Prepared by Éamonn Casey, Misean Cara Human Rights and Advocacy Officer, and Cédric Chatelanat, Institutional Development Manager for the Franciscans International, the blog ‘Where Trees Fall, Communities Rise’ highlights the environmental and human rights impact of foreign logging operations in the Solomon Islands and the research, community outreach, and international advocacy spearheaded by the Franciscans International and partners to chart pathways to sustainable development and climate justice solutions for the inhabitants of the islands.
For the residents of these communities, most of which are small rural villages traditionally in harmony with the environment around them, the deforestation caused by foreign logging companies has had a devastating impact. Livelihoods and water sources have been destroyed. Disputes over land and the influx of money are also fueling conflicts in the communities.
“Even without asking people ‘what is the situation with logging?’ they began to tell us,” says Brother Worrick Marako, Minister Provincial of the Society of Saint Francis in the Solomon Islands, an archipelago of six major islands and over 900 small ones in Melanesia, to the northeast of Australia.
Logging also has dire consequences for young women and girls. According to a women’s group in the town of Belaha, “The Waku [foreign loggers] will give things like cigarettes, rice, beer, and other things. […] They make an agreement with the family to have the girls as wives or house girls […]. When the loggers leave, sometimes the girls are left behind pregnant.”
The testimony of the women’s group, along with those from over 300 members of local communities consulted in a series of focus group discussions in October 2022, form the basis of a human rights publication launched by Franciscans International and its partners on 21 June 2023 ‘Solomon Islands: New report offers way forward for communities affected by logging‘.
“Building on our conversations with affected communities, this publication provides an insight into their daily reality while offering concrete ways forward to address the issues they face, whether at the national or international level,” says Cedric Chatelanat for Franciscans International.
“This publication is just one output of the ‘Walk the Talk’ Franciscans International project funded by Misean Cara (through the Franciscan Missionary Union, a Misean Cara member), which works on showing pathways to sustainable development and climate justice through promotion and protection of human rights,” says Chatelanat.
The ‘Walk the Talk’ project is supporting communities in several focus countries in Asia Pacific (including the Solomon Islands), Africa and the Americas to assess and tackle development, climate justice, and human rights issues in their different contexts, using United Nations mechanisms as a lever to bring about change.
These issues vary from the disproportionate and unjust effects of climate change (to which these communities have contributed almost nothing) to mining and logging related environmental and social abuses to displacement, land-grabbing and water access issues sometimes associated with mega-infrastructural projects or conflicts.
The new report, The Impacts of Logging on Human Rights in the Solomon Islands, points to immediate steps that can be taken to mitigate the harm done by logging, and to prevent similar issues arising during future projects. The findings and recommendations are being raised at the UN Human Rights Council, most recently in July 2023, to spur the Government into action.
“We found that logging continues to disrupt almost all aspects of life for people who traditionally have a close relationship with the environment and rely on it for water, food, and medicine,” says Budi Tjahjono, Franciscan International’s ’s Asia-Pacific Coordinator.
“Other issues caused with logging, including the introduction of invasive species, conflict within communities, and domestic trafficking of young women and girls, threaten to cause generational harm.”
This publication and advocacy around it will help “connect the dots” between local efforts to address the impacts of logging on communities and on their environment, and UN mechanisms aiming to progress human rights, including follow-up on commitments made by the Government during the Universal Periodic Review of the Solomon Islands in 2021.
The findings and recommendations of this report, expected to be translated into Pijin and shared with communities and media in the Solomon Islands in September 2023, will help support local human rights advocacy for months and years to come.
One of the main benefits of the ‘Walk the Talk’ initiative in the Solomon Islands – supported by Misean Cara since early 2020 – has been the increased awareness, alliance building and mobilisation around the issue of logging within local communities, religious congregations, and civil society networks.
The project has helped to create the space and conditions necessary to facilitate discussion of the issues faced by communities, to properly document these dialogues, and build common advocacy and awareness raising initiatives from them.
“If local people understand what is going on, there is hope for change,” local partners told Franciscans International. “We try to help by putting logging into our mission programmes and by encouraging people to be careful and mindful of creation. When people start asking for it, we now know where to go and can help them to understand”.
Prepared by Éamonn Casey, Misean Cara Human Rights and Advocacy Officer, and Cédric Chatelanat, Institutional Development Manager for the Franciscans International, the blog ‘Where Trees Fall, Communities Rise’ highlights the environmental and human rights impact of foreign logging operations in the Solomon Islands and the research, community outreach, and international advocacy spearheaded by the Franciscans International and partners to chart pathways to sustainable development and climate justice solutions for the inhabitants of the islands.
