Nut Oil Processing and Ecotourism, Makira Island, Solomon Islands

by Solomon Islands Development Trust

Partners:

Conservation International (CI) Maruia Society Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT)

Success Stories

Tourism places a value on traditional activities and material culture, which was previously believed inferior to "modern" ways. It helps the community by allowing households to earn money without the men having to spend extended periods of time away from their families while seeking work on the coast. It also brings the outside world to them, and broadens their understanding of the world and people of different cultures.

In both enterprises it appears that young school graduates are benefiting greatly. These young people return from schooling and often cause social problems because of adjustment and boredom problems. The ecotour has been particularly successful in providing these young people, particularly the young men, with roles as tour guides, pan-pipe band members and carvers. Some young boys are also assisting with the nut press.

Anecdotes are powerful ways to convey some of the success stories in this project:

• Old man Francis, an elder of a Makiran highland village, is an example of one individual's inspiration from the project. He wants to set aside all his land on the other side of the Ravorigi River for permanent conservation.

• As villagers have realized that tourists want to see traditional forms of village life, some of this dying knowledge has been sought out by the younger people and put into practice. Local staff have noticed a rapid 'revival' over the last year in local traditional knowledge and its demonstration through the pan-pipe bands developing more traditional tunes and instruments, custom dancing, carving and other forms of traditional knowledge.

• Francis Tarihao, the team leader, commented that he had seen attitudes to the program change in recent times. For example, the highland community of Maraone initially did not want to join the conservation program. However, since the tourists have come and they have discovered that tourists want to buy carvings, they have changed their minds and want to be part of the ecotour. They are now fully involved in the ecotour and tourists have commented that the visit to Maraone has been particularly significant for them. Other villages (Vugiroga, Wairagiragi) who have not been involved in the enterprises to date, now want to be included in the project, and receive ecotours as well.

• In July, John Hingia, the nut press manager based in the remote village of Warohito, attended and made a presentation at the first Pacific region-wide conference on indigenous nuts. John's attendance obviously raised the community's sense of accomplishment in the project. In particular, the team took great pride in the fact that the traditional way of cracking nuts is still better than mechanical or electrical machines that crush (rather than crack) the nuts. (This issue of how the nuts are cracked became an issue of hot contention at the conference)

• John Waihuru, the community organizer of the Makira ecotour, attended a national ecotourism conference and came away with a strong sense of pride the Makira ecotour. It became clear to him that they were developing their own distinctive approach to ecotourism which suited Solomon Islands village life.

Challenges

We reviewed the project in 1996 and decided to build on the momentum gained in terms of the enterprises and the community work begun with the biological monitoring. As a result two new advisors have been brought into the project.

Project partners have bought on Sarah Wilson as a management advisor who will build on the strategic and human management aspects of the project. Tough decisions need to be made in terms of the management of the project. We need to ensure that there is added value at all levels. A new emphasis on Village-based Resource Management Planning, will strengthen the links between the enterprise successes and conservation goals.

Roger James has previously lived in the Highlands of Makira and is a scientist engaged to monitor native pigeons for the program. He noted "People I've never met before from villages outside the conservation area have been approaching me to come to their village to tell them about 'life blong kuvwau' (native pigeon)". Building on his strong links with the community, he has been hired as a community resources management advisor.

There is widespread local concern over the lack of freshwater fish in the Ravo River (one of the major rivers in the Conservation Area), and the realization that something needs to be done. One of the key challenges is to address the practice of night-fishing which is particularly detrimental to the fish stocks. The land-owners on the coast have raised this concern because the fishing is happening upstream in the Conservation Area. We are seeking to look at this resource issue in the context of wider resource management planning efforts at the village level.

The project partners have learned that there are things that are very difficult to control in the program. This ranges from the practical difficulties of working in an area of high rainfall with difficult river crossings, through to the problems that success itself can cause. An example is that ecotourism successes have raised the profile of the area so that bird watching enthusiasts and scientists have tried to gain access to the Makira communities with no reference to the program. The local community politely refused to allow these people to stay as they had set clear rules that only the tourists coming as part of the ecotour enterprise would be permitted.

During an evaluation meeting for the women at Warihito they commented that it was a problem that nuts from each ëzone' could only be sold to the nut press at one time in the year (the nut collection area is split into 6 zones, with each zone allocated 2 consecutive months of the year to bring their nuts to Warihito to sell). Hence, the income to a family only comes in during two months of the year. They were keen to think of ways to spread the income throughout the year. However, increasing the quantity of oil produced is dependent on securing markets and further end-product development. The women brainstormed other possible ways of extending their income and these ideas are in the early stages of investigation.

There are very real internal challenges related to the oral "story" culture of Makira, which will always be part of the program. The way that the Makirans think and interact often seems inscrutable, not only to westerners but also to other Solomon Islanders! The best approach seems to be to have a process to deal with these, rather than trying to anticipate and prevent them. Also, an increasing level of ownership and management by Makirans themselves is essential, and will involve a commitment to training and capacity building.

	"OK...So What?"
... or, return to this Project's Main Menu

WHY BIODIVERSITY   FIELD STORIES   PARTICIPATE   RESULTS   MARKETSPACE ABOUT THE NETWORK   WHAT'S NEW   LEARNING MATERIALS   SEARCH   LINKS   SITE MAP   HOME