Thank you Keith for the warm introduction and welcome to all our honoured guests this evening.

It is a privilege to help commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Pacific Development and Conservation Trust in my role as the Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control.

New Zealand has earned international respect for our history of steadfast commitment to peace.

The Trust’s vision is a peaceful, sustainable Pacific region where all cultures flourish and the natural environment is respected.

Its contribution to promoting peace and conservation in New Zealand and the South Pacific, as well as the commitment and dedication of the Trustees, greatly add to our nation’s reputation.

The Trust was established to recognise the events surrounding the destruction of the Rainbow Warrior in 1986, and each year it distributes an average of three hundred thousand dollars to groups in New Zealand and the South Pacific.   

In alignment with the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals, projects receive funding work to

• benefit the natural environment of the South Pacific and its natural resources

• promote the peaceful economic, physical and social development and self-sustainability of the South Pacific and its peoples

• conserve and develop the cultural heritage of the peoples of the South Pacific

• encourage and promote peace, understanding and goodwill among the peoples of the South Pacific.

This funding helps to meet a funding gap for many community organisations, as some organisations have limited options available to them.

I would like to share a few examples of the types of projects that the Trust has funded.

In 1996, the Trust granted three thousand dollars to the Matagara Resource Management Group in the Solomon Islands for the construction of a cultural house to be used as part of an ecotourism development.

The cultural house was also used as part of an environmental awareness campaign.

Last year, over thirty three thousand dollars was granted to the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme for a Regional Marine Turtle Tagging Programme.

Funding was used to buy tagging material and to reproduce a poster in several dialects to help encourage reporting encounters with tagged turtles.

This work will help us gain a better understanding of the marine turtle population and their migration in the Pacific Islands region.

In Papua New Guinea, the Live and Learn Environmental Education Trust received a grant last year of twenty four thousand dollars for a water and sanitation project. 

The funding is being used to employ a water engineer to oversee a project that will bring safe drinking water and sanitation to four communities of West New Britain.
In Vanuatu, twenty thousand dollars has been used to design a micro-hydroelectric power plant in Asanvari Village. This village required refrigeration but did not have the electricity to provide it.
With the help of the Trust a creative solution was found, using power from a nearby waterfall to provide clean, renewable energy.

We must acknowledge the outstanding contribution of the current and past Trustees who have played a part in the Trust’s success over the last twenty years. 

All Trustees volunteer their services and generously give their time and experience freely and have the difficult task of deciding where the funding should go.

Without their knowledge and commitment to conservation and development, the Trust could not succeed.

Through funding that was born from a tragedy, the accomplishments of the Trust are overwhelmingly positive:

• Twenty years of promoting peace

• Twenty years of working towards a sustainable Pacific region

• Twenty years of helping cultures to flourish and respect for our natural environment.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the current Chair Derry Gordon and current Trustees: Dave Bamford, Eve Coxon, Rob Fenwick, Rae Julian, Karlo Mila-Schaaf, Suli Tuvuki.

My congratulations to everyone who has played a part in the Trust’s two decades of successes.

May the next twenty years be as productive, as worthwhile and as admirable.