***********************************************
SOUTH
PACIFIC RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS
Solomon
Islands Still Depends on Forests for Trade
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
2/13/96
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
The
Solomon Islands continues to generate export earnings through
clearly
unsustainable, once over rainforest resource sell-off.
Following
is in item in _The Independent (PNG)_.
The piece states
that
their have been riots. Clearly the
situation is
deteriorating
in the Solomon Islands and the 375,000 people living
there
are rapidly depleting their biological capital. This was
posted
in econet's reg.pacific conference.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
/*
Written 6:31 PM Feb 13, 1996 by
journupng@pactok.peg.apc.org
in
igc:reg.pacific */
/*
---------- "Solomons log trade" ---------- */
Title
-- Solomons still depending on forests for trade
Author -- No byline
Source
-- SPCenCIID <journupng@pactok.peg.apc.org> Feb 9, 1996
Originally
published -- The Independent (PNG); unsourced but
probably
drawn
from
AAP
Date --
Feb 9, 1996
Status
-- Unabridged.
------------------------------
SOLOMONS
STILL DEPENDING ON FORESTS FOR TRADE
Solomon
Islands, where Australia last month scrapped a K2 million
per
year aid project because of its dependence on logging at three
times
the sustainable rate, is seeking to trade on its shrinking
rainforests
in a new way -- by bottling "green" oxygen and water.
It is
also negotiating with Kuwait a deal to become a centre for
oil
transshipment, which the government claims might earn it
US$200,000
per day -- thought it is unclear where the oil will be
transshipped to.
At
present, it is Vunda Point, off Nadi in
Fiji, that is the
major
source of supplies for the smaller Pacific islands.
Such
bizarre schemes are common enough in the region's smaller
fish.
But the Solomon Islands, with a population of about 375,000,
is the
third-largest country in the region, after Papua New Guinea
and
Fiji.
And as
the country is gripped by increasingly severe economic
problems
-- including a K28 million budget deficit in 1995, almost
twice
the budgeted deficit. Social unrest is also growing.
There
were riots early this week in the capital, Honiara,
involving
both Malaitans -- from the country's most populous
island
-- and Gilbertese, a Micronesian minority originally
introduced
as indentured labourers by the British,
who had
colonised
both the Solomon Islands and the then
Gilbert and
Ellice
Islands.
The
Solomon Islands government, dominated by its charismatic but
eccentric
Prime Minister Solomon Mamaloni, has refused to accept
terms
from the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund --
which
six months ago negotiated a structural adjustment program
with
PNG for a similar package.
One of
its alternative income-generating mechanisms has been the
introduction
of a two per cent debit tax on all withdrawals from
the
banking system, and a three per cent tax on the conversion of
all
foreign exchange.
The
country's commercial banks, ANZ, Westpac and the National Bank
of the
Solomon Islands -- which is now owned 51 per cent by the
Bank of
Hawaii -- have challenged the debit tax in the High Court
on the
grounds that it has not been properly gazetted.
It is
understood that the legislation covering both taxes will be
amended
and then resubmitted at the next meeting of Parliament,
probably
in April.
The
oxygen and water bottling proposals were contained in a
"mandate"
published in 1995 by Mr Mamaloni's new party, National
Unity,
Reconciliation and Progressive party, 100 days after it had
seized
power in Parliament.
The
next national election is likely in August 1997.
Seven
ministers in the government have been charged with corruptly
receiving
inducements by a Honiara businessman to switch sides in
order
to bring Mr Mamaloni, who has been closely allied with
Malaysian
logging interests, back to power.
New
Scientist magazine this week pointed out that in Japanese
cities
bottled oxygen is available at bars and from dispenser
machines.
"But
if you are tempted to splash out on some fresh air, why stop
at an
ordinary variety when you could treat yourself to lungfuls
of pure
tropical rainforest oxygen?"
The
answer, it said, was that "of course, there's absolutely no
difference,
one oxygen molecule is just the same as another."
And
bottling it, the magazine said, would require a huge energy
source
as well as infrastructure to ship out the finished product.
Sam
Alasia, a Solomon Islands MP, general secretary of SINURP and
chief
political advisor to Mr Mamaloni, is at present on a
vistor's
program as a guest of the Australian government.
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