Pearl Oyster

The Government under MMR recognised the important of the Pearl industry, where it has established a new division solely focussed on the Pearl Industry.

A Pearl authority has been re-established to cater and focussed on the immediate issues surrounding the Pearl Industry as a whole:

- The platform for the islands communities of the northern group to grow and prosper,

- A catalyst to further grow the national economy

- Research and Development Program- Lagoon Monitoring

- Monitoring Buoy

- Pearl shell Census- Pathology

- Seeding & Grading Training- Testing in Raro Lab

- A pearl geological information system (GIS) is being implemented on Manihiki atoll with assistance from SOPAC. The GIS includes multi-beam swath mapping data of the lagoon bathymetry. The lagoon is overlaid with GPS boundaries of pearl farms.

- Water Quality Program

There is also an IKONOS satellite imagery layer. The information on pearl farms is recorded in a database.