Many rainforests across the world have been logged and/ or wiped out, especially in coastal areas. The remote island
of Tetepare, in the western Solomon Islands, is one of the last places where such forests have been spared in the Pacific. With friends, we were lucky enough to travel there recently, staying in a traditional leaf house at the heart of
this special forest and marine conservation project.
Indigenous descendants of the Tetepare people, who left the island uninhabited for over 150 years, now own and care for the land, where giant rainforest trees grow from the top of volcanic ridges down to the waves.
Protection of these ancient Tetepare rainforests didn’t happen easily. Auntie Mary Bea told us about how the forest was nearly lost. She remembers watching helplessly as trees were logged and bulldozed on the neighbouring island of Rendova (see panel).
Author: Rebecca Stirnemann and Dean Baigent-Mercer
Publisher: Forest & Bird
Date: June 11 2019