Bougainville environmental potential and challenges

I recently learnt that papayas the size of two footballs do not  fit easily in the fridge; fresh green coconut juice makes amazing smoothies & malaria-carrying mozzies have white dots on their bodies. All necessary elements of daily life in Buka –and a wake-up call for someone whose tropical preparation had been a winter of skiing.

In late October I had a short-notice opportunity to head to Buka, Bougainville as part of a project team doing some work for the Autonomous Government of Bougainville. The company I work for had rented a small house near Buka town, on the edge of banana & coconut forest. Electricity was a luxury we had only at night, so during the day the best cooling system was sitting on the verandah (with the laptop) hoping for a breeze, with our feet in a bucket of water. The trick to survival was making sure we had all our buckets filled, the frig sealed up & the toilet flushed before 6am when the power went off.

The country is part of the archipelago of the Solomon Islands, but is constitutionally part of the National Government of Papua New Guinea. Bougainville has been in a post-civil war recovery & rebuild mode since the late 90’s.

One of the overwhelming impressions of the place is the verdancy of the foliage, & the abundance of fruit trees. Coconuts, papaya, banana, pomelo, pineapples & peanuts grow freely everywhere & domestic gardens & food plots are meticulously tended. Although we never went swimming, the coastal areas are beautiful, and provide a source of food for those communities living nearby. Fresh water is predominantly from rain water tanks that are smaller than what we have here, because it rains most days. As we drove around I saw the odd water tank that had given up the battle with the heat & started to collapse while still attached to a building!

Bougainville is very resource-rich – not just from a food production perspective but also with minerals. This presents a challenge for the country – how best to maximise the potential of what the land can provide without causing the sort of wholesale destruction previously experienced from copper-mining.

Managing the balance between achieving economic growth needed to rebuild the country & the consequences of that growth if it is not done in a sustainable way is a lot harder than it sounds.  The local people are very connected to the land, & over 95% of land is held in customary ownership – which means it cannot be sold. Links to the land are through relationships & custom, so consensus can be a big part of determining how the land is used. Communities may be geographically isolated especially when they are not near a main access route. 

So although many local people have links to land, other services & infrastructure are still limited. This means the opportunities to improve the economic situation are obvious, but achieving them is complex. Ensuring cultural, social, environmental and economic requirements are all met will be an ongoing challenge, but well worth doing for a country and people with so much potential.

Submitted by Mandy Armstrong, LNT treasurer