The forum is guided by the 18-member country forum with Fiji being one of them and basically whatever the leaders agree on, that is what we follow, so we don’t make the decisions on our own.
This was highlighted by the Public Affairs Officer of the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Leanne Jorari when asked by fijivillage News on what has the Forum done to pressure the leaders to release the findings of the Forum’s independent experts about the Fukushima treated nuclear wastewater dumping.
Jorari says the Forum has been taking a stand and working on the issue for the past 2-3 years and just because it is coming to light now, it does not mean that they have not been working on it.
She says during a press conference done by the Forum’s Secretary General Henry Puna on the exact day that the Fukushima wastewater dumping started, he stated that the Forum follows the mandate of the leaders.
Jorari says the oceans are very important to the people and are a major part of the 2050 strategies and the plans moving forward from that.
Jorari says around the Fukushima issue, the forum have had, for the last year, an independent expert group who are panel of scientists that are not part of the PIF but we do sort of given the honorarium by the forum.
She says the expert group have been independent and have been speaking against the Fukushima project and advising the leaders for the past few years since they have been brought on board.
Jorari further says the consensus with that was that further experiments needs to be done on these treated water and it has to be non-biased to Japan and what the independent experts said was that it is too early.
She says there has been dialogue on this issue in the past but with the Forum Leaders meeting coming up, there should maybe more dialogue on it.
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