Welcome back to the Deep Dive. I want to start
today by asking you to do something a little
bit old school. I want you to picture a map of
the world. Okay. You know the one, the standard
projection you probably had on the wall of your
classroom growing up? The Mercator projection,
all stretched out at the pole. That's the one.
Yeah. Now you scan the Pacific Ocean, that massive
overwhelming blue void between the Americas and
Australia. If you look really, really closely,
you might see a few specks. Maybe you see Hawaii
because it's bolded. Maybe Fiji. But if you look
to the subject of today's deep dive, you might
just miss it entirely. Which is ironic, considering
just how much space they actually take up. Exactly.
We're looking at the Cook Islands. Yeah. And
on paper, this place is a paradox. Yeah. I was
looking at the data you pulled, and the math,
it barely makes sense. We're talking about a
country with a landmass of roughly 236 square
kilometers. Right. To put that in perspective
for you, that's smaller than the city of Milwaukee.
It's smaller than the Cayman Islands. It's tiny.
It is. It's essentially 15 small islands scattered
across the water. If you stood on the highest
point on the main island and looked out, you'd
see a lot of ocean and very, very little else.
But, and this is the hook that got me, if you
draw a line around their territorial waters,
their exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, It is
nearly 2 million square kilometers. That's the
paradox of scale right there. You have a landmass
the size of a mid -sized city, but an ocean footprint
roughly the size of Western Europe. Western Europe,
that's staggering. It is. Or, to use a different
comparison that might be easier to visualize,
it's an area of ocean comparable to the entire
landmass of Mexico. So practically speaking,
this is a country that is 99 .9 % water. And
0 .1 % land. That's the reality of the Cook Islands.
You're not governing land with a bit of coast.
You're governing an ocean that happens to have
a few islands in it. That ratio defines everything
we're going to talk about today, doesn't it?
Completely. It's not just a geography factoid.
It shapes their politics, their economy, their
entire identity. It's the canvas upon which their
national story is painted. Absolutely. The mission
for this deep dive is to unpack how a micronation
because that's what it is, geographically manages
to punch so far above its weight class. It really
does. We're looking at a place that has to maintain
a distinct cultural identity while navigating
a very complex, almost confusing political marriage
with New Zealand. And it's not just about politics.
The surprising facts list in these articles was
wild. I mean, we're going to talk about a fish
that costs as much as a new car. A very nice
new car at that. We're going to talk about a
legal framework that was explicitly designed
to effectively tell the U .S. Department of Justice
to take a hike. And we're going to get into the
really thorny issue of seabed mining, which pits
their identity as these pristine ocean guardians
against the potential for massive, massive wealth.
It's a lot to cover. But let's start where we
always should. The physical reality. Because
the Cook Islands implies a single group. But
looking at the breakdown, it feels like we're
dealing with two completely different worlds.
We really are. Geographically and geologically,
the country is split into two distinct chains,
the northern group and the southern group. And
they couldn't be more different. Not at all.
It's almost like two different countries that
just happen to share a flag and a government.
Okay, so let's start with the north. When I read
the descriptions of the northern group islands
like Penryn and Manihiki, it felt like reading
about a different planet. or at least the classic
desert island cartoon. You know, the one with
the single palm tree. That's a fair comparison.
The northern group consists of these incredibly
old coral atolls. And to understand them, you
have to understand the geology of the Pacific.
These used to be high volcanic islands millions
and millions of years ago. Like Hawaii. Exactly
like Hawaii is now. But over eons, the heavy
volcanic rocks sank back into the Earth's crust.
a process called subsidence. As the land sank,
the coral reefs that were growing around the
edges of the island just kept growing upwards
to stay near the sunlight. So the volcano disappears
underwater and you're left with just the ring
of coral that was growing around it. Precisely.
You're left with a ring of coral reef and sand,
usually enclosing a lagoon where the mountain
used to be. We are talking about land that is
mere meters above sea level. Wow. If a big wave
from a cyclone comes, it washes right over. There's
no high ground to run to. And because they are
these sunken volcanoes, there's not much soil,
right? You can't exactly run a farm there. It's
just sand and coral rubble. No, not at all. It's
a subsistence lifestyle. Coconut palms, you have
breadfruit, you have taro that you grow in excavated
pits, you have pigs, and you have fish from the
lagoon and the ocean. That's about it. So it's
rugged. It is a rugged frontier existence. Freshwater
is a constant struggle. You rely heavily on rainwater
catchment systems. If there's a drought, you
are in serious trouble. And they are isolated.
I mean, truly isolated. Incredibly so. These
islands are hundreds and hundreds of kilometers
apart from each other, let alone from the capital
in the south. We aren't talking about a quick
ferry ride. It can take days, sometimes a week,
to get there by boat. A week on the open ocean,
just to get to another part of your own country.
And flights are infrequent and very expensive.
It's a level of isolation that is hard for most
of us living in interconnected cities to really
grasp. Okay, so contrast that with the southern
group. This is where Rarotonga is. The main island,
the capital. Right. And the southern group is
a whole different ballgame. Geologically, it's
much younger. These are high islands. They are
volcanic, mountainous, jagged. They look more
like what you'd see in a movie. Exactly. If you
look at Rarotonga, it looks like a mini Tahiti
or a mini Kauai. You have these sharp, dramatic
peaks covered in dense green jungle. Because
they haven't sunk yet. They're still in their
volcanic prime, so to speak. Exactly. And because
volcanic soil is incredibly fertile, they are
lush, they are green, they can support commercial
agriculture, citrus, bananas, all sorts of things.
They can support a much higher population density.
Which explains the population split you mentioned.
It does. It's the fundamental reason. About 90
% of the entire population of the Cook Islands
lives in the southern group, and the vast majority
of those are on Rarotonga alone. So you have
this dynamic where... capital, the international
airport, the hospitals, the government, everything
is concentrated in the south. And the north is
just out there. It's the outer islands. And in
the Cook Islands context, outer really means
outer. It's not like taking a train to the suburbs.
Right. It creates a fascinating internal dynamic
where the lived experience of a Cook Islander
in Manihiki who might be a pro farmer is vastly
different from one in Rarotonga who works in
the tourism ministry. But that isolation, that
deep, relatively untouched water. It has an upside,
doesn't it? The source material mentions that
these waters are hiding some biological treasures.
Yeah. And I have to talk about this fish. The
peppermint angelfish. Ugh. Centropigeon boilie.
Yes. A legend in the marine biology and aquarium
world. The notes say it costs $30 ,000. $30 ,000
U .S. dollars for a single fish. I mean, I've
bought cars for... Less than a tenth of that.
In the high -end aquarium trade, yes, it is the
Holy Grail. If you are a very wealthy collector
in Tokyo or New York or Dubai, this is the centerpiece.
This is the fish you show off. Why? What makes
it so special? Is it made of gold? Is it the
last one on Earth? No, and that's the fascinating
part. It's not endangered in the sense that there
are only three left. In its specific deep water
habitat around the Cook Islands, it's actually
reasonably common. The problem isn't finding
it. The problem is getting it. It lives in the
twilight zone, right? That's what they call it.
Exactly. We're talking about the mesophotic zone,
deep coral reefs, usually between 50 to 120 meters
deep. Okay, so for non -divers, 120 meters, that's
not just deep. That's extremely deep. It is crushing
depth. To put it in perspective, a standard recreational
scuba diving certification usually limits you
to 30 or 40 meters. To go to 100 meters requires
highly specialized equipment called rebreathers,
which recycle your air. You're breathing mixed
gases, usually trimix, which adds helium to the
breathing gas to counteract the narcotic effects
of nitrogen at that pressure. So it's a technical
dangerous dive. It's closer to being an astronaut
than a swimmer. The planning, the risk. The training,
it's immense. But here's the kicker. Even if
you can get down there and you manage to catch
one in a little net, you can't just bring it
up. No. That's the biology constraint. And it's
the same for any deepwater fish. They have swim
bladders. These are gas -filled organs that help
them maintain buoyancy. If you bring a fish up
from 100 meters to the surface quickly, the surrounding
water pressure drops dramatically and the gas
in that swim bladder expands. Like opening a
shaken soda can. Perfect analogy. It's fatal.
It ruptures their internal organs. It's the same
principle as the bends or decompression sickness
in human divers. You have to decompress the fish.
You do. It is an incredibly slow, painstaking
process. You have to bring them up in stages,
holding them at certain depths for hours, sometimes
over days, to let the gas in their system slowly
off gas and equalize. Or you use special hyperbaric
chambers designed for fish. Wow. That is what
you are paying for. You aren't paying for the
fish. You're paying for the technical mastery,
the specialized equipment, and the immense risk
required to retrieve it alive and healthy. Strangely
striking, too, I take it. It's not just a brown
fish. Oh, it's beautiful. It's stunning. It's
a bright, burning orange -red with these stark,
clean, vertical white stripes. It looks almost
painted, like a piece of pop art. In a tank,
under the right lighting, it glows. So we have
this amazing biodiversity win with the angelfish.
But the sources also point to a major biodiversity
tragedy. And it involves a villain we see all
over the Pacific history books, the rat. The
scourge of islands everywhere. A truly devastating
invasive species. In the Cook Islands, you have
two types of invaders. You have the Kiorotoka,
the Polynesian rat, which arrived with the original
Polynesian settlers over a thousand years ago.
So that one's been there a while. A long while.
But then you have the real killer, the ship rat,
the Norway rat, which arrived with the Europeans
on their sailing vessels in the 18th and 19th
centuries. They're bigger, more aggressive, and
more rapacious. And for birds that evolved on
islands without any ground predators, this is
the apocalypse. It is. You have to understand,
these birds evolved in a paradise. There were
no snakes, no stoats, no pets, no mammals to
eat them. Many of them nest on the ground or
in low branches. They didn't evolve fear because
they didn't need it. They wouldn't know to fly
away. And then suddenly there's a rat, a creature
they have no instinct for. Exactly. The rats
swarm the nests. They eat the eggs. They eat
the chicks. For many species, the breeding success
rate dropped to zero. The impact was catastrophic.
The forests went silent. There was a specific
story in the notes about lorikeet, the cool's
lorikeet. The Rheumatara lorikeet, or the coor
in the local language. It's a small, vibrant
bird with a bright red breast and green wings.
Just a beautiful little thing. And it was native
to the Cooks. Historically, it was found on at
least five of the southern islands. But it wasn't
just the rats that got them. Humans. Humans played
a role too. They were prized for those red feathers.
In Polynesian culture, red is a high status color.
It's the color of royalty, of chiefs. It represents
mana spiritual power, authority, divinity. So
the feathers were a status symbol. A huge one.
The feathers were used in chiefly girdles in
ceremonial headdresses. To make one single chiefly
girdle could require the feathers of hundreds
of birds. That's not sustainable. Not at all.
So between the human exploitation for fashion
and status and the relentless rat predation,
the cool's lorikeet went extinct in the Cook
Islands. Gone. Wiped out. Completely. Completely
wiped out by the early 20th century. But the
story doesn't end there, which is the hopeful
part. This is where we get a bit of a Jurassic
Park moment. the dinosaurs eating people. A much
more successful reintroduction story, yes. A
small remnant population had survived on the
single rat -free island of Rimitara in French
Polynesia. In 2007, conservationists from several
organizations launched this desperate rescue
mission. An ark, basically. A modern -day ark.
They took 27 of these birds from Rimitara and
flew them to the island of Attu in the Cooks.
27 birds to restart an entire species in a new
country. That is a genetic bottleneck if I've
ever heard one. The margin for error is zero.
It is incredibly risky. One bad storm, one disease
outbreak, and it's over. But Attu was chosen
very carefully. They had done extensive back
-breaking work on rat control to create safe
zones. And crucially, the community on Attu was
on board. That was the key. They wanted the bird
back. The local chiefs placed a rahui, a traditional
ban, on harming the birds. The community saw
it as reclaiming a piece of their lost heritage,
their taonga. Did it work? It was a resounding
success. The population is now established. They
are breeding. The birds are thriving. It's one
of the great conservation comeback stories of
the Pacific. It proves that even when we break
an ecosystem, sometimes with enough effort, science,
and community buy -in, we can fix it. That mindset
fixing and protecting the ecosystem seems to
be formalized now on a much grander scale. We
have to talk about Maura Moana. The sacred ocean.
This was established in 2017. And the scale of
this thing goes right back to our paradox of
scale in the intro. It's mind boggling. It does.
It's the ultimate expression of that paradox.
The government passed legislation designating
the entire exclusive economic zone, all 1 .9
million square kilometers as a marine park. Wait,
the whole thing, not just a designated sanctuary
in one corner. The whole thing. Now, that doesn't
mean you can't fish anywhere. It's a mixed use
park. It has strictly zoned areas for different
activities. There are exclusion zones around
each island where commercial fishing and mining
are banned, creating protective bubbles. But
the entire zone operates. under a single framework
of conservation first. It is the largest single
protected area on the planet designated by one
country. That is a massive statement for a country
of 15 ,000 people to make. It's saying, we aren't
just islands in the sea. We are a sea nation.
Exactly. It completely shifts the psychology.
The ocean isn't just the empty space between
the islands. The ocean is the country. It reinforces
their role as custodians of what they call the
Blue Pacific. Which makes the mining debate we'll
get to later all the more complicated and fraught
with tension. It really does. But before we get
to the modern economy, I want to step back. We've
talked about the land and the water. Now I want
to talk about the name, the Cook Islands. A name
that carries a lot of baggage and a lot of historical
confusion. I was surprised, I mean genuinely
surprised, to learn that Captain Cook didn't
name them that. No, that is one of the most common
misconceptions in Pacific history. Captain James
Cook did visit. He stopped by in 1773 and again
in 1777 during his voyages. He was just passing
through. Essentially. He spent very little time
there. He charted some of the islands for sure.
He named one island Manue, Hervey Island. After
a Lord of the Admiralty back in England. Okay,
so a classic colonial naming convention. Very
typical. But he actually missed Rarotonga entirely,
the main island. He sailed right past it without
seeing it. So the idea that he discovered or
named the whole group is just wrong. So for a
while on the British maps, they were the Hervey
Islands. The southern group was, yes, for about
50 years. So how on earth did we get Cook Islands?
If not from Cook, then from who? The name actually
came from a Russian. A Russian? In the South
Pacific. How does that happen? A Baltic German
cartographer working for the Russian Navy? An
admiral named Adam Johann von Krusenstern? Okay,
that is a name. In the 1820s, decades after Cook
had died. Kruisenstern was compiling this grand,
definitive atlas of the Pacific. He admired Cook
immensely as a navigator and explorer. He saw
him as the father of Pacific cartography. So
as a tribute, he looked at the southern group
of islands on his charts and decided to name
them the Cook Islands in honor of the captain.
So a Russian cartographer working in St. Petersburg
named a Polynesian nation after a British explorer
who barely spent any time there. It shows that
globalization started earlier than we think.
And that name. published in this very influential
atlas, stuck. it became the international standard.
But before the Russians and the British showed
up, the islands obviously had names. And looking
at the Spanish records, some of the very first
European names were arguably much, much better.
Much more poetic, certainly. The Spanish were
actually the first Europeans to spot the northern
islands, way back in 1595. The explorer Alvaro
de Mendana saw the atoll of Pucapuca and named
it San Bernardo. San Bernardo, okay. A bit generic.
It is. But then in 1606, the Portuguese captain
Pedro Fernandes de Queiroz, who was sailing for
Spain, landed on the island of Rockahunga. And
he was so struck by the inhabitants, he described
them as healthy, strong, beautiful, that he named
the island Gente Hermosa. Which translates to?
Beautiful people. The island of beautiful people.
I mean, come on, from a branding perspective,
that is gold. Why would you trade the island
of beautiful people for the Cook Islands? Well,
colonial powers rarely asked the locals for branding
advice. The maps were drawn in London and St.
Petersburg, not Rakahanga. But this brings us
to a very modern, very heated debate. There is
a strong movement to change the name. To get
rid of Cook. Yes. The name is seen by many as
a colonial relic. In 2019, a government committee
was formed to look into this, and they actually
recommended dropping the English name entirely
to find a new title that reflects the Polynesian
nature of the nation. Something indigenous. Exactly.
Something that spoke to their own history, not
a British captain's history, especially a captain
who didn't even stop at the main island and had
nothing to do with naming the country. It makes
sense. We've seen this happen elsewhere. Swaziland
became Eswatini. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. It's
a post -colonial reclaiming of identity. It is.
But the backlash was fascinating. It didn't just
come from conservative traditionalists on the
islands or, you know, people worried about the
cost of rebranding the tourism board. Where did
it come from? It came very loudly and very passionately
from the diaspora. The Cook Islanders living
overseas. Right. And we'll touch on the numbers
later, but they are staggering. There are way
more Cook Islanders in New Zealand and Australia
than there are in the Cook Islands itself. And
a huge number of them said, no, don't change
it. Why? That seems counterintuitive. You'd think
they would be the most supportive of a pro -indigenous
move. Identity is a tricky thing, isn't it? For
those living away for generations in some cases,
the label Cook Islander is how they define themselves
in a foreign land. It's the box they check on
the census. It's the name of their church group,
their rugby club. It's their brand. It's their
identity. They felt that changing the name was
like erasing the label they had built their lives
and communities around. They felt a sense of
ownership over the name Cook Islands, maybe even
more so than the people at home. That is a fascinating
psychological twist. The people who actually
live there might want to change it to reflect
their daily reality and heritage. But the people
who left are holding on to the name as an anchor
to that very heritage. Exactly. It highlights
this incredible tension between the homeland
and the community abroad. So in the end, they
reached a compromise. The classic political solution.
Pretty much. They kept the English name Cook
Islands. But they are working on adopting a new
official Maori name to sit alongside it. Currently,
the Maori name is Kuki Irani. Which is just?
It's just a transliteration. It's Cook Islands
spoken with a Maori phonology. It has no deeper
meaning. They want a proper name that has actual
cultural resonance, perhaps referring to the
ocean or the people or historical figure. But
for now, Cook Islands remains the global brand.
This tension between the locals and the diaspora,
and especially the influence of New Zealand,
is the perfect segue to the politics. Because
when I try to figure out the political status
of this country, I got a headache. It is unique.
It really is one of a kind. Are they independent?
Are they part of New Zealand? And it seems to
be both and neither. The answer is yes and no.
Since 1965, they have been a self -governing
state in free association with New Zealand. Free
association. Break that down for us. This isn't
just a colony or a territory like, say, Guam
is to the U .S. No, it's not a colony. The Cook
Islands has its own parliament. They have their
own prime minister, currently Mark Brown. They
write their own laws. They manage their own budget.
If the New Zealand parliament passes a law in
Wellington, it does not apply in Rarotonga unless
the Cook Islands parliament explicitly chooses
to adopt it. OK, so they are sovereign in terms
of internal management. They run their own show
at home. Correct. But historically, under the
1965 agreement, New Zealand retained responsibility
for defense and foreign affairs. The way a parent
might handle things for an adult child living
at home. That's a decent analogy, though over
the decades that has changed significantly. The
Cook Islands has taken over almost all of its
own foreign affairs. They sign treaties. They
establish embassies. So where is the link? What
is the core of this association? The citizenship.
This is the linchpin. This is the absolute core
of the relationship. Explain the one -way street.
I found this fascinating. Every person born in
the Cook Islands or of Cook Islands descent is
a New Zealand citizen. They hold a black New
Zealand passport, period, full stop. That is
incredibly valuable. It is one of the most powerful
passports in the world. It means a kid born on
a tiny atoll in the northern group can grow up,
fly to Auckland, go to university, get access
to the New Zealand health care system, get a
job and live there for the rest of their life
without ever applying for a visa. It's an automatic
right. But it doesn't work the other way around.
No. And this is the genius of the arrangement
for them. A New Zealander born in Christchurch
is not a Cook Islands national. I thought just
move there. No. They are treated as foreigners.
They can't just move to Rarotonga and buy a house
or a piece of land. They can't vote there. There
are strict controls on land ownership to ensure
the small local population isn't bought out by
wealthy foreigners. That is a sweet deal. You
get the protection and the immense economic and
social opportunity of a developed nation, but
you protect your own sovereignty and land from
being overwhelmed by them. It is the best of
both worlds, which is why they guard it so jealously.
And this explains the weird situation with the
United Nations. Right. The Cook Islands is not
a member of the UN, not a full member anyway.
They are not. They are members of many U .N.
agencies like the World Health Organization and
UNESCO. They have what's called treaty -making
capacity, which is a big deal in international
law. But they don't have a seat and a vote in
the General Assembly. Why not? They're a country.
They act like a country. Because New Zealand
has quietly warned, and the Cook Islands government
understands, that full U .N. membership usually
implies a full, distinct, and separate citizenship.
The UN Charter is about member states. And if
they become a fully separate member state, the
argument for them keeping New Zealand citizenship
gets much, much weaker. Exactly. New Zealand
might say, OK, if you want to be totally independent
on the world stage, that's great. We support
you. But you need to have your own passport.
You can't have it both ways. Hand back our passports.
And for the people. That is a nonstarter. A total
nonstarter. The ability to live and work in New
Zealand is the economic and social safety valve
for the entire country. So the prime minister,
Mark Brown, recently noted that joining the U
.N. isn't a priority because it poses a direct
risk to that citizenship status. It would require
a referendum and it likely wouldn't pass. They
are walking a geopolitical tightrope. They want
to be independent enough. to sign deals with
the U .S. and China, but dependent enough to
keep the passports. And they are doing it successfully.
In 2023, the United States formally recognized
the Cook Islands as a sovereign state and established
full diplomatic relations. That was a huge win
for them. A major validation. It validated their
sovereignty in the eyes of the world's biggest
superpower without forcing them to break the
New Zealand link. It was a masterful piece of
diplomacy. It's basically saying... We are small,
but we are complicated, and you have to deal
with us on our terms. And being complicated and
sovereign costs money. Running a country costs
money. Which brings us to the economy. Segment
four, sun, sea, and secrecy. Let's start with
the sun, tourism. It's the obvious one. White
sand beaches. Blue water. It is the engine. It
accounts for about 67 .5 % of the GDP. Two -thirds
of every dollar made in that country comes from
visitors, mostly from New Zealand and Australia.
It feels incredibly risky. We saw what happened
during the pandemic. The tap turned off. Overnight,
zero income. It revealed just how fragile that
economic monoculture is. And it all relies on
a single point of failure. Baratanga International
Airport. If a major cyclone takes up that runway,
the economy stops. Period. So they need to diversify.
And this is where things get morally interesting.
The outline mentions asset protection. This is
the part of the Cook Islands economy you don't
see on the postcards with the sunsets. We're
talking about offshore trusts, a tax haven. Not
exactly a tax haven in the traditional sense,
more of a legal fortress. Since 1989, the Cook
Islands has passed a series of laws designed
to make it the world's premier jurisdiction for
asset protection trusts. In plain English, what
does that mean? It means it is a place to put
your money where... Lawyers, creditors, and angry
ex -spouses cannot get it. The New York Times
had a pretty scathing quote about this. They
said these laws were devised to thwart the reach
of American justice. That is not an exaggeration.
That is literally what they are for. Here is
how it works. Let's say you are a wealthy doctor
in California. You are worried about getting
sued for malpractice in the future. You move
your life savings into a Cook Islands trust.
Okay. Then I get sued. A jury in California finds
against me. The judge says, you owe the plaintiff
$2 million. Hand it over. You then say, I'd love
to, Your Honor, but I can't. The money isn't
mine anymore. It's owned by my trust in the Cook
Islands. The judge then orders the Cook Islands
trustee to hand over the money. And the trustee
says. The Cook Islands trustee says, I'm sorry,
I can't do that. That court order is from California.
We don't recognize it here. They even have a
specific clause in their law called the duress
clause. If a foreign trustee is ordered by a
foreign court to hand over money, they are legally
required by Cook Islands law to ignore that order
because they are deemed to be acting under duress.
They just ignore the U .S. court system. Yeah.
Yes. Under Cook Islands law, foreign judgments
are generally meaningless. If the person suing
you wants that money, they have to start all
over again. They have to fly to the Cook Islands.
They have to hire a local lawyer. They have to
file a brand new lawsuit in a Cook Islands court
under Cook Islands law. Which I assume is expensive
and difficult. Incredibly. And the standard of
proof is much higher. In the U .S., for a civil
case, you just need a preponderance of the evidence,
you know, 51 % likely. In the Cook Islands, for
a claim of fraudulent transfer to be successful,
you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That's
the criminal standard. That is the standard used
for murder trials. It is nearly impossible to
win. So it's a fortress. It is a financial fortress.
And for the Cook Islands government, it's lucrative.
The fees and taxes from this trust industry make
up about 8 % of the GDP. 8%. That's significant.
It's more than they make from selling fishing
licenses for their entire EEZ. That is wild.
A tiny island nation effectively monetizing its
sovereignty by creating a legal black hole for
the U .S. justice system. It's a niche, a very
controversial one, but a very profitable one.
It raises huge questions about global equity
and justice. But from the Cook Islands perspective,
they are providing a legal service in a competitive
global market. But there is another potential
windfall on the horizon, and this one might be
even more controversial than the hidden cache.
Seabed mining. This brings us back to the ocean
and back to that massive EEZ. The deep seabed
in the Cook Island zone is in places literally
paved with polymetallic nodules. They look like
black potatoes, right? That's what I read. Basically,
yes. Lumpy potato -sized rocks sitting on the
sediment thousands of meters down. But inside
those unassuming lumps are high concentrations
of cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese. The
battery metals. The exact metals the world is
screaming for. The metals you need for electric
vehicles, for wind turbines, for the entire green
transition. The Cook Islands is sitting on a
gold mine, or rather a cobalt mine of these things.
And they want to harvest them. They are moving
forward aggressively. They pass the seabed. Minerals
Act in 2019. In 2025, they sign exploration agreements
with both U .S. and Chinese -affiliated companies.
But hold on. We just spent all this time talking
about Maramuana, the sacred ocean, the world's
largest marine park. How do you square we are
the guardians of the pristine ocean with we are
going to send massive robotic dredgers to scrape
the ocean floor? That is the tension. That is
the core of the debate raging in the country
right now. It's a contradiction. The government
argues that it is necessary for their economic
independence and self -sufficiency. They argue
that if the world wants green energy, these metals
have to come from somewhere, and it's better
to pick them up off the seafloor than to strip
mine the rainforests of the Congo or Indonesia.
They call it the blue economy. What do the environmentalists
and marine biologists say? They say we have absolutely
no idea what we're doing. We know less about
the deep ocean floor than we do about the surface
of Mars. Dredging up those nodules could destroy
entire ecosystems we haven't even discovered
yet. It will create huge sediment plumes that
could drift for miles and choke marine life,
including things like our expensive peppermint
angelfish in the Twilight Zone. It feels like
a massive gamble. They're betting the farm or
the ocean on this industry. And they are doing
it because they want to reduce that 67 percent
dependence on tourism and foreign aid. If the
mining pays off, the Cook Islands could become
one of the wealthiest nations per capita in the
Pacific. If it goes wrong, they could ruin their
primary natural resource forever. High -stakes
poker in the South Pacific. Played by a country
with a resident population smaller than many
universities. Let's talk about those people.
Segment five, culture. We've talked about the
politics and the money, but what about the soul
of the place? The culture of the Cook Islands
has gone through massive trauma and, at the same
time, shown massive resilience. The pivot point
for everything was the year 1821. Missionary.
The London Missionary Society, led by a man named
John Williams. When they arrived, the conversion
to Christianity was incredibly rapid. It wasn't
a centuries -long struggle like in some places.
It happened in decades. And it was thorough.
Very thorough. And with that conversion came
a very forceful rejection of the old ways. The
sources described the mass burning of the idol
gods or staff gods. These were intricate, massive
wood carvings that represented the ancestors
and deities. Some were 20 feet long, carved from
a single piece of ironwood. They just burned
them. Entire artistic and spiritual tradition
up in smoke. Many were burned. Some were burned
by the missionaries, but many were burned by
the islanders themselves as a public demonstration
of their new faith. a few were saved by the missionaries
and sent back to london as curiosities proof
of their success in converting the heathens which
means which means ironically that the best and
largest collection of traditional cook islands
religious art is now in the british museum not
in rarotonga that is a profound almost incalculable
loss of physical history it is But culture is
adaptable. It finds new ways to express itself.
When one door closes, another opens. And this
brings us to Tevive. I looked up pictures of
these after reading the notes. They are stunning.
These are the quilts, right? Yes. Elaborate,
beautiful patchwork quilts. Quilting isn't originally
Polynesian. The technique was introduced by the
wives of the missionaries. They taught the local
women how to sew patchwork as a civilized pastime.
But the Cook Island women didn't just copy the
British floral patterns. No. They completely
indigenized the art form. They took the needle
and thread and created something vibrant, bold,
and deeply Polynesian. The designs are almost
never geometric like American quilts. They usually
feature local botany flowers like the tiara mori,
leaves, sea life, in these incredibly bright,
high -contrast colors. It's not just about the
blanket, though, is it? It's about the making
of it, the process. Correct. That's the most
important part. Tivive is a communal activity.
You don't usually make one alone in your room.
Gather in groups called Venetini. They work together
on a single quilt. They sing. They gossip. They
tell stories. They pass on traditions. They teach
the younger generation. It became the new social
glue. It became the social fabric of the community.
I love that image. Taking a tool from the colonizer.
the sewing needle, and using it to stitch your
own community tighter together after so much
was torn apart. It's a beautiful metaphor for
cultural resilience. And these quilts are high
-status items. They are treasures. You don't
just buy them at a souvenir shop. They are gifted
at weddings, at haircutting ceremonies for young
boys, at funerals where they drape the casket.
They wrap the milestones of life. We should mention
language, too. Because we talked about the diversity
of the islands, and that's reflected in this
speech. Absolutely. English is the official language
of government, but Cook Islands Maori is the
language of the heart. But even that isn't a
monolith. Because the islands are so far apart,
the languages drifted over the centuries of isolation.
Give me an example. The language spoken on Pukapuka
in the far north is actually much closer to Samoan
than it is to the Maori spoken on Rarotonga in
the south. Really? Yes. It reflects the ancient
migration paths of the Pacific. Pukakuka is geographically
closer to Samoa than Rarotonga, so its linguistic
roots are different. It's a distinct language,
really. It really drives home just how spread...
out this country is. It's almost a collection
of city states or island states bound together
by a line on a map. And now bound together by
a diaspora, which brings us to our final and
perhaps most critical segment, demographics,
the human equation. We threw out some numbers
earlier, but I want to drill down on them because
they're hard to wrap your head around. You said
there are about 15 ,000 people living in the
Cook Islands. Roughly, yes. The resident population
fluctuates, but it hovers around 15 ,000 to 17
,000 people. And how many people of Cook Island's
descent are in New Zealand? The last census had
it at over 80 ,000. And Australia? Another 28
,000, roughly. Okay, let that sink in. For every
one Cook Islander living in the Cook Islands,
there are nearly seven or eight living overseas.
It is a nation turned inside out. The majority
of the nation lives outside the nation's borders.
What does that do to a country? To a culture?
It creates what sociologists call a transnational
corporation of kin. The nation doesn't end at
the reef. The real Cook Islands is a network
that stretches from Rarotonga to Auckland to
Sydney to Brisbane. Money, people, ideas, culture.
It all flows back and forth constantly. But it
creates massive practical problems, surely. If
all the young working -age people leave for higher
wages in New Zealand, who runs the country? That
is the crisis. Depopulation of the outer islands,
the northern group especially, is severe. Some
islands have fewer than 50 people left. Who maintains
the airstrip? Who teaches the school? Who catches
the rats to protect the birds? It's the brain
drain on steroids. It is. And it leads to a labor
shortage in the main economic hub, Rarotonga.
Paradoxically, the Cook Islands now has to import
foreign labor from the Philippines from Fiji
to work in the hotels and service industries
because the locals who would be doing those jobs
are working in similar jobs in New Zealand for
more money. So you have Cook Islanders serving
coffee in Auckland and Filipinos serving coffee
in Rarotonga. Globalization in a nutshell. It
raises a really deep philosophical question about
what a nation actually is. Is the Cook Islands
the soil, the rocks, the 236 square kilometers?
Or is it the people, the gente hermosa, wherever
they happen to be? That is the existential question
they're wrestling with every single day. The
name change debate showed us that the people
overseas still feel a deep connection in ownership.
But the people on the ground are the ones keeping
the lights on and the culture alive in its homeland.
So let's try to summarize this incredible journey.
We've gone from sunken volcanoes to high finance
tax havens. We've seen a tiny nation that acts
like a global player. A nation that has managed
to secure the military and diplomatic protection
of a larger neighbor, New Zealand, while carving
out its own independent relationships with superpowers
like the U .S. and China. A truly clever arrangement.
A nation that declares itself the guardian of
the world's largest marine park while simultaneously
preparing to harvest the very minerals that lie
on its seafloor. A nation of contrasts, of paradoxes,
tradition and modernity, conservation and exploitation,
home and away. It really is a balancing act.
And it feels like the balance is shifting, that
the ground is moving under their feet. It is.
And that leads to my final provocative thought
for you to mull over. Go for it. If you look
at the trajectory. The diplomatic recognition
by the U .S., the pursuit of seabed mining revenue,
the increasingly distinct foreign policy, the
Cook Islands, is acting more and more like a
fully independent state. It is, in a way, growing
up and moving out of the family home. Right.
They're flexing their sovereign muscles. The
question is, will the free association model
eventually break under that pressure? Can a nation
truly be independent on the global stage, signing
deals with China and America while its citizens
pledge allegiance to another country's passport?
At what point does New Zealand look at this potentially
wealthy, mining -rich, diplomatically active
nation and say, OK, you're doing great, we're
proud of you, but you can't have our passports
anymore. It's time to have your own. That is
the $64 million question. If they succeed too
much at being independent, they might lose the
very safety net that allowed them to succeed
in the first place. Exactly. Is the current situation
a permanent, clever loophole in the international
system? Or is it just a transition phase toward
full, complete separation and a Cook Islands
passport? Only time and maybe the price of cobalt
will tell. Indeed. While you ponder the geopolitical
future of the Pacific, I have two homework assignments
for you. First, go to your search engine of choice
and look up Tevevi quilts. The colors are incredible.
They will brighten up your day. They really are
works of art. Truly beautiful. And second, look
up the peppermint angelfish. Don't look at the
price tag if you're thinking about starting an
aquarium. Stick to goldfish. Much more affordable.
Thanks for listening to this deep dive. We'll
catch you on the next one.