Solomon Islands Potential World Heritage Area for Clear Felling
7/28/99
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by EE
One of the most beautiful and ecologically astounding lagoons in the
South Pacific, a proposed World Heritage Area, is to have much of its
forests clearcut for oil palm--despite the objections of the area's
indigenous population. Shredding ecological systems for short-term
gain is a dubious development strategy perfected in the good ole US of
A. There will be an ecological reckoning if wanton destruction of the
ecological systems upon which all life is dependent is not halted and
reversed through restoration.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: SOLOMON ISLANDS FOREST TO BE SIGNED OVER FOR CLEAR FELLING
Source: World Wide Fund for Nature (South Pacific),
emealey@wwfpacific.org.fj
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: July 28, 1999
28 July, 1999 - Solomon Islands- The Government of the Solomon Islands
is preparing to sign over 10,000 hectares of rainforest land on
Vangunu Island in Marovo Lagoon to the logging company Sylvania Timber
Products at a special ceremony in Honiara tomorrow.
This is despite the Government's previous promise to await the outcome
of an intensive area-wide planning process that has been looking at
economic alternatives to Sylvania's oil palm plantation proposal.
Sylvania is proposing to clear fell some 6,000 hectares of land, known
as Lot 16, in order to establish an oil palm plantation. The company
has also expressed interest in extending the oil palm plantation into
surrounding areas of virgin rainforest held under customary tenure.
Oil palm, which is grown for its oil by-product, is notorious
throughout the Pacific because it wipes out native forests, strips
soils of nutrients and pollutes nearby rivers and reefs through soil
run-off.
The signing-over ceremony at Parliament House tomorrow (2pm Thursday)
is taking place despite strong opposition from the landowners
represented by the Marovo Butubutu Development Foundation and the
Marovo Council of Chiefs. The landowners have fought Sylvania's plan
to clear fell Lot 16 for the past three years.
The Marovo Butubutu Development Foundation and Marovo Council of
Chiefs argue that clear-felling the land will have dramatic
environmental impacts including high levels of soil erosion on land
and siltation of Marovo Lagoon which is being proposed for listing as
a World Heritage site. They are also concerned about oil palm's high
nutrient demand which is likely to deplete the weathered volcanic
soils of the island, increasing the need for massive doses of nitrate
and phosphate fertilisers. The people fear that the fertiliser would
leach straight through the topsoil and into the coral-rich lagoon
where it would generate ecologically dangerous levels of
eutrophication.
WWF, through its five-year-old Community Resource Conservation and
Development project has been working with the Marovo landowners to
research alternative developments for Lot 16. Proposals include
sustainable agricultural and forestry alternatives such as replanting
the areas Sylvania has already logged with Balsa (a high value export
commodity that requires no industrial infrastructure, bulldozers or
roads - unlike oil palm); growing high value fruit and vegetables for
domestic and tourist markets; and developing the ecotourism potential
of Marovo Lagoon.
Only a very few of the landowners of Marovo were made aware of the
intended sign over. At a meeting in May with Prime Minister, Mr
Bartholomew Ulufa'alu, the landowners were assured that no decision
would be made until the Government received an alternative development
proposal agreed by all the Marovo landowners.
However, since then, there has been major civil unrest in the country
arising from long-held tensions between the Malaitan and Guadalcanal
communities. This led to the imposition of a State of Emergency which
is still in force.
Contact: Elisabeth Mealey, World Wide Fund for Nature, South Pacific
Program, Suva, Fiji: 679-315533.