UN General Assembly
1978

211. As my Prime Minister stated in his statement at the thirty-second regular session of the General Assembly last year, the South Pacific region is often thought to consist of many small island-nations without a regional identity. This is no longer true. The region now has an identity with the coming into being of the South Pacific Forum seven years ago. This is an organization which strives to solve problems that confront our peoples in the South Pacific region and to consider various ways in which economic growth can be achieved in the region. The proper utilization of our natural resources, in particular fish, is one such way by which this goal can be reached. The South Pacific contains what may be the world's only under-utilized supply of tuna fish, and for several South Pacific nations this represents the only natural resource available. As such, it is vital to their future economic growth. It is for this reason that the South Pacific Forum is seeking to establish the South Pacific Region Fisheries Organization, which would ensure that maximum benefits from the vast stocks of tuna that live in our waters would go to the peoples of the South Pacific and not the major distant-water fishing nations.