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Mr. Vaitoti Tupa, Director,

Cook Islands National Environment Service

Vaitoti took over as Director of the National Environment Service (CINES) in 2001. After spending 30 years working in the Service with different priorities he is now encouraging greater emphasis on environmental monitoring, institutional strengthening, and the development of human resources. During his free time he likes to spend time gardening or with his family and friends. He also manages his own cultural dance group.

What are the main issues facing the protection of freshwater quality in the Cook Islands?

It varies from island to island, but the main issue is uncontrolled development especially in tourism and the increasing demand for accommodation.

On Rarotonga, the main issue is who should be responsible for the management of freshwater quality. At the moment the responsibility is scattered amongst a number of ministries.

The Department of Waterworks which is mandated to provide water to the general public and the Department of Public Health is mandated to ensure safe clean water for public consumption. The responsibility of the Environment Service is to protect the environment to ensure access to good quality clean water.

There needs to be some sort of mechanism put in place to improve the way we manage this critically important resource. At the moment Waterworks and Health keep their information to themselves but it’s obviously in the best interests of the public to find a more effective way to improve the management of our limited water resources.

The National Environment Service has evolved through a long period of trial and error. Some islands disputed parts of the original Cook Islands Conservation Act and eventually pulled out leaving Rarotonga on its own. Now some of the outer islands are slowly starting to understand and accept the intentions of the Act.

The underground water supply for Aitutaki is now heavily contaminated with salt water, which could be the result of a number of activities including the breaking of the baserock on the shores to open deeper swimming holes for tourists. A lot of activities took place during the few years after the act was removed. During the absence of the Act a lot of uncontrolled development took place.

How does the International Waters Project fit into this proposed collaboration?

Well the IWP has actually brought the lack of coordination or management fact to the fore. While everybody is saying that, “All is well, we’re doing our job and they theirs”, its not! I am happy to say that the IWPCOOKS is trying to bring the agencies together to agree on a standard water testing protocol and to compare parameters being tested for.

A meeting between these agencies was facilitated by IWPCOOKS in April. We believe that by having some level of standardization in the testing protocols then results could be compared to one another. Everybody needs to get together and start singing the same song so the whole nation can benefit from harmonious results instead of unrelated noises.

Although the IWP is a community-based programme it is also asking government some serious questions about how different agencies need to sort themselves to support these practical initiatives at the community level. Once the collaboration issue is out of the way then we can start to take more effective and targeted approach to addressing these serious water pollution and contamination issues.

How do you propose to resolve any problems arising from the different agency responsibilities for managing freshwater quality?

The IWP has commissioned a consultant to review all the freshwater related legislation and this work is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. This will attempt to identify any gap and overlaps. Depending on the review findings new legislation maybe drafted and new legislation could mean the establishment of a new agency solely dedicated to freshwater management.

All this will be clearer to us once the review is completed. But at this stage a Catchment Management Plan can still be enforced under the 2003 National Environment Act 2003.

How would a Catchment Management Plan would help to reduce the level of contamination, especially the level of fecal coliform, in the water?

At the moment anyone can have access to the Rarotonga’s catchments - the growers, tourists and even locals. And who knows what else they do up there besides sightseeing and growing taro.

We are hoping that the Management Plan would control the access of both tourists and locals to the sensitive areas above the intake. At the moment we have a communication plan in place which we hope will improve the community’s awareness and appreciation of our efforts to protect the area from contamination.

What are your views on installing a treatment plant and the introduction of a user pay system to sustain its operation?

This has been under discussion for years. In 1991 the Government looked at a user-pays system where water meters were installed but, at the time, Waterworks couldn’t guarantee the continuous delivery of good quality freshwater. The economic reform that followed in 1994 contributed to the collapse of the whole project.

What we are doing now with IWP is good because it’s about the whole country taking a good, hard, look at what we can do to improve the quality of freshwater at the source, before we start looking at options such as treatment and user-pays

There is only over a year left before the completion of the IWP. How far is the Cooks from achieving what it set out to achieve for the project?

Our aim is that by the end of 2005 the Takuvaine Catchment will have a management plan in place that is fully supported by the community living in Takuvaine and those landowners living in the neighbouring districts.

We are hoping that the success of the Takuvaine management plan will help to create support and demand for a similar plan for the rest of Rarotonga. At the moment we have the support of the Traditional leaders (Koutu Nui) or the sub-chiefs of the Cook Islands. They are watching and supporting us and if all goes well by the end of 2006 we hope to have the Rarotonga catchments reserved.

To date what have been the main lessons provided by IWPCOOKS?

The IWP has constantly emphasized the vital importance of identifying the root causes of environment and resource management problems. For years, we have spent a lot of resources to address symptoms and then wondered why the problem still remains.

For example with littering we focused on picking up the rubbish rather than things like controlling what was coming in and asking questions about why people litter in the first place. I think we can all benefit by stepping back a bit to try to look and the real, root cause of our environmental problems.

To date, it is apparent that people’s lack of participation is due to their lack of confidence in any government initiatives. We have to build public confidence that we are actually working hard to make sure that any national level initiatives are based on true participation and engagement with our communities.

With the IWP it was hard for the community to get used to the idea that they would have to create the management plan themselves instead of waiting for government to do everything and simply give it back to the community to implement. I think that, in the end, the long-term results of this approach will justify all the hard work that both the community and the IWP team have put into trying to improve the quality of freshwater for all Cook Islands communities.