Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
The atoll of Ontong Java, in the Solomon Islands, is unusual for a few reasons. First, it’s huge, one of the largest atolls in the South Pacific. Second, unlike the main islands of the Solomon Islands with their Melanesian populations, the people of Ontong Java are Polynesian. The third reason is that they have been able to maintain their traditional fisheries of beche-de-mer and trocus shell by following locally-designed conservation methods.
Figure 1. Ontong Java atoll. There are two main towns, Pelau and Luaniua.
That’s why I was surprised to see an article in the Solomon Star newspaper that starts out (emphasis mine):
$2m pay-out queried
FRIDAY, 04 JANUARY 2013 04:49
A CONTROVERSIAL $2 million was paid out by the government to the Malaita Outer Islands (MOI) people without Cabinet approval, sources say.
According to government sources, the money was paid out by the Ministry of Environment & Climate Change to the Luaniua and Pelau community to facilitate climate change programmes.
However, the source said after some disagreements within Cabinet, a cabinet paper was withdrawn following confusions because the amount was not enough and whether the money was for climate change or to buy beche-de-mer.
Can’t tell climate change from beche-de-mer? Reminds me of the old joke about watermelon and rat poison. The joke is, someone asks you “Do you know the difference between watermelon and rat poison?”. When you answer “No”, the person says “Well, I’m sure as heck not sending you to town for watermelon”.
So how could you mistake a beche-de-mer purchase for a climate change project? And what is a beche-de-mer when it’s at home, anyhow? As you might imagine, it’s a very South Pacific kind of story, with a huge surfeit of inconsistencies and uncertainties, and a correspondingly great paucity of empirically verifiable facts. What’s not to like?