By Alfred Sasako

THE Patron of the Pacific China Friendship Association (PCFA), Her Royal Highness Princess Salote Mafile’o Pilolevu Tuita has suggested establishing a Pearl Maritime Road Initiative to extend China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative to the Pacific Region.

This was contained in a Communique issued at the end of the Pacific China Friendship Association Annual General Meeting held at Sanya, Hainan Province in southern China last week.

The Communique outlined the outcomes of the one-day meeting attended by Friendship Associations from the Americas and the Oceania (Asia-Pacific) Region.

The meeting, held on 27th November, was the first since the Non-governmental organisation was established at its inaugural meeting in the Kingdom of Tonga in October 2016.

The Communique said:

“The PCFA was inaugurated in October 2016 in the Kingdom of Tonga and its aims principally include promotion of friendship and understanding between Friendship Associations and to participate in projects of mutual interest, including cultural, educational and economic activities.

The meeting commenced with an address by the Patron, Her Royal Highness, Princess Salote Mafile’o Pilolevu Tuita who encouraged the initiation of a Pearl Maritime Road initiative, to extend the Maritime Silk Road to the Pacific Region.

Dr Hiria Ottino, President of PCFA reported on the many achievements of the organization so far, including arranging scholarships with the Shanghai Ocean University, coordinating students to attend an international camp in Shanghai, provision of library books and lap top computers.

An election of five Board Members took place and representatives from the Friendship Associations of Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Australia were successful.

Dr Ottino was confirmed as President and Mr Anthony Leong was elected as Secretary General.

The meeting discussed and ratified a new Constitution which will guide and support the Association in its deliberations.

A presentation from Wuxi Suntech Power Company showed how their sustainable technologies can be utilized especially across the Pacific Region to benefit communities.

The Patron and the Chairman and CEO of Suntech signed a Memorandum of Understanding, pledging mutual cooperation and communication.

The meeting concluded with general consensus, willingness and co-operation to partner on future projects to benefit the communities of the Pacific Region.

BY ELLISON.T.VAHI

THE Solomon Islands has endorsed the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which provides a national framework for conservation across the country.

The national framework has been establishes since 2008, when a National Adaptation Plan of Action (NAPA) for the country was produced for climate change, as required under United Nations Framework of the Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

According to the National policy framework for conservation endorsed under the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity, Parties to the CBD adopted the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, a ten-year framework for action by all countries and stakeholders is to safeguard biodiversity and the benefits it provides to people.

One of the new targets (Target 11) of this strategic plan requires that all countries ensure that by 2020, at least 17 percent of their terrestrial and inland water and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas are conserved through ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas.

In 2009, to support the CBD commitments, the Solomon Islands Ministry of Environment, Climate change, Disaster and Meteorology (MECDM) produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) and supported a desktop GAP analysis to identify conservation priority areas across the entire country.

While identifying conservation and climate change priority areas at a national scale is an important step, conservation success in the Solomon Islands will only occurs when local communities support the initiatives, as access and utilization of land and near shore areas is linked to traditional occupation systems.

Therefore, in order for provincial wide conservation planning to be meaningful, it is critical to work with landowners and provincial governments to identify their conservation priorities.

BY BARNABAS MANEBONA

IMPERIAL Travel Service (ITS) management believe that travel and tourism is the alternative sustainable development for Solomon Islands.

Ender Rence the Managing Director of Imperial Travel Service during her remarks to New Zealand’s Craig Hooper under the Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) program working alongside ITS and Guadalcanal Nature Tours for the past months acknowledge the people and government of New Zealand for supporting an organization such as VSA to assist in the local initiative on travel and tourism in Solomon Islands.

“Travel and tourism is one of the sustainable alternative development for Solomon Islands requiring government stakeholders and donor partners so thank you the people and government of New Zealand,” said ITS Managing Director.

“It positively affects the economic growth and development of the country including various industries especially ‘healthy tourism industry’ such as accommodation, transportation, arts, entertainment, wildlife and culture, however, sometimes big challenges affect various resources of the country such as economic, environmental, socio-cultural, and educational.

Imperial Travel Service initiative is the source of jobs to their family, people and revenue to the country. It also has impacts on their living standard and their work partners linked to their small but growing travel business ensuring safety and security.

“Recently VSA supported us with First aid training and bought a first aid kit. We are ready and equipped to look after our visitors anywhere, anytime.

“To attract tourists from abroad, Solomon Islands government need to invest some money in making sure macro businesses are strengthened, tourist destinations are attractive and are safe and secure for tourists seeing that nowadays the risk of criminal activities is increasing too.

“Imperial travel service in its capacity will continue to provide professional services in order to correctly guide our visitors from other countries.

ITS added that in terms of benefit, tourism is one of the economical sources and many lives can depend on, however due to lack of proper infrastructure proper communication and coordination, tourism has not been an easy industry to promote in Solomon Islands.

Ender and her Husband Atkin Rence are the owners operating Imperial Travel Service being a beneficiary of VSA program. Another beneficiary under the VSA program is Mr Stanley Mataniata of Guadalcanal Nature Tours.

Imperial Travel Service is a transport service and its primary product is ‘meet and greet’ at the airport for tourists, doing peace tours as part of promoting the SGD 16, and some logistical support and advices for stakeholders.

“As owners of the Imperial Travel service we are proud of New Zealand for supporting the local initiative in travel and tourism in Solomon Islands,” said Ender.

“I stand here not only representing Imperial Travel Service but taking this opportunity too to also voice some of our common issues that other genuine Solomon Islands macro and small businesses face in the country in which I believe they too deserve better improved services and facilities and special attention to make their business grow and thrive to give back to families, communities and the country.

“To make this happen it takes a village, it takes a community and it takes a nation, in some cases, some external support.

“So I thank New Zealand for enabling our friend Craig Hooper and other Volunteers through VSA in providing professional support, advice and working together for the last 10 months being highly appreciated.

“We could never achieve most of our activities without Craig’s support.

“As a small operation, lack of business know-how, we were handicapped before Craig came.

“An example is the Pana Festival, the first ever festival that was organized in Solomon Islands without any support from any government organization however, our small team with Craig’s support brought together almost 200 tourists to participate at the first ever grassroots level festival. Craig was the one working behind the scene from the production of paper works such as promotional materials, media promotions to psychological support ensuring that our small team were mentally fit to successfully host the festival.

“It was a success. These things Craig will never be forgotten and it will go down in the history of Solomon Islands.

“Unlike our neighbouring pacific countries for example Fiji and Vanuatu, we are slowly developing out travel and tourism industry on which we have to be smart and strong being not easy so we must work hard.

From the inbound travel point of view, ITS is one of the newly established and growing inbound travel and transport operator among the long existing ones in Solomon Islands. How they operated before Mr Craig Hooper went to assist was only learning from experiences and working with existing networks to support their operations.

“With the technical and professional support Craig has rendered to us in the past 10 months is worthwhile, a big boast to improve many of our weaknesses especially when meeting challenges in today’s world of providing standard and professional transport services.

“To curb and handle situations such as the presence of other long existing travel agents poor relationship and partnership with each other, conflict of interest and poor government policies making situation not an easy place to operate services to meet the need of very limited tourist arrivals in Solomon Islands.

“Solomon Islands is one of the beautiful countries of the world. It is full of attractive historical places, natural sites including white beaches, lagoons and small islands in various provinces which make the country a potential tourist destination in the Pacific region.”

SOLOMON Islands has been elected to the Board of the Pacific-China Friendship Association (PCFA) at the organisation’s first Annual General Meeting (AGM) in China.

The Vice President of the Solomon Islands-China Friendship Association (SICFA), Alfred Sasako represented SICFA at the one-day meeting, held at China’s southernmost island province of Hainan on Thursday 27th November.

Other Members of the five-member Board are Australia, Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu. Member countries will serve a four-year term.

The meeting also reaffirmed Her Royal Highness Princess Pilolevu Tuita of Tonga as the permanent Patron of the Pacific-China Friendship Association.

Dr Hiria Ottino of Tahiti was re-elected unopposed as President of PCFA while Anthony Leong of Australia is the Secretary General of the two-year-old organisation.

PCFA was established in Nuku’alofa, Kingdom of Tonga on 26th October 2016. Its role is to promote friendship and understanding between all members and the People’s Republic of China (PRC)

At the Tonga inaugural meeting, Princess Royal, Her Royal Highness, Princess SALOTE MAFILE’O PILOLEVU TUITA and Madame LI Xiaolin, President of Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding for friendly cooperation as part of the establishment of the Pacific-China Friendship Association (PCFA).

Alfred said after this week’s meeting in Sanya, Hainan Province, he was pleased with the outcome of the vote.

“Solomon Islands was not expecting miracle, but SICFA took the view that it should put in all that needs to be done and leave the rest to higher forces to decide. We did just that and we are pleased that our efforts have paid off,” Alfred said.

He said it was not an easy task, given the fact that Solomon Islands does not have diplomatic relations with China.

“The fact that all 13 members of PCFA voted us in speaks volume of the need to work together as a family rather than one country doing its own. Solomon Islands must seize the opportunity to move forward in order to enjoy the benefits from China’s economic growth, which has attracted both the developed and developing countries to its vast arrays of economic and technological advances in order to keep up with the rest of the world,” Alfred said.

“It’s a do or die situation for us in Solomon Islands. We do it and survive the rigors of economic competition or we don’t and suffer the consequences of being beggars as we have been for the last 40 years, surviving merely on the non-productive investment on iron roofing and solar economy, which has not taken us anywhere,” he said.

By Mike Puia

A new wave of invasive species has reached Rennell Island in Renbel Province.

The organization’s Pacific Secretariat office in Fiji confirmed the new wave of invasive species like the black rat, little fire ant, mikania and lantana have reached east Rennell due to inappropriate development, poor biosecurity and low levels of awareness.

Bird surveys carried out were completed with the results produced by the organization.

The organization found that these species are associated with high levels of impact on biota, gardens and lifestyles.

Concerns around threat posed to East Rennell, being a world heritage site that is now in the endured list, as a result of logging and mining operations that are happening in west Rennell led to the visit by birdlife international.

The survey aimed at understanding the presence of species on the site and on east Rennell and Rennell Island as a whole.

The visiting survey team is working with authorities for the development of risk assessments which will form the basis of a Rennell Biosecurity Action Plan.

The team also conducted a taxonomic assessment on behalf of International Union for Conservation of Nature.

BirdLife International is a global partnership of conservation organisations that strives to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity.

The organization, from July to August, team-up with the Lake Tegano World Heritage site association to do the survey.

Regional Programme Coordinator for BirdLife International’s Pacific Secretariat office in Fiji, Miliana Ravuso, said they will return to East Rennell and do consultation with the communities next year.

During which time, Ravuso said they will outline what they propose to do.

BirdLife International looks to organize a Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund mid-term workshop in Honiara around early December.