the rights and

freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights: freedom, democracy, equal protection

and the rule of law.

We thank the permanent members of the Security

Council, which recognized our sovereignty: the United

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the

French Republic, the Russian Federation, the People’s

Republic of China and the United States of America.

The United States was our Administering Authority,

and we express our deep appreciation to it for

becoming our close partner under the Compact of Free

Association, a relationship we cherish and one that we

hope will endure.

As a new and young Member, Palau has

shouldered its responsibilities in the community of

nations, including the deployment of peacekeepers to

Darfur, Timor-Leste and the Solomon Islands. When

signing international conventions and meeting our

counter-terrorism obligations, as set forth by the

Security Council, we remember and honour the legacy

of the United Nations.

While our political progress has been satisfactory

since independence, I must report to you that we are

now confronted with several looming threats to our

continued peaceful way of life, and indeed to our very

existence. Climate change, environmental degradation

and the world financial crisis are challenges that we

will only be able to overcome if we work with the

international community.

We associate ourselves with the statements of

concern on climate change which we heard in this Hall

earlier this week. We applaud the commitments made

and note that we must use our best efforts to stop this

slow-moving tsunami that threatens to engulf us. To

this end, Palau and our neighbours in the Federated

States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall

Islands have adopted a joint policy, known as Green

Energy Micronesia (GEM) to move to renewable

energy as a pillar of our collective energy security.

Furthermore, Palau has signed the Statute of the

International Renewable Energy Agency, and we look

forward to the exciting work that will emanate from the

United Arab Emirates. We are hopeful that the

combined efforts of all our nations will lead to a

fruitful outcome in Copenhagen.

We note in particular the statement of the new

Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Yukio Hatoyama. Japan’s

vision and commitment to save our planet are

inspiring. This is one of the many reasons we support a

permanent seat for Japan on the Security Council.

We reiterate that climate change is indeed a

cross-cutting issue and that all aspects of it, especially

the security impact of climate change, need to be

examined. This is why Palau and the Pacific Small

Island Developing States initiated General Assembly

resolution 63/281, on “Climate change and its possible

security implications”. We look forward to meaningful

action by the Security Council on that resolution.

Palauans have lived throughout history in

symbiosis with the sea. Now, though, the sea, which

has long been the source of our sustenance, is

simultaneously rising in rage to destroy us and

becoming barren. This fury was caused by abuses by

humankind, and we therefore must take every

necessary action to allow the oceans to heal

themselves. In days gone by, the traditional chiefs of

Palau would declare a bul — a moratorium to protect a

resource that had become scarce. This traditional

concept, now popularly known as conservation, shows

the way for us to move forward. As Mahatma Gandhi

said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s

need, but not every man’s greed”.

This is why the world must declare a bul on

destructive fishing practices like deep-sea bottom

trawling, unsustainable harvesting of shark for their

fins and overexploitation of tuna stocks. The odious

fishing practice of bottom trawling, where a weighted

net is dragged along the sea floor, crushing nearly

everything in its path, is contributing to the rapid loss

of a critical ecosystem, our coral reefs. We have

outlawed deep-sea bottom trawling in Palau, but, no

matter what we do in our own waters, there must be an

international solution. For several years, we, along

with our Pacific neighbours, have advocated a

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moratorium on this practice. The sustainable fisheries

resolution adopted by the General Assembly in 2007

(resolution 62/177) urged nations and regional fishery

management organizations to stop trawling in sensitive

areas by 2009. We have waited for compliance, which

has not come, and we now renew our call for a

worldwide moratorium on this practice.

An equally destructive fishing practice is shark-

finning. We have banned it in Palau and call upon the

world to address this issue in order to save sharks from

extinction. The physical strength and beauty of sharks

are a natural barometer of the health of our oceans.

Therefore, I declare today that Palau will become the

world’s first national shark sanctuary, ending all

commercial shark fishing in our waters and giving a

sanctuary for sharks to live and reproduce unmolested

in our 237,000 square miles of ocean. We call upon all

nations to join us. The need to save sharks and our

environment far outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of

shark’s fin soup.

It is anomalous that Palau is experiencing

economic difficulty while it sits in the middle of the

richest fishing grounds in the world, the Pacific Ocean.

We can no longer stand by while foreign vessels

illicitly come to our waters to take our greatest

resource, our tuna stocks, without regard for their

conservation and without regard for adequate

compensation to the island States that own the fishing

grounds and rely on this resource. Palau believes that

the best model for a regional effort to conserve our

tuna resources and maximize the benefits to us is the

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

(OPEC). I will therefore work for the establishment of

OTEC, the Organization of Tuna Exporting Countries,

and I now call on our friends in OPEC to come forward

and help us to understand and obtain fair value from

our threatened resource and to make tuna fishing

sustainable.

I come now to the economic crisis that my

country is facing. As a developing nation, we are

grateful for the grants provided by our allies and

partners to advance our development. They have been

helpful.

Mr. Martínez Bonilla (El Salvador) Vice-

President, took the Chair.

But we must acknowledge that outright grants do

not always create meaningful employment. Jobs

created are illusory and temporary. In the absence of a

strong local economy, our children, our most valuable

resource, are leaving our shores for opportunities

elsewhere. The continuing downward cycle created by

their departure must be stopped, or else it will destroy

the very fabric of our society. Our allies and partners

can help us stop this cycle by promoting the

development of private enterprise through investment

in our country. We need capital and entrepreneurial

expertise.

I implore our allies and partners to consider

providing incentives to their nationals to encourage

them to invest in our islands, to come to our islands

and launch partnerships with our talented people to

create a viable economy. Let us once and for all put

aside the fiction that we need handouts. What we need

are partners and investment to help advance our

economy, put an end to the out-migration of our people

and propel Palau towards economic self-sufficiency.

We note with satisfaction the decision by the

People’s Republic of China to invite Taiwan to attend

the World Health Assembly. The health and safety of

the world’s peoples are at the heart of the ideals of the

United Nations. In order to further promote those

ideals, we recommend that Taiwan be invited to

participate meaningfully in the International Civil

Aviation Organization (ICAO), the United Nations

Framework Convention on Climate Change coming up

in Copenhagen and other international organizations

and forums.

We have heard the voices of world leaders from

countries small and large, powerful and vulnerable. We

have heard the voice of science. Let us heed those

voices, fulfil our obligations to our people, now and in

the next generation, and work for a strong economy

and a healthy planet.