Solomon Islands Forests
A Biological Treasurehouse
The Solomon Island forests are one of the 200 most important “ecoregions” in the world and one of the 10 most threatened forest ecoregions.
With New Guinea, the forests of the Solomon Islands make up the largest block of tropical rainforest remaining in the Asia Pacific and one of the three great rainforest areas on the planet
The Bismarck and Solomon Seas ecoregion boasts the highest diversity of saltwater fish and coral species in the world. Reef fish diversity and abundance is increasingly being seen as connected to the health of forested streams.
A range of forest types are found across the Solomon Islands, many of them unique to this region:
- The Solomon Island forests with 4500 species of plants are recognised as one of the world’s great Centres of Plant Diversity rich in unique palms, orchids and climbing pandanus. 25 tree species are threatened.
- The Solomon Islands forests have more unique restricted range and unique bird species by area than any other place on earth. 72 of the 163 land birds in the Solomon Islands are found only here or in close neighbouring islands. Most provinces hold at least one unique bird found only on that province and up to 12 unique species in the case of Makira.
- Many of these restricted species are also gravely threatened. On these grounds alone, the Solomon forests deserve world attention to support their protection and sustainable management.
- A significant proportion of the mammals, lizards, frogs, snails and insects in the Solomon Islands are found nowhere else. Three bat species are critically endangered and deserve urgent attention.
© WWF Solomon Islands.
Rural villagers depend on forest products such as Ngali nuts for their subsistence livelihoods.
- Forests provide some of the fundamental systems required to support life. Experience in other Pacific Islands has shown that forest loss can result in issues such as failure of water supply in drought periods, loss of fisheries and landslides.
- Rural Solomon Islanders depend heavily on over 600 forest products for their subsistence livelihood and are increasingly gaining income from the sale of forest products such as rattan and ngali nuts and plantation timbers. Forests are also important for defining and maintaining cultural identities and cultural values of Solomon Islands peoples.
- Solomon Islanders, like so many in the Pacific, are struggling to integrate the use of natural resources for cash with the need to maintain the subsistence resource base on which daily life for most continues to depend.
- with only 0.28% of its territory included in protected areas. A number of regions recommended as priorities for conservation in 1990 have subsequently been logged or cleared for oil palm.
- An unknown number of traditional protected areas or “tambu” sites exist