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PNG RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS

A History to Logging on Pavuvu Islands, Solomon Islands

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

June 19, 1995

OVERVIEW & SOURCE

Earlier we had reported on Solomon Island government deployment of

troops to assure logging on Pavuvu Island commenced. Here is some

additional details on plans to log a very small and endemic patch

of tropical island rainforest. This was posed in econet's

rainfor.general conference by Greenpeace.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

/** rainfor.genera: 162.0 **/

** Topic: LOGGING ON PAVUVU ISLANDS **

** Written 5:04 PM Jun 19, 1995 by web:greenbas in

cdp:rainfor.genera **

TL: LOGGING OF PAVUVU ISLAND

SO: Greenpeace International (GP)

DT: June, 1995

LOGGING OF PAVUVU ISLAND: A LEGACY OF COLONIAL MEDDLING, ABUSE OF

INDIGENOUS LAND RIGHTS, AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION

Russell Islands lie 45 km northwest of Guadalcanal in Central

Solomon Islands. 12,427 ha Pavuvu Island is the largest of the 20

inhabited islands of the Russells group. Few people currently

live on Pavuvu, as in the late 1800s and early 1900s,

missionaries, traders and developers forced the indigenous

people to move to outer islands. In the 1920s Levers Pacific Ltd,

acquired a lease over much of the flat accessible areas on

Pavuvu.

Considerable areas in northern Pavuvu have been cleared of

rainforest for coconut and cocoa plantations. A 1000 yard strip

(recently extended to 1000 metres by the government) encircling

the lower half of the island was not developed, and from the late

1980s Levers have been unable to clear the forest due to a

corporate policy that prohibits clearing rainforests. Levers

Solomon Island Ltd, still has a current lease over most of these

areas.

Starting in the 1960s and 70s the indigenous landowners of Pavuvu

(known as the Lavukal) began a campaign to have the lands leased

by Levers, or what is known as the `alienated lands' returned into

customary control. They have been fighting ever since, with the

1990s seeing this intensified under the threat of logging by money

hungry politicians and foreign companies. The main avenue to have

the land returned is via legislation that covers the Alienated

Lands, where a requirement is that the indigenous communities must

have a viable development project for the land.

The forests on this beautiful "hat" shaped island (steep

mountain centre with coastal flat ground) are rich in valuable

timber. An Australian aid funded forest assessment in 1992

found that Pavuvu contains more than 130,000 cubic metres of

harvestable logs, worth more than SI$60 million. However, the

landowners have ideas other than logging. They have developed

their own resettlement scheme that involved establishing a

landowner company Lavukal Resources Development Ltd, and included

small- scale ecoforestry and ecotourism. The 1994 Annual Report

of the Central Bank of Solomon Islands highlighted that current

log exports are more than three times the sustainable level.

Into the picture in the early 1990s came a Malaysian logging

company, Maving Brothers Ltd. The Maving Bros company directors

include: Solomon Islander Robert Belo, and Malaysians Hii Kiong

Mee and Hii Yew Mee. Working with corrupt politicians, they have

secured a licence to log the alienated lands to pave the way for a

proposed government "development" and resettlement scheme. They

tried to start operations in 1992 but backed off after landowners

threatened to burn their machinery. They have returned in 1995

with the support of the recently returned Mamaloni government, and

the government paramilitary defence force.

The landowners requested help from NGOs and others in 1992. Since

then NGOs have been working with the landowners to help them have

their customary land rights to Pavuvu recognised. Over the last

year they have been working on a comprehensive programme to carry

out ecoforestry and ecotourism in both the land already under

customary ownership, and the alienated land. Twelve Russell

Islanders are currently attending a six week ecoforestry training

programme at Komuniboli Training Centre.

###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###

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