5 September 2025, Apia, Samoa – The Thirteenth Meeting of the Convention to Ban the Importation into Forum Island Countries of Hazardous and Radioactive Wastes and to Control the Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within the South Pacific Region, otherwise known as the Waigani Convention, convened this morning in Apia.
The meeting is being attended by seven of the thirteen Pacific island Parties to the Waigani Convention, namely Australia, Cook Islands, Kiribati, New Zealand, Niue, Samoa, and Tuvalu.
The Waigani Convention is modeled after the global Basel Convention and aims to reduce and eliminate transboundary movements of hazardous and radioactive waste, minimise the production of hazardous and toxic wastes in the region, and ensure that disposal of wastes in area is completed in an environmentally sound manner.
Speaking at the opening of the meeting, SPREP’s Director General, Mr. Sefanaia Nawadra, gave a brief history of the Convention, stating that the Convention was drawn up to address challenges that the Pacific was facing in the late 1980s to 1990s.
“Our region was suffering from the dumping of harmful substances, initially during the 2nd World War when countries left behind ships and equipment that were polluting our environment and other illegal dumping issues we were facing at the time.”
"In the late 1980s to 1990s, there was a very real risk of these things happening again in the Pacific, and that’s why our countries put in place the Waigani Convention to ensure that this would not be the case," Mr. Nawadra added.
Director General Nawadra assured that the work of the Convention continues, even though the Pacific no longer face these threats to the extent that they did then, but there are now different challenges for which they can use the Waigani Convention and by extension the BRS Conventions to address.
"We all have issues with trying to control chemical wastes that come into the region and we need to continue to work together to safeguard our region from the impacts of this," said Mr. Nawadra.
"We as a membership are working together on a review progress that was started in 2021 on how we can keep the Waigani Convention relevant to the needs of the region and how it can be used to address the issues we face."
The Meeting was also attended by the Executive Secretary of the Joint Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions, Mr. Rolph Payet, who called on Pacific Parties to the Waigani Convention to encourage fellow Pacific governments in the region to come together to strengthen the Waigani Convention as well as the Basel Convention.
“The Pacific Small Island States have a very strong voice in the International Negotiating Committee for a plastics treaty, and I want to see that same energy brought to the BRS Conventions COPs which have already been dealing with plastics for many years and are already legally binding Conventions,” Mr. Payet said.
Before the Before the start of official proceedings, the Parties elected Niue as President of the Thirteenth Meeting of the Waigani Convention COP, with Samoa as the Vice President and Cook Islands as the Rapporteur.
For more information, please contact Mr. Anthony Talouli, Director of Waste Management and Pollution Control, at [email protected].