Prime Minister Mark Brown pays his first visit to Suwarrow, the largest national park of the Cook Islands, during his northern group tour.
After departing Palmerston on Friday and spending a full day at sea on Saturday, Prime Minister Mark Brown continued his round trip of several northern group islands this week with a visit to Suwarrow on Sunday.
Accompanied by Cook Islands Investment Corporation Associate Minister Albert Nicholas and a government delegation of officials and workers from Infrastructure Cook Islands (ICI), Cook Islands Investment Corporation (CIIC), Seabed Minerals Authority, National Environment Service (NES) and the Marae Moana office, Brown arrived in Suwarrow on Sunday morning aboard the MV Taunga Nui barge.
The main purpose of Sunday’s stop at the usually uninhabited island was to drop off park ranger Harry Papa’i and Environment Service officer Jessie Nicholson, who will be conducting various flora and fauna surveys and setting rat bait to check for the presence of the invasive rodents that have been the focus of an ongoing eradication programme.
Nicholson is expected to remain on the island for several weeks, or until an assistant ranger can be found and located to Suwarrow. Veteran ranger Papa’i will be there for eight months, continuing his duties and also keeping an eye out for any overseas sailing vessels, which are currently barred from visiting the island due to Covid-19 border restrictions.
PM Brown said: “As a national park of the Cook Islands since 1978, Suwarrow is a hugely important part of our Marae Moana. The work that Harry and his fellow NES rangers do here is of immense value and I am sure all Cook Islanders are grateful for their efforts.”
“It’s a very special moment to come to Suwarrow for the first time – and it’s great that we’ve brought the park rangers that’ll be spending the next season here on the island, looking after it, and especially protecting the unique biodiversity that exists here – the birdlife, the sealife, the crabs and so forth.
“It’s very important biodiversity too, because this island hosts a significant percentage of frigate birds globally, so maintaining this as a national park is part of our Cook Islands duty as a good global citizen.”
While rangers typically only spend five to six months of the year on Suwarrow, returning home in November before the start of cyclone season, the Covid-19 pandemic last year prevented the Environment Service from sending out their rangers as usual, meaning no staff have been stationed on the island since 2019.
Accordingly, the Environment Service decided to send them early this year, anticipating a greater than normal need to carry out repairs on the rangers’ lodgings and other island facilities.
Luckily, the entire government delegation onboard MV Taunga Nui – including Brown – were willing and eager to assist the two rangers with their initial setup tasks upon arrival in Suwarrow.
Essential supplies – including food, timber, roofing iron, water tanks, a fridge, and an oven – were ferried from barge to shore using small boats, then carried by hand to the ranger station.
Seabed Minerals Commissioner Alex Herman, who is also part of the delegation, said: “Unsurprisingly, everything was quite overgrown, so we spent pretty much the whole day on a working bee.”
“Cleaning, grass cutting, helping them cart all the supplies – it’s a good thing we had as many people as we did. The whole government delegation, including the PM – who I saw raking rubbish – was helping clean and carry all this stuff to get the job done.
“The rangers were really grateful – if they’d had to do it themselves it would have taken a very long time.”
PM Brown and the delegation departed Suwarrow on Monday morning to continue their northern-group journey to Pukapuka, where they arrived on Tuesday.
Supplied By - Jaewynn McKay (Office of the Prime Minister)