Solomons’ Artificial Islands Under Threat

Henry Oritaimae

Inhabitants of artificial islands in the Solomon Islands are migrating to settle in the bigger islands due to sea-level rise and inundation.

University of the South Pacific (USP) Director of the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture and Pacific Studies, Dr. David Gegeo, said there are some immediate reasons that may contribute to the sea-level rise which impacted the lives of the inhabitants.

“The artificial islands are built on corals and when people heavily built on it because of rise in population, the corals die over the centuries forcing the islands to sink under water. So this may be another scenario causing people to migrate to the main land,” Dr. Gegeo said.

“When people move and settle in the new places, their lifestyle and culture changes because they need to adapt to the new lifestyle and culture,” he said.

He said coastal settlement by inhabitants happened back in the 1900s.

“One reason was because of tribal war-fare. People settled in the small islands because of security reason from their tribal enemies. Another was because of sickness. In those days there was no cure for sicknesses like malaria so people chose to settle in the artificial islands. Another reason was that our early people were nomads, so they just settled in for food and survival,” he said.

A USP student, Aloysius Walekwate, who was raised from one of the artificial islands, said there are visible changes taking place in the artificial islands.

“One thing noticeable now a days are the giant tides, high-tides that are abnormal. When they come in, they flooded the islands, but luckily the houses are built high. So people are building higher sea-walls to with stand waves coming in,” Walekwate said.

He said human activities taking place on the artificial islands are also contributing to the sea-level rise.

“When people collected stones and rocks from the outside reefs to build the islands, they are also over harvesting and exploiting the marine resources, so there is also scarcity of sea food causing people to migrate out,” he said.

He said people are migrating to the bigger islands to settle in and avoid the problems faced in the artificial islands.

“Migration of people started some years back but in a smaller scale compared to now. It’s true, they are migrating out to the bigger islands at their own initiatives because there is not enough space to live due to sea-level rise and inundation. They bought lands somewhere to settle in or some may inter-marriage and move in to settle in the bigger islands,” he said.

Associate Academic Officer/Legal Expert of the University of Bonn, Dr. Cosmin Corendea governments of the smaller island countries should listen to the people and communities directly effected .

“The need of the councils and the needs of the states are so different, that cannot find one solution. And in order to avoid this humanitarian crisis, we need to prevent it, we need to think of the measures and we need to take action before it happens,” Dr. Corenda said.

He said that traditional knowledge has a large role to play in working with international organizations to design suitbale housing.