| Tonga Honeymoons | Friday, January 9, 2009 |
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ON A SANDY BEACH IN HA'APAI "They often see whales. On this particular morning, though, there were seven or eight porpoises a little ways offshore, and one of the Tongan girls at the resort began calling pele pele pele and the porpoises actually came closer, as if on call. The two middle-aged New Zealand couples who were staying at Sandy Beach Resort just couldn't believe it. But that's Ha'apai for you ... so far from the madding crowd it gets a little bit unbelievable". (Source: Royal Tongan Magazine - Extract of article by Kim Gravelle) TONGA'S US$1M WHALE OF A TIME While most South Pacific countries are pondering how to boost tourism incomes, the tiny South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga is having a US$1m (AU$1.9m) whale of a time. And its all because of migrating Antarctic cetaceans (whales) that stop in its warm waters during the months of June, July and August to frolic, mate, and give birth to young conceived a year earlier... and attract thousand of whale-watchers. Pio Emosi Manoa, from Greenpeace Australia-Pacific, told the third biennial South Pacific Tourism Conference in Port Vila that while whale-watching was worth US$1m a year to Tonga whose northern island of Vavau was almost a beacon for whales, world-wide whale-watching was worth US$1b (AU$1.9b) for some 492 communities in 87 countries. Mr Manoa, who was speaking in support of a South Pacific Whale Sanctuary (already rejected by the International Whaling Commission despite support from Australia and New Zealand and 20 other nations,) said the concept whale sanctuaries was not new, and that two already existed in the Indian and Southern Oceans. "The proposed South Pacific Whale Sanctuary is a logical step towards protecting whales in their breeding grounds," he said. "A live whale gives a lot more benefits than a dead one to nations in the South Pacific as a generator of tourism over 10,000,000 people went whale-watching world-wide last year, and the figure is increasing by over 12% a year." Mr Manoa suggested that Niue, French Polynesia, Guam, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu all had the opportunity to develop whale-watching tourism operations. "Every live whale brings US$1.6m (AU$3m) in its lifetime to Tonga," he said. "With up to 500 whales passing through different islands in a season, you can see the value whale-watching can bring to the South Pacific." (Source: SPTO, September 2001) |
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