Micronesian Center for Sustainable Transport (MCST) Blog

  "....During the crisis, lack of truckers, time-consuming inspections, and quarantine in port customs hampered fresh food delivery globally. For example, India, the world's biggest rice exporter, suspended its exports due to labor shortages and logistics disruptions. As a result,  the number of food-insecure people rose significantly during the pandemic . Changing trade patterns and imbalances have left many containers in places where they are not needed, and others are held up in ports or on ships for weeks due to congestion. The resulting unprecedented shortage of available containers has led to historically high container freight rates..." UNCTAD brings home reality for countries struggling to understand issues in the maritime sector in the midst of COVID 19. Pooling together knowledge and data for more sustainable maritime transport | UNCTAD.

Peter Nuttall Micronesia Centre for Sustainable Transport This article was written a year before appearing on this blogsite. As we begin a new decade, the Sun is asking what 2020 heralds for Fiji’s shipping future? Shipping, especially our domestic sector, is facing major challenges. We are a maritime nation. Our fleet of commercial vessels - from outboard-driven village fibers, barges, landing craft, tourist vessels, to large passenger/cargo ferries - is the very lifeline connecting our more than 300 islands. Like other Pacific Islands states, we have long shipping routes, sometimes hundreds of nautical miles, to service relatively small communities. It has always been a relatively high-risk business and margins, especially for our remote and most vulnerable communities, are thin. High fuel prices, an often-aged fleet and a large scattered infrastructural footprint, have always presented major challenges to both government and private sector operators alike. There are major systemic u...

Dr. Peter Nuttall  Micronesian Centre for Sustainable Transport.     This article was published exactly one year ago since appearing on this blogsite. By the time this goes to print, Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold is hopefully situated well to the south of Fiji. But TC Harold has already taken a toll in human life and structural damage in the Solomon Islands and, as I write, is poised to strengthen to Category 5 as it slams into Vanuatu. The heartbreaking news of the maritime disaster that has happened in the Solomon’s this week, with at least two vessels washed ashore and some 28 passengers washed off an inter-island ferry (MV Taimareho), overcrowded with 738 villagers fleeing COVID19 is a stark reminder of how vulnerable our aged and over-stretched domestic shipping services are in the Pacific. It also highlights how quickly stretched our national capacity is when countries are suddenly faced with not one, but two simultaneous national disasters. Like most countrie...

  Peter Nuttall             Micronesian Center for Sustainable Transport,     This article was published in the Fiji Sun a year ago since appearing on this blogsite. Drua Fleet of Ovalau 1855  Canoe Shed Tonga I Vola Siga Vou – (credit Island Encounters Photography) These truly are unprecedented times. Fiji, and its Pacific neighbours, are faced with two national disasters - the aftermath of Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold and the Covid19 pandemic. But a third, and possibly greatest threat, now looms large - a global economic depression likely of a magnitude unseen since the Great Depression. The effects of this will rock our vulnerable Pacific economies for the foreseeable future. One of the few silver linings from the Great Depression was the renaissance in traditional canoe building that happened in maritime Fiji and especially the Lau group. The great drua fleets that were commonplace through central Oceania had largely been dismantl...

Peter Nuttall Micronesia Centre for Sustainable Transport This article was written in February 2020, a year ago since appearing on this blogsite The critical importance of sea transport to Pacific countries and its interrelationship to all levels of socio-economic development are widely recognised and documented. The sector currently has a range of challenges including the prevalence of old, inefficient and undermaintained vessels, and a lack of supporting modern infrastructure including ports, facilities for bunkering, ship building, maintenance, and repair. Existing vessels service and underpin micro-economies at the end of long and narrow operating routes, with the consequence that sea transport within and between Pacific countries is the most expensive per unit distance and per capita in the world. Transportation and mobility is a cross-cutting issue central to the sustainable development of Pacific Island countries. In the Pacific we do not have fast rail, concrete freeways and bi...