More licences will make whale watching in Vava'u unsustainable Featured
19 April, 2017. A woman with a long involvement in whale watching in Tonga's Vava'u is hoping there will be fewer boats licenced to provide the service this year.
Whale watching and swimming with the whales are key element of the Tongan tourism package but Aunofo Havea Funaki, one of the founders of the sector, says the number of operators has reached unsustainable levels.
Aunofo said, at times, last year there were up to 20 boats operating in a small area.
She raised this matter of unsustainability at a whale conference in Nuku'alofa earlier this month and is confident that the government will reduce the number of licences issued for the new season, starting in July.
"I saw last year there were too many boats out there, too many. I know that whales coming to Vava'u and to Tonga - it's different every year but last year it was less. They came late. Some years they came late and some years they came earlier. I think it was too many boats."
-RNZI
2 comments
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Aunofo
You have given a groundless point to reduce opportunities. You fail to prove the real reasons for less whales appears in Vava'u/Tonga? I wish you have provided more facts to support your crazy act. -
Is not this unfortunate situation very much in line with the neo-liberal ideology largely adopted by and dictating Tonga, knowingly or unknowingly, where its chief mode of economy is merely freely yet wildly left for determination by the mercy of the so-called inherent rationality of the market?
Is not this unfortunate situation a "distress" call (signalling a type of "SOS") for the whale watching - whale swimming as a truly thriving local industry to be regulated as opposed to it being deregulated? But how can it ever be regulated when it is in direct conflict with neo-liberalism, where fierce competition as a rule supremely rules, thereby leaving the jungle-driven might-is-right and survival-of-the-fittest as the only norms?
There then arises a fundamental question, How has Tonga effectively managed this thriving local industry, involving whale watching - whale swimming as a local significant (though seasonal) resource? This is especially but sadly so in view of Tonga as a strictly consumer (service)-led rather than a producer (creative, innovative)-based economy.
Tonga badly needs to have a total control of this local resource, which strictly requires a sense of both creativity and innovation for its production as a truly quality product for trade and exchange on the global market. Tonga also badly needs the high level of knowledge and skills, technology and capital that can be readily made to be equal to the task.
But can this be made real or only imaginary? The answer is highly dependent on the depth of the so-called "dependency mentality," deeply but harmly entrenched in the psyche and life of people on all levels of society and across social contexts. A long-term and effective solution can be found in education but its undue overemphasis on technical and vocational over critical and classical education has the greater tendency of immediately hindering and finally erasing all hopes.