Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands Map courtesy of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community

Background

Solomon Islands is an archipelago of around 1,000 islands with a total land area of approximately 29,000 sq.km. The islands form part of the Pacific Ring of Fire and are prone to earthquakes and tsunami. The capital Honiara is situated on the island of Guadalcanal, around 1,800 km due east of the tip of Cape York, Australia. Solomon Islands ranks among the 50 Least Developed Countries (LDCs). LDCs are recognised by the United Nations as having the lowest indicators of socio-economic development and the lowest Human Development Index ratings in the world (United Nations, 2016). Further, Solomon Islands is also one of the Small Island Developing States (SIDs), a series of developing countries facing unique challenges typified by: a narrow resource base; small domestic market with a heavy reliance on a few distant external markets; high energy costs; poor infrastructure, transport and communications; and limited opportunities for private sector growth (UNOHRLLS, 2011).

There is an existing external market opportunity in Solomon Islands for timber and this market has provided the main source of foreign income for many years. Logging of the native forest has been carried out at unsustainable levels and there is a widespread expectation that the logging of native forests will collapse in the near future as the resource depletion becomes complete (Vigulu, 2018). However, Solomon Islands has the near perfect combination of climate and soils that makes it the ideal environment for growing high value timber and the potential income generation from plantation timber is significant (Reverchon et al., 2015). Yet the nascent community timber growing industry that has been developing over the past 20 years is struggling to survive with growers rapidly becoming disillusioned with the nearly insurmountable problems they apparently face (Blumfield and Reverchon, 2013).

This project was established to overcome some of those problems, particularly export market access for smallholder grown teak. However, trees are not grown in isolation to other issues and the project also works on establishing methods for the natural regeneration of logged forests in order that they may become an economic and productive alternative to plantations. The project is also examining the development of agroforestry systems that will give smallholders an economic return from their land whilst waiting for the trees to mature.

References

Blumfield, T.J., Reverchon, F., 2013. The Solomon Islands Dilemma: market access in a fragmented landscape. Proceedings of IUFRO Joint Conference, Future Directions of Small-Scale and Community-Based Forestry, 8-12 September 2013 Fukuoka, Japan. http://www.iufro.org/publications/proceedings/proceedings-meetings-2013/ (Accessed 20^th October 2016).

Reverchon, F., Hosseini Bai, S., Liu, X., Blumfield, T.J., 2015. Tree plantation systems influence nitrogen retention and the abundance of nitrogen functional genes in the Solomon Islands. Front. Microbiol. 6, 1439. doi:10.3389/fmicb.2015.01439

UN (United Nations), 2016. Country Classification Annex. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/policy/wesp/wesp_current/2014wesp_country_classification.pdf (Accessed 30^th June 2016).

UNOHRLLS (United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States), 2011. Small Island Bigger Stakes. Available at: http://unohrlls.org/custom-content/uploads/2013/08/SIDS-Small-Islands-Bigger-Stakes.pdf (Accessed 30th June 2016).

Vigulu, V.W., 2018. Intra-specific Interactions in Tropical Agroforestry Systems. Ph.D. Dissertation, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia.