Islands Business - We Say: IS THE SOLOMONS' LOGGING HEADING FOR DISASTER?

‘This sorry state of affairs of the country’s main export revenue earning industry quite emphatically points to the fact that things have seriously gone wrong with its management over the years.

Perhaps no other Pacific islands country’s economy depends so overwhelmingly on a single, fast dwindling natural resource as does the Solomon Islands on logging. Over recent years, both regional and international ecological organisations have repeatedly warned successive governments about the impending environmental and economic disaster that is in store for the country if tree felling continues at this frenetic pace. Those warnings have not been heeded by the powers that be.

According to concerned local groups, estimates of when most of the archipelago will be rendered treeless and barren vary. But most agree on a timeframe of five to six years. However, no one really knows for sure, though.
If the government does not adequately prepare for this eventuality, the country will experience a double disaster—losing both its ecological health and economic wealth.

Indiscriminate logging will soon make the archipelago treeless. Pic: Dev Nadkarni

There is little that the present government can do at this stage to reverse the effect of rampant deforestation over so many years than blame its predecessors for turning a Nelson’s eye either wilfully or out of sheer laxity.

Forestation and replanting schemes have failed to bear fruit with not even a handful of projects turning out to be profitable. Continuing to do so at this stage is akin to using band-aid to dress a gaping wound.

But what is truly unfortunate is that successive governments have continually neglected to optimise the value of their disappearing resource. There are no downstream processing facilities in the country to speak of and the country’s largest export after all these years still continues to be round logs.

This case of extreme myopia has deprived the country of millions of dollars of revenue that could have come through a range of at-source added value products, if processing facilities had been put in place earlier.

The present government has plans to do so now, but there are fears it may be too little too late and ultimately prove to be poor use of already scarce financial resources.

The near total absence of value addition to the exported timber has made it unattractive in the markets of the developed world, which also happen to be the most lucrative.

The country therefore has had to remain satisfied with markets like China, India and other developing countries from where the returns are nowhere as good, despite their seemingly insatiable appetite for building materials in line with their blitzing growth rates.

As a result, while timber prices have been booming in the international market over the past couple of years, accruals to the Solomons have not kept pace.

Even worse, past governments have tended to heap tax concessions and other largesse on players in the industry and even consistently failed to properly peg prices for determining export duties. This lost opportunity has cost millions of dollars to the national exchequer and as a consequence the common people of the Solomon Islands.

This sorry state of affairs of the country’s main export revenue earning industry quite emphatically points to the fact that things have seriously gone wrong with its management over the years.

It would be hard to ignore persistent rumours about cartels, corruption and the involvement of local leaders and politicians at the national level with the wheelers and dealers of the industry.

The very fact that opinion is sharply divided in the country’s topmost echelons about the existence of cartels itself adds credence to these rumours.

Though this government claims to be taking steps to correct these wrongs, it is anybody’s guess if it will succeed, given the deep entrenchment of vested interests in the industry from so many powerful and wealthy quarters who obviously have much at stake.

While it does so, the government must urgently look at sustainable alternatives. It is seriously considering tuna fishing, which again, like timber, is a natural and not an inexhaustible resource.

But unlike in the case of the latter, it must put in place a plan for forward integration at the very outset.

Downstream processing industries for tuna will prove tremendously advantageous for the country in terms of exporting value added products besides creating a range of avenues for employment in the industry as well as related ancillaries.

And it is not only in the case of logging that politicians and vested interests have let the country down so badly. In the case of tuna, again, successive governments have scarcely fought for substantial increases in access fees richly deserved by Solomon Islanders, with foreign fishing organisations sailing away with not just prime catches but also bulk of the profits.

Other potential industries like tourism seem difficult because of some of the inherent geographical, infrastructure and cultural problems that the country is faced with, to speak nothing of the scarce foreign investment dollar, given the recent turbulence in the country.

The agriculture sector does have possibilities but none can really replace revenues earned by logging in the short-term.

For a country like the Solomon Islands whose destiny and economy are inextricably linked with natural resources, what is more vital than anything else is its responsible management with the benefit to its citizens taking the highest priority.

If the felling of trees is to continue unabated as it has all these years and steps to find alternative industries to logging are delayed or not pursued for whatever reasons, things are certain to get progressively difficult for the people of the Hapi Isles.

A fragile political climate rife with controversies and the country’s continued dependence on external sources to maintain peace, makes the current government’s task to pull the country out of the impending socio-economic morass look Herculean. Add to that, its fraying relationship with its biggest neighbour and donor, Australia, and we have a scenario that looks far from promising.