Easter Island seeks, together with the rest of the Pacific, to stop “receiving the world’s garbage”

The “urgent” situation for the protection of oceans and the challenge of plastic pollution brings together around twenty delegations from Polynesia at a summit, Europe and Asia, in Chile Easter Island, whose mayor warned this Wednesday that his territory is “receiving the garbage of the world”.

The ‘Pacific Leaders Summit 2024 for the Protection of the Oceans and the Challenge of Plastic Pollution and Microplastics in the Region’, which will be held until Friday in the territory located 3,700 kilometers from the Chilean continental coast, is a forum “pioneer” that seeks to combat the scourge of plastic, which represents the 85% of marine litter.

“Today we are gathered here in Rapa Nui – the indigenous name of the island -, first, to remember the dream of our ancestors who sought a safe place to live and sustain ourselves; Second, as the most isolated island on the planet we are receiving the world’s garbage.”The mayor of Rapa Nui, Pedro Edmunds Paoa, told EFE.

“The call has to be from here, because we no longer have another place to look for to survive, today this place and our planet are insecure”he added.

The first inhabitants of Rapa Nui populated the territory thousands of years ago, fleeing a natural cataclysm, a progressive flooding of their land that forced them to migrate from Polynesia.

Today, like their ancestors, the islanders speak of a “cataclysm caused by humanity” due to the massive pollution of the oceans, which surrounds the beaches of the island, the countries and territories in the Pacific basin.

Unlike their original trip, the Rapa Nui have nowhere to go today, the pollution reached the “navel of the world”.

This international meeting, which brings together representatives from territories such as Hawaii (USA), Fiji, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Galapagos (Ecuador), Canada, and the United Nations, among others, aims to provide input “powerful” from the Pacific to the discussion of the treaty against plastic pollution that is still being discussed at the UN.

The mayor stated that the summit can “influence” in which national and international authorities ““guarantee the care of the planet.”

He assured that “We have to build a figure as big as our moais – ancient sculptures with a humanoid shape -, metaphorically speaking, to fight this fight and make our descendants proud.”

For her part, the Chilean vice chancellor and undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Gloria de la Fuente, highlighted the “iron commitment to the defense and protection of the oceans” that your country has, “being one of those who has made the most progress in this matter.”

“This meeting seems to us to be an opportunity to find solutions to this multilateral problem. The main difficulties are in the scope, this is about recycling, reusing, taking charge of waste and production and there are different perspectives (…) We hope that a relevant agreement will be reached”The vice chancellor told EFE.

Against 85% of plastic in the seas

International efforts to combat this problem are multiple, with the development of a multilateral treaty to reduce the presence of plastic in the oceans being one of the most relevant in recent years.

“The debate taking place at the United Nations has to do with a triple planetary crisis: climate change, pollution and the maintenance of biodiversity. “The perhaps most important polluting element at this time is plastic.”The United Nations Resident Coordinator in Chile, María José Torres Macho, told the press.

“What we see is an increase in the number of plastic present in the oceans, 80% of it generated on land, and 85% of the pollution of the seas has to do with this material”he added.

According to the international official, a coalition against plastic pollution was formed in 2020 and aims to overcome this crisis by 2040, “a very high level goal” which requires a binding legal instrument to which countries can adhere.

Rapa Nui, which contains the largest protected area in Latin America, receives 4.4 million objects of garbage on its coasts every year, exposed to two large masses of floating plastic that circulate through the ocean as a result of a system of circular currents called Giro South Pacific Oceanic.

The magnitude of the problem places them today at the heart of the global debate on this matter, transforming the ‘navel of the world’ into the megaphone of all of Polynesia to stop a crisis of catastrophic projections.

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