Solomon Island Nongovernment Organizations: Major Environmental Actors

Abstract

The scattered nature of Solomon Island villages, the people’s low literacy rate, and the country’s many languages make it difficult to share development and environment messages effectively. Solomon Islands Development Trust has had a fourteen-year track record of reaching out to the village sector through its fifty mobile teams as well as its media arm, theater team, and departments focusing on sustainable forestry practices. It has become a major actor in combating destructive logging practices. The Pavuvu controversy focused national attention on the destructive practices of an overseas logging company, the government’s dire need to gain revenue through logging, and the public stance of nongovernment organizations against the logging companies and the government. The Pavuvu controversy clarified for many that the logging issue was not simply about logging versus not logging, but more about the kind of government the country was experiencing.