Solomon Islands Development Trust 20th anniversary.

This year, the Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT) celebrates its 20th anniversary. SIDT got to work just a few years after our nation achieved independence in 1978; over the last 20 years this small but dedicated group of people has been closely involved with the villages and villagers that are the backbone of the Solomon Islands.

SIDT understands that the heart of the nation lies in village life. That is why it focuses on four areas of concern--improving nutrition, sanitation and health, and securing modest amounts of money. Towards this goal, SIDT emphasizes solutions that require small investments, yet immediately raise the quality of village living. For better nutrition, SIDT encourages families to establish their own SupSup or kitchen garden. It demonstrates how a family toilet improves sanitation and how better health comes when family members sleep under treated mosquito nets and cook and serve food from an upgraded kitchen. SIDT also shows villagers how small income-generating projects can gain them a bit of money.

In its first five years, SlOT informed thousands of people in hundreds of villages what this new organization was all about. It was the 1980s, and people were certain that development was about having money or staka. They thought development was impossible without it. SlOT had a different message: money is necessary, but other things are equally important, including good leadership, commitment, working together, understanding the development process and leveraging one's local resource base. SIDT sent trained village helpers - Mobile Team Members - to thousands of villages to help villagers see beyond their financial limits and get a handle on the complex and difficult process of development. Next, SIDT started to take practical steps to help villagers gain income by converting their natural wealth into cash, but to do so in such a way that whole villages shared in the gains.

Recently the work of the Trust has increasingly focused on making villagers aware of the great natural wealth of their forests, lands and seas and connecting these resources to willing markets. For example, SIDT brought Chris Delany, a New Zealand woman expert in papermaking from village-based fibers, to Balai (Malaita) and Nazareth (Western Isle) to teach paper-making from leaves, bark and other materials found locally in great abundance.

One of the most difficult areas to address has been logging. However, when supplied with the facts, it doesn't take villagers much time to realize how poorly they are treated by outside business interests and to seek a more profitable and sustainable approach. The best price for logs is obtained when the people harvest their own forest wealth and that is what SIDT's Ecotimber Unit has done. It exported more than a million dollars worth of trees between 1997 and 2002. That same volume of timber, if sold on the local market, would have gained the villagers only half a million or an even worse price from foreign logging firms. With all their failed promises, little care for the environment, and weakening of the social fabric, the round loggers could only offer $61,253 in royalties.

Another project for SIDT has been the butterfly raising. Until recently little attention was paid to these small, harmless and abundant forest creatures. But since 1997, SIDT's Conservation in Development department has been conducting village-level workshops to teach people how to raise butterflies for profit and at the same time maintain balance in nature. SIDT's workshops teach villagers that simply netting butterflies can damage their wings--their most valuable part. SIDT recommends ranching these small creatures, protecting them from natural predators and making them more profitable for sale on the international market. In 2001 alone, villagers made more than $50,000 from the sale of butterflies without impacting the environment.

Solomon Islands food security has fallen quickly and seriously in recent years, almost 1% a year since independence in 1978. SIDT's village outreach program ties in family food security, local market needs and the overseas cash market. The bottom line is that villagers must ensure that what they grow first meets their own family food needs before worrying about what the local market and especially the overseas demands.

Consider coral and seaweed cultivation, SIDT's latest efforts to convert natural wealth into cash. Growing seaweed earns the sea farmer about SI$1.50 a kilo of dried seaweed, three times the current price for dried copra. These local products strengthen family food security first and only secondarily respond to the demands of local and overseas markets.

In SIDT's early years, its employees were also learning. They soon realized that simply telling people about development issues wasn't enough. As a result, SIDT incorporated new ways of distributing information; print media and popular theatre became the organization's major outreach tools.

The first issue of LINK magazine, started in the late 80s, focused on village life as central to the nation's well being while the next issue discussed how the bait fishing industry was both helping and hurting the quality of village living. Subsequent issues spoke about problems facing village people, including how the logging industry was destroying the local quality of life. In 1988, LINK staff began producing Pijin-English comic strips to bring the MTM message to more people in a different way.

Visiting drama teams made difficult subjects more accessible to the people. Many times villagers are asked to make long-term decisions concerning garden land, reefs, forests and other natural resources yet some of the most important information is kept from them. Dramatizing these issues helps villagers come to terms with all the important facts and to think beyond the monetary benefits and costs involved.

Over the years SIDT has combined its village outreach message with practical ways villagers can help themselves. Some of these have been modest, such as limiting the use of paper to conserve natural resources or showing villagers that resources like butterflies, ngali nut and seaweed have value. Modest value, but real value. We've been around for 20 years and we intend to continue for at least another 20!

1. LOCAL MARKET OUTLET    $571,698.00
2. LOGGING (ROYALTY)       $61,253.00
3. ECOTIMBER PAYMENTS   $1,320,499.00

Note: Table made from pie chart

Felix Narasia has a certificate in social forestry and is the Coordinator of SIDT's Eco-forestry Programme where he has played a key role in the development of the programme's systems and marketing since 1995. Felix also dedicates 50% of his time to environmental campaigns and training eco-timber producers at a local level.