A Cook Islands-descended Greenpeace spokesperson has hit back at Winston Peters after the Foreign Minister accused the environmental group of “pure racism” and “white colonialism” over its opposition to a US and New Zealand-funded port in Tongareva.
Greenpeace Aotearoa spokesperson Juressa Lee, who has been in Palau for the 55th Pacific Islands Forum, responded directly to Peters’ comments.
“Kia orana, Winston. I am a descendant of the Cook Islands, and my concern around what happens in the Cook Islands and particularly in this instance around seabed mining is personal,” Lee said.
It follows an announcement in Palau this week that the United States will contribute US$50 million and New Zealand NZ$10 million towards a new port at Tongareva, also known as Penrhyn Atoll, in the northern Cook Islands.
Peters, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau made the announcement on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum.
Greenpeace labelled the project a “Trojan horse” for deep-sea mining, arguing the US investment should be viewed in the context of its strategic push for access to critical minerals.
The Cook Islands and United States signed a Critical Minerals Framework earlier this year, while the Penrhyn Basin contains polymetallic nodules being explored for their mineral potential.
Greenpeace argues the port investment is part of a broader US push to establish a strategic position in the region and ultimately facilitate deep-sea mining.
Peters rejected that connection when questioned about the announcement.
Asked how much critical minerals had been part of discussions with the United States over the port, Peters said: “It wasn’t.”
He said the idea for infrastructure at Tongareva stretched back more than eight decades.
“It was a project that theoretically began conceptually 83 years ago, in 1943. That’s when they set out the airport, but it was also then consideration of the port,” Peters said.
“83 years later we managed to put the thing together, and from the United States, get the funds to do the job, which is seriously massive. US$50 million is a huge contribution. So we got it over the line.”
Peters said decisions about the Cook Islands’ resources were ultimately for Cook Islanders themselves.
“It was probably maybe a third or fourth year consideration, but that consideration is up entirely to the Cook Island people.
“And to have Greenpeace interfering with these people is pure racism. That’s the kind of white colonialism which these people hate.”
Peters said Greenpeace was “telling the people in Cook Islands that they’re going to dominate what they do with their extractive resources”.
“That’s for the Cook Island people and the Cook Island people alone.”
Lee, however, said her concern was precisely about Pacific and Cook Islands sovereignty.
Speaking in Palau after Peters’ comments, she said she had been surprised the port announcement was made during the Pacific Islands Forum.
“I was a bit shocked that this happened to be the time and place in which New Zealand, the US and the Cook Islands decided to make this announcement,” Lee said.
“It feels like it doesn’t serve, it doesn’t centre the interests of Pacific peoples or the people of the Cook Islands and that it’s kind of done outside or despite the spirit of the Pacific Island Forum and what it intends to do.”
Greenpeace has argued the timing is particularly significant because deep-sea mining remains a contentious issue across the Pacific.
The organisation opposes the emerging industry, where polymetallic nodules and other mineral deposits would be extracted from the deep seabed, arguing too little is known about the environmental consequences.
In its response to the port announcement, Greenpeace called the investment a “gross act of colonialism and resource grabbing” and accused the US of using the project to advance its own strategic interests.
Lee said the Pacific Islands Forum should instead be a place where Pacific countries make decisions collectively and according to their own priorities.
“I don’t know why a meeting of Pacific leaders feels like an appropriate time and place to progress the United States’ war machine, let alone the presence of the US itself,” she said.
“This meeting is for our leaders to assert sovereignty, honour what it means to be Pacific, and build regional consensus on matters that are uniquely ours, with our Pacific values at the centre.”
Greenpeace also pointed to the Pacific’s nuclear-free history, including the Treaty of Rarotonga, arguing the region had previously demonstrated its ability to collectively resist the strategic interests of larger powers.
Lee said she was concerned about the increasing influence of outside powers on regional decision-making.
“What I know about Pacific leadership is that they’re all very cognisant of the relationship between ourselves that needs to be maintained and cared for in order for us to look after ourselves,” she said.
“What is concerning is that background noise from these superpower countries from outside our region who are a threat to that cooperation, that peace and that security that our leaders are very capable of doing and have a duty and responsibility to do.
“And so I’d really call on our leaders to shut that noise out, reject that influence and return to who we are and to who our values are and let those things guide our decisions.”
New Zealand will host the Pacific Islands Forum next year
Lee said there was a contradiction between the Government’s emphasis on Pacific sovereignty while in the region and its approach to mining and extraction at home.
“It’s interesting to hear the comments come out of politicians back in Aotearoa who say that they want to support and acknowledge and enable Pacific sovereignty around decision-making,” she said.
“But I think that’s very easy to say when you are a pro-mining government hell-bent on your war on nature and opening up Aotearoa for exploitation and extraction.”
For Lee, the argument over Tongareva goes beyond one port or one announcement.
She said Pacific leaders needed to resist pressure from larger powers and ensure decisions about the region’s ocean and resources remained grounded in Pacific priorities.
“I’d really call on our leaders to shut that noise out, reject that influence and return to who we are and to who our values are and let those things guide our decisions.”
