Mahia grandmother takes on the world



NZ Herald 24 August 2002


by Kent Atkinson of NZPA


A Maori grandmother from Mahia, south of Gisborne, is a poster girl for the United Nations at next week’s World Summit.


Pauline Tangiora, a Rongomaiwahine iwi member, is one of six featured speakers at the conference whose faces feature on billboards and banners around Johannesburg.


On Wednesday next week, the six will speak to the world’s press on sustainable development. They will compete with about 100 world leaders for the attention of more than 40,000 delegates and journalists.


Mrs Tangiora is being top-billed for leading a movement to pressure South Asian governments to release indigenous fishers who have strayed across national maritime borders, and to grant indigenous communities the right to adhere to traditional fishing patterns.


She was last year appointed by the Government to its Public Advisory Committee on Disarmament and Arms Control. But she is best known in New Zealand for spearheading a claim to the United Nations human rights committee alleging that the 1992 Sealord fisheries settlement impinged on Maori customary fisheries. The refusal of legal aid by the Privy Council meant that the cornmittee never heard the case.


In South Africa, Mrs Tangiora is expected to talk about how hundreds of fishers are languishing in Indian and Pakistani jails for straying across international borders. They have been arrested for passport, visa and customs violations. Many have had their boats and catches confiscated.


Despite releases, swaps and pledges to stop arresting fishers, the Indian Government reported in March that about 229 Gujarati fishers were being held in Pakistani jails. Fishers from Indonesia and Myamnar also have been arrested for crossing into Indian waters.


As chairwoman of the World Forum of Fisher Peoples. Mrs Tangiora is lobbying for the release of all the fishers, and for an international agreement that would allow traditional fishers to travel freely across maritime borders. In particular, the forum has suggested that India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives create a card that would allow traditional fishers to cross borders to fish.


Mrs Tangiora said that having been raised in a fishing community she felt a special affinity for these fishers. Like them, she had seen traditional practices threatened by commercial fishing, industrialisation and globalisation.


“My work is to try and negotiate with governments and companies, to take into consideration their responsibilitiesto the people of the world to protect our planet’s resources,” she said.