Pacific Islands Regional Maritime Boundaries Project the latest Update Malakai Vakautawale (Mr) Maritime Boundaries Adviser
Consortium Partners 2
What we do? Provide technical advice and support on MB s work as in accordance with the legal/technical provisions of UNCLOS (UN Convention on the law of the Sea); Provide technical advice and support on Extended Continental Shelf (Art. 76 UNCLOS) claims; Provide ongoing capacity building and training of member country boundary technical teams; Develop comprehensive data-sets which facilitate definition of the legal and administrative offshore limits for member countries, in accordance with the provisions of UNCLOS; Act as an information and data repository; Ensure that all maritime boundaries information follow the PIRMBIS data structure; 3
Maritime Limits: The Envelope of Arcs Ocean Basepoints G Distance from basepoints A B C F Envelope of arc E D Maritime zone limit Land Irrelevant basepoint Baselines versus Basepoints: Not all of the baseline contributes to defining the limits of maritime jurisdiction
Regional Maritime Boundaries Unit (3) Technical solutions prepared with PICs for shared/overlapping EEZs * Not drawn to scale
Maritime Boundary Computation MarZone Calculates the median line between two countries based on equi-distance ratio
MarZone Part 1; Median Line Results Median Line output in log file Median Line is also saved as a line output from MarZone
Maritime Boundaries Bilateral Treaties 2012 To Date NIUE & COOK IS KIRIBATI & COOK IS KIRIBATI & TUVALU KIRIBATI & TOKELAU KIRIBATI & NAURU NAURU & MARSHALL IS KIRIBATI & MARSHALL IS KIRIBATI NAURU-MARSHALL IS TUVALU & FIJI 8 VANUATU & SOLOMON IS
Treaty Statistics & Map No. of treaties signed 32 No. of treaties to be signed 13 9
Maritime boundaries work 10
Extended Continental Shelf Submission Country Cook Islands Ongtong Java Joint submission Fiji Fiji Nth Fiji Basin Kiribati Palau Palau additional area Solomon Is. East Solomon Is. Nth Fiji Basin PNG-FSM Massau Submission completed/lodged Presented to CLCS Sub-commission elected Submission defence In progress In progress Recommendations PNG-FSM Eurapick Tonga Tonga West Tonga East Tuvalu -NZ- France Vanuatu Nth Fiji Basin 11
Why is it important? The clear definition of the limits of the maritime jurisdiction is important as it provides the legal framework for the governance of maritime space and the management of the valuable marine resources within the country s national jurisdiction areas: Fisheries management Deep sea minerals development Security Biodiversity Conservation Research Transport Vessel monitoring 12
Constraints Policies Political will of National Governments (17 years of project establishment at SPC) National Maritime Laws and Legislation needs to be reviewed and updated to reflect the technical datasets being used to develop the baselines and maritime zones. Resources & Priorities Member states - working with limited resources and different government priorities. There are certain technical and legal capacity constraints within the project teams (trained staff get promoted internally) 13
Constraints.(cont) The 10 project states who have submitted their claims for Extended Continental Shelf (under Article 76 of UNCLOS) are facing capacity constraints in the process of the defence of the these claims to the UN. Official Boundaries vs Provisional Boundaries. 14
Official Boundaries VS Provisional Boundaries Cook Islands Official Boundary 1km Current VMS EEZ 6km 2km 15
Kiribati (Line Island Group) 36km Official EEZ 11km 4km Current VMS EEZ 16
Emerging Opportunities FSM, Normwin Charts. 2015 - World View II 17
Emerging Opportunities.cont Offset Offset 2013 Landset Image Pikelot, FSM 2015 - World View II Adjusted Baseline 18
Emerging Opportunities (cont) 2012 LandSat of Samoa 2015 LIDAR of Samoa 19
Emerging Opportunities (cont) Extracted contour Adjusted boundary 20
Service Level Agreement with FFA
The 2016 SLA underlined the need for the maritime zones lines in the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) to be updated with publicly available and legislated boundaries for the purpose of fisheries monitoring, control, surveillance and enforcement and management. Data delivered will be based on IHO S-121 Maritime Limits and Boundaries Exchange format and will be disseminated via OGC web services in PacGeo portal Full documentation, tools and processes on maritime boundaries i.e. updates and revisions with incorporation of new datasets Features delivered to FFA will be in points, lines and polygons Global dataset(vliz) will be used where there is no treaty or data available
Vessel Monitoring System
Future Challenges (cont.) Increasing reports of IUU fishing activities in the region Leaders need to formally establish their maritime boundaries (including signed treaties for overlapping EEZs) in a legal manner and deposit this information with the UN.
Future Challenges.(cont.) Deep Sea Mining Implications Application and approval of mining leases for seabed exploration and exploitation within a country s EEZ and also in the Area
Future Challenges Climate Change Sea Level rise and Shifting Maritime Jurisdiction Limits
Thank you Malakai Vakautawale malakaiv@spc.int 27