Pacific waters

The Qi Jiguang is on its way to Fiji after spending five days in the New Zealand capital, Wellington, where 500 cadets received training in the notoriously fickle Cook Strait.

On Saturday the vessel arrived in Wellington from Papua New Guinea.

A politics professor at the University of Canterbury, Anne Marie Brady, said the ship's crew was being trained in significant Pacific waters.

The blue boats as they are called are ocean-going wooden fishing vessels that sail to the waters around the Western Pacific Islands in search of sea cucumbers, giant clams and lobster, as well as fish.

Papua New Guinea's fisheries minister has described the boats as a threat to national security, and the director general of the Forum Fisheries Agency, James Movick, says regional collaboration is vital if the blue boats are to be stopped.

Movick says the ‘blue boats’ are having significant impact.