From Copra Sequestration to Outboard Engine Trawling: Changes in the Carbon Footprint of Ontong Java Atoll, Solomon Islands

ABSTRACT

The colonial economy of Ontong Java Atoll, Solomon Islands, was centred on the sale of sun-dried copra. Atoll livelihoods depended on the ‘solar income’ freely available for growing coconuts and drying copra, and for sailing the outrigger canoes used for transport and fishing. The population retained self-sufficiency through its renewable resources of taro, coconut, and fish, enabling it also to sequester significant amounts of carbon in the form of coconuts. Ontong Java livelihoods were transformed in the 1970s by a boom in selling bêche-de-mer (holothurians, sea cucumbers) to Chinese markets in Southeast Asia. The resulting influx of money allowed more food and fuel to be imported and led to a massive increase in the atoll’s carbon footprint, as quantified in this article. The people’s eagerness to adopt the new ‘energy slaves’ of fibreglass canoes, outboard engines, and petrol reduced their self-sufficiency. These changes caused physical and ecological damage to marine ecosystems and also to the woodlands that provide fuel wood. The atoll’s economy is now more energy intensive and less sustainable, both unintended side effects of its fossil-fuel-based ‘energy slavery’. The very existence of atolls is now under threat because of climate change and sea-level rise, despite their total contribution to greenhouse gas emissions being both recent and miniscule.

Key words:

• Atoll
• bêche-de-mer
• copra
• carbon footprint
• energy slaves

INTRODUCTION

Ontong Java is a very large South Pacific atoll situated 250 km north of Santa Isabel in Solomon Islands. It is the largest of the Polynesian Outlier atolls, and today it supports a growing population of over 2,000 people plus migrants, living particularly in Honiara.¹ More than 100 islands surround a vast lagoon which extends in length 70 km from south to north with a maximum width of 26 km (Figure 1).² The atoll’s two largest islands, Luangiua and Pelau, both support permanent villages with more temporary settlements on some smaller islands.³ Luangiua and Pelau are almost identical culturally but operate as separate polities and societies. Up until the colonial era there were rather few interactions with neighbouring populations.⁴

Figure 1. Ontong Java Atoll, Solomon Islands.

Source: Bayliss-Smith, ‘Changing Patterns’, 59.

The atoll’s natural vegetation was dominated by strand species or by inland forests of Pisonia grandis and other trees. Over the period of human settlement, this vegetation saw its biomass reduced by selective timber felling, but otherwise one could characterize the population’s ecological impact before the 20th century as negligible and its ‘carbon footprint’ as extremely small. The atoll’s engagement in external trade began in the 1880s, particularly through the production of sun-dried coconut (copra) for the UK market, and from this time to the present the coconut has been favoured over other vegetation.⁵

After December 1972, incomes from copra were supplemented for some households by sales of bêche-de-mer (dried holothurians, sea slugs or sea cucumbers), a commodity sold to Solomon Islands middlemen exporting to Chinese markets in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China itself. Selling this new commodity led to a temporary influx of wealth but also resulted in a growing dependence on imports, especially petrol and basic foodstuffs. It was the availability of imported fibreglass canoes, outboard motors, and petrol that facilitated the development of this new fossil-fuel-based economy.

In the article, we trace the connections between these economic changes and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions, using estimates for fossil-fuel use on the atoll based on our own fieldwork. The Ontong Java example shows how quickly a small community that once managed its resources sustainably can have its economy transformed in ways that generate ‘energy slavery’ and a greatly enlarged carbon footprint. Fossil fuels are increasingly being used to enhance livelihoods throughout the Global South and Ontong Java can be seen as a micro-case-study of this process, as the rapid expansion of fossil-fuel use on the atoll dramatically increased its CO₂ emissions. Everywhere in the Global South we see negative ecological effects at local scale, but on atolls some ongoing global changes in climate and sea level can be added to these local effects.

On Ontong Java the effects of the bottom trawling of lagoons and the removal of holothurian biomass have not been measured, but negative impacts are strongly indicated.⁶ Local reports from the period of intensive trawling since 2000 suggest that once-pristine environments in the lagoon were damaged when trawling operations destroyed corals across vast areas. Local testimony also refers to a drastic and rapid decrease in holothurian populations, following the increased trawling by canoes using powerful petrol-demanding outboard engines.⁷ On some islands, the need to boil and dry sea cucumbers using biomass as fuel has led to deforestation. In the context of weak management, the unregulated use of resources on Ontong Java now resembles a typical ‘boom-and-bust cycle’ of exploitation.⁸

‘Energy Slaves’ On Ontong Java

In the past, making money from copra was a process mainly powered by local and renewable forms of energy (sunshine and wind). In contrast, producing bêche-de-mer mainly depends on external sources of energy, particularly imported fossil fuels and locally sourced fuel wood. Both are being used on a lavish scale to subsidize human labour, and thus to increase greatly the scale of the ‘energy slaves’ available to the community, if we adopt the term first suggested in 1940 by Buckminster Fuller.⁹ His concept has recently been expanded by Nikiforuk, McMillen, and others.¹⁰

These authors compare the energy yield from fossil fuels used in the industrial economy (the ‘energy slaves’) to the energy expended in the work done by each human being. In 1940, Fuller calculated that the work of just over 2 billion humans in the world was being subsidized by about 36 billion ‘energy slaves’, that is, by the power generated from fossil fuels. He showed that, at that time, 52 per cent of this power was energy expended within the USA.

For most citizens the growing use of fossil fuels in this ‘energy slave’ economy was unproblematic. Its rationale appeared self-evident as it provided such a boost to people’s living standards, encouraging adoption of various innovations. Some economists promoted the idea of an almost effortless ‘take-off’ through ‘development’, predicated on an unlimited energy supply from fossil fuels or nuclear power. This utopian vision, like others in the 20th century, was seldom questioned until the onset of our recent environmental awareness.¹¹ In the words of Stuart McMillen, who popularized and extended the Fuller concept:

Bucky [Buckminster Fuller] saw that coal, oil and gas were batteries for ancient sunshine that allowed civilization to, for the first time, live beyond its solar income … Advances [earlier in history] harnessed the energy of animal power and wind power to propel human beings and their cargo across the Earth’s surface, harnessing superhuman forces of animal-, firewood-, water- and wind-power. But humanity [at that time] was still living within the ‘solar income’ budget available through daily sunshine. Human ingenuity was simply redirecting solar flows from other parts of the ecosphere and using technology to conjure energy slaves from the environment.¹²

Sailing canoes, for example, can be seen as the Polynesian maritime equivalent of the energy slaves used in many other pre-industrial societies, such as the bullocks, carthorses, and windmills that were seen by ecologist Howard Odum as playing a key historical role, enabling production to be boosted and generating a market surplus from agriculture.¹³

As everywhere, mechanization transformed people’s lives in many ways. On Ontong Java the technology for lagoon transport first began to change in the 1970s with a switch from traditional canoes to imported fibreglass craft. When Tim Bayliss-Smith (TBS) lived on the atoll in 1970–1 there were no fibreglass boats and only four outboard motors in working use, compared with more than 160 indigenous outrigger canoes used by a total population of 858. The smaller canoes were paddled and the larger ones could either be paddled or sailed.¹⁴ As late as the 1970s the maritime technology of Ontong Java was mainly based on sails used as ‘energy slaves’, and this technology had changed rather little.

Limited changes in canoe technology began in the early 20th century, when sails of woven mats were replaced with imported calico or with re-used sacks from imported Australian rice. However, to a large extent mobility remained dependent on a self-sufficient technology of human skills and muscle power augmented by a few steel tools, and with the wind as the primary ‘energy slave’. It was a sustainable technology that enabled the Ontong Java people to access all parts of the atoll using renewable resources at low cost. A shortage of timber trees for making canoe hulls was the main problem, requiring people sometimes to make use of driftwood, particularly logs floating across the ocean from New Guinea.¹⁵

In summary, the traditional atoll economy was based on horticultural self-sufficiency, harvesting local fish and shellfish, sailing canoes for transport, and, under the colonial regime, producing sun-dried copra for export to the UK market. In the last 50 years this has been replaced by an industrialized technology largely based on fossil fuels and imported food. The activities of men were now increasingly oriented towards harvesting and selling bêche-de-mer to new Chinese markets in Southeast Asia. This new trading orientation coincided with the people adopting and managing the new ‘energy slaves’ of fibreglass canoes, outboard engines, and petrol.

The consequence has been a reduction of self-sufficiency and increased damage to parts of the atoll ecosystem. Ontong Java is now enmeshed in a global economy that is more complex and more energy intensive than any former system based solely on ‘solar income’. The self-sufficiency of the pre-colonial and 1940s diet was already being eroded in the copra economy by food imports, with rice, sugar, biscuit, etc. contributing 25 per cent of dietary energy in 1970–1.¹⁶ This rose to 51 per cent in 1986 and to even higher levels after bêche-de-mer trawling started in 2000.¹⁷ There are many unintended consequences of this growing use of external ‘energy slaves’ including damage to the atoll’s biodiversity, both terrestrial and marine.

Climate change has been the most recent and unintended of the side effects of our global subservience to energy slavery. Because of climate change and sea-level rise, the very existence of atoll livelihoods is now under threat. On Ontong Java, a storm surge in 2008 flooded the inland taro swamps, damaging areas planted with giant swamp taro (Cyrtosperma merkusii), taro (Colocasia esculenta), and turmeric (Curcuma domestica).¹⁸ Taro and turmeric were used especially by women in rituals connected to birth, death, and marriage.¹⁹ The culture of atolls such as Ontong Java is being transformed in ways that go beyond material damage, despite the contribution of atoll peoples to global greenhouse gas emissions being so recent and so miniscule.

Ontong Java And The Copra Trade

We can trace the origins of the atoll’s growing dependence on fossil fuels to the colonial era, starting in the late 19th century. Before that time the traditional diet of Ontong Java was heavily dependent on aroids cultivated in freshwater swamps on the six largest islands. These staple root crops were supplemented by plentiful coconuts, fish, and other marine foods.²⁰ From the 1950s onwards taro cultivation became less intensive as the copra trade provided people with alternative sources of carbohydrate in their diet, and their dependence on imported food increased further after the boom in bêche-de-mer in the 1970s.²¹

From the 1890s to the 1970s copra was the atoll’s dominant commodity. A German company established the first permanent trading station in 1895 for buying copra at Luangiua. From then until 1939 there were resident traders, either Germans, Swedes, British, or Australians, who lived at Luangiua, Pelau, and sometimes on other islands such as Avaha and Nangualipu, managing stations for buying copra and selling trade goods.²² After a period of isolation during and after the Second World War, regular exports of copra resumed in 1952. Production peaked in the 1960s, reaching a peak of over 600 tons per year until Cyclone Annie caused widespread damage in 1967.²³

The copra trade resulted in many important technologies being introduced to Ontong Java. These include steel tools, cotton calico, fishing gear, pots and pans, matches, and tobacco. One small example is the use of kerosene lamps, first used by traders to illuminate their houses and their work. Wilfred Fowler, an English trader, wrote about how in 1932 he had spent the night on the beach at Luangiua weighing bags of copra ‘by the light of hurricane lamps’, to enable him to load the cargo onto his ship and make a speedy departure next morning.²⁴

We have no record of outboard engines being used at all until after the growth of the modern copra trade in the 1950s. However, the resident commissioner of the British Protectorate reported in 1916 that people were starting to use European boats and half-decked cutters to transport coconuts or copra.²⁵ Such craft were called ‘whale boats’ and could be either rowed or sailed. At Luangiua in 1927 ten of these craft belonged to the Levers company and were used for transporting coconuts and copra to and from the trading station.²⁶ Whale boats had a clear advantage over outrigger canoes for transporting bulky cargoes from outlying islands and for loading and unloading ships.

This centralized arrangement for copra did not continue after the last resident trader departed in 1939. During the Second World War there were no visits by commercial ships and the atoll’s isolation continued until 1952 when Thomas H. G. Elkington (1908–78) of the R.C. Symes company began regular visits in his ship Ambon, later Moala, and Hawk after 1966. In 1952, the pre-war whale boats which had once been supplied by Levers were no longer seaworthy, whereas Elkington was an experienced sailor and skilled navigator.²⁷ He was willing to travel around the lagoon to pick up copra and trochus shell and to deliver the goods previously ordered, especially rice, biscuit, tobacco, and calico. As a result, until Elkington retired in the mid-1970s most of Ontong Java’s copra was purchased from the islands where it was produced, or nearby. After 1959, to compete with Elkington, the Quan How Yuan company (Gizo) was obliged to follow this decentralized model of copra buying.

The copra trade transformed the atoll’s environment, its society, and way of life in many ways.²⁸ Its biggest long-term effect on Ontong Java’s terrestrial ecology was the gradual replacement of natural woodland by coconut plantations, but since the 1970s the boom in bêche-de-mer has led to a decline in copra’s importance. As a result, there has probably been some recovery of natural woodland on those islands no longer intensively managed for copra. At the same time, however, the islands now being settled because of their easy access to sea cucumbers have been largely deforested to provide the fuel needed for boiling and drying bêche-de-mer.²⁹

Growth Of The Bêche-De-Mer Trade

Not many Pacific Islanders regard holothurians as edible, but as an exported commodity, bêche-de-mer or trepang has a longer colonial history than copra. Records from the port of Sydney show that bêche-de-mer exports from Solomon Islands began in 1862, alongside pearl shell, tortoise (turtle) shell, and whale oil.³⁰ Ontong Java’s involvement in this trade probably began in 1874 with the arrival of the James Birnie, remembered as being the first foreign ship to have entered Ontong Java’s lagoon.³¹

The intention of the White men organizing the James Birnie enterprise was ‘to collect beche-de-mer, shells, etc.’, and to this end they sailed from Sydney and enrolled a crew of about 40 divers in the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia. Upon arrival at Ontong Java they built stations on three islands for boiling and drying bêche-de-mer, but following this incursion there was misunderstanding, resentment, and an attack on the James Birnie by groups of men coordinated by Keulaho, the Luangiua chief. Nine out of the ten White men on the ship and about half of the Loyalty Islanders were killed, and the ship was plundered and burnt.³² One White man and 19 Loyalty Islanders survived the attack and escaped to Solomon Islands in two open boats. The following year there was a punitive visit by the Royal Navy ship Beagle which anchored in the lagoon off Luangiua and attracted a hostile crowd of about 1,500 men on the beach. The morning after its arrival HMS Beagle ‘opened fire on the natives with shell, rockets and small arms’.³³

It would appear that this massacre made the atoll safe for visiting ships.³⁴ The following year we have the first record of successful bêche-de-mer collecting, when ‘the barque Sydney and the steamer Ripple were at Howe’s islands [Ontong Java] fishing for bêche-de-mer’.³⁵ Both ships belonged to the Cowlishaw company of Sydney, the steam launch Ripple operating as a tender to Sydney. In January 1876, Sydney landed, at the port of Sydney, cargoes of coconut oil, bêche-de-mer, pearl shell, and tortoise (turtle) shell from Solomon Islands. In February 1877, Sydney landed a larger cargo consisting of 70 tons of copra, 60 tons of bêche-de-mer, and 900 pounds of tortoise shell.³⁶ We do not know what proportion of these cargoes derived from Ontong Java Atoll, but, then as now, the richest source of bêche-de-mer in Solomon Islands was Ontong Java’s lagoon.

Thereafter, the 19th-century record for Ontong Java refers only to copra trading and labour recruiting and it seems that bêche-de-mer was no longer being exploited. Only in the 1930s was the trade revived by Japanese entrepreneurs, when ‘the people of Ontong Java learned the methods of catching and processing sea slugs from Japanese instructors who visited the atoll just before the Second World War’.³⁷ This trade ended in 1940 and was not resumed until December 1972 through the initiative of James Wong, a Chinese businessman based in Honiara, who recognized Ontong Java’s potential to produce this commodity.³⁸

In summary, the traditional atoll economy was based on horticultural self-sufficiency, harvesting local fish and shellfish, sailing canoes for transport, and, under the colonial regime, producing sun-dried copra for export to the UK market. In the last 50 years this has been replaced by an industrialized technology largely based on fossil fuels. The consequence has been a reduction of atoll self-sufficiency and some damage to the atoll ecosystem. The activities of most men were increasingly oriented towards harvesting and selling bêche-de-mer to new Southeast Asia markets, a new trading orientation that coincided with the people adopting and managing the new ‘energy slaves’ of fibreglass canoes, outboard engines, and petrol. Ontong Java is now enmeshed in a global economy that is more complex and more energy intensive than any former system based solely on ‘solar income’.

The Mechanization Of Atoll Mobility

An important stage in the transition to ‘energy slavery’ was the adoption of technologies that permitted mechanized mobility. This transition came late to Ontong Java Atoll. During the Second World War and afterwards the atoll was cut off almost entirely from the market economy for about 12 years, and its economy reverted to self-sufficiency. Some contact with Solomon Islands was maintained by men making voyages in outrigger sailing canoes, but regular shipping links were not resumed until 1952 with visits of traders from Honiara, the Solomon Islands capital, or from Gizo in Western Province after 1959. Over time these visits became increasingly frequent, and they gradually replaced the people’s own occasional overseas voyages. The last independent voyage was in 1958 when five men travelled to Solomon Islands by outrigger canoe, sailing about 300 km across the ocean from Luangiua to the plantation at Tassafarong on Santa Isabel. They made the voyage to tell Elkington that the Ontong Java people were out of tobacco and their copra was ready for him to collect.³⁹

After this time the increased regularity of shipping reduced the need for such epic voyages. Canoe voyaging beyond the Ontong Java lagoon came to an end, apart from occasional trips from Pelau to visit Nukumanu, a neighbouring atoll 60 km to the north, which can be reached today in only a few hours by outboard motor. Within the Ontong Java lagoon, mechanized mobility dates from the 1960s. In that decade, Elkington sold to men on the atoll between 40 and 50 Seagull engines, but they tended to be unreliable, were poorly maintained, and did not last for long.⁴⁰ What continued for Ontong Java was the people’s ambition to control their own means of transport, including links with the outside world. Their ultimate dream was to have their own ships so as to improve the terms of trade and control their links to the outside world.

In the 1960s there were ambitious projects to buy ships by groups in both villages, culminating in the successful purchase in Luangiua of the Tong Java in 1967. The Tong Java was an 11 m decked ocean-going vessel with a diesel-powered Gardner engine, and it was intended to take over the atoll’s copra trade. Unfortunately, the project failed because no one was fully qualified to navigate the vessel, because mechanical and financial skills were lacking, and because of discouragement by the colonial government. After two years of intermittent use in the lagoon, the Tong Java was shipwrecked on Keila Island in a storm and the whole investment was lost.⁴¹

Despite this setback, the Ontong Java people still showed a strong wish for regular mobility within the lagoon. Today, almost all the boats used for this purpose are imported fibreglass canoes powered by outboard motors. It was very different 50 years ago when the people were still largely self-sufficient in lagoon transport. In 1970 there existed 163 indigenous outrigger canoes on Ontong Java, 119 belonging to Luangiua and the remainder to Pelau.⁴² The extent of canoe ownership reflects the sheer size of the atoll as well as the economic importance of canoes, used at that time for fishing, diving for clams and trochus, and to visit more than 100 islands where coconuts grow. Efficient transport helped copra exports reach a peak in the 1960s before Cyclone Annie struck in 1967.⁴³

It was bêche-de-mer that transformed the atoll economy after 1972, increasing further the demand for lagoon mobility and leading to the dramatic growth in the use of fossil fuels that this article documents. Canoes have been manufactured by the Aruligo Fibreglass Company in Honiara since the late 1960s. When combined with the availability of cheaper, more powerful and more reliable outboard engines, and relatively cheap petrol, they have made possible an even greater degree of mobility than was previously possible. Before 1972 each village had only two or three outboard motors in working order, and they were usually reserved for special trips (for example to Nukumanu), or for fishing trips to the open ocean in calm weather.⁴⁴ Before mechanization could transform atoll mobility, the men needed to acquire cheaper, more reliable and more powerful outboard engines, capable of propelling large fibreglass canoes.

Income from bêche-de-mer began to make this possible, but in 1976 when a government fisheries officer visited the atoll, he reported that the transition to mechanization was incomplete:

The fishermen use sail-powered outrigger canoes to reach the holothuroid collecting areas, although with the substantial profits from the industry an increasing number of outboard motors and fiberglass canoes are being used. Processing bases are often established on uninhabited islands, with as many as 200–300 fishermen collecting holothuroids for processing.⁴⁵

By the 1980s there was a boom throughout Solomon Islands in collecting, drying, and exporting the new commodity, coinciding with a slump in copra. On Ontong Java Atoll, as the old wooden outrigger canoes reached the end of their lives, they were replaced with fibreglass alternatives.⁴⁶

Re-visiting Ontong Java after a 14-year interval, TBS was surprised in 1986 to see how few of the old sailing canoes were still in use. Imported fibreglass canoes with outboard engines had replaced them and, as a result, the sustainable ‘energy slaves’ of sailing canoes had become an almost obsolete technology. The population of the atoll had grown from 850 to over 1,400 people thanks to malaria eradication, improved public health, and the return of migrants. In July 1986, those 1,400 people owned 141 fibreglass canoes powered by 108 outboard engines.⁴⁷

The result of the post-1972 boom was that the accessible populations of bêche-de-mer were quickly over-exploited, leading to a decision by Ontong Java Area Council to impose closed seasons and other restrictions that prohibited sales of bêche-de-mer in every odd-numbered year after 1978.⁴⁸ These rules continued until the abolition of Area Councils in 1996, a change which led to much weaker and more erratic regulation. In 2000, men began some new practices such as bottom trawling and scuba diving that formerly were banned by the Area Council. Only much later, with clear evidence of over-exploitation at the national scale, was a complete export ban imposed in December 2005.⁴⁹ Because of political lobbying this export ban proved to be a temporary measure, but it was reimposed in 2014.⁵⁰

Outboard Engines As Energy Slaves

What were the effects on energy use of the mechanization of lagoon mobility? In this article we present quantitative data on fossil-fuel use based on our records from fieldwork on the atoll in 1970–2, 1986 (TBS), and 2005–8 (AEC). Our fieldwork included monitoring transactions for trade, interviewing the storekeepers of Luangiua and Pelau, and recording how much petrol, kerosene, and engine oil was being imported.⁵¹

In 1970–1 the consumption of all fossil fuels was very limited. The atoll’s four outboard engines were seldom used and very little petrol was needed. Moreover, because access to money was dominated by men who often had other priorities than cooking or illuminating their houses, only small amounts of kerosene were imported. Each year each person used on average only 3.4 litres of kerosene and 5.7 litres of petrol and engine oil (see Tables 1 and 2).

Table 1. Total fossil-fuel use on Ontong Java.

Year	Resident population of the atoll	Total annual consumption of fossil fuels
		Kerosene (litres)	Petrol (litres)	Engine Oil (litres)	All fuels (litres)
1970–71 (a)	853	2,887	4,428	396	7,711
1986 (b)	1,408	12,757	172,632	3,930	189,319
2007 (c)	1,850	43,870	593,575	13,501	650,946

Sources:

(a) Ontong Java in 1970–1. The quantities shown for fossil-fuel use during the year June 1970 to May 1971 are based on careful monitoring of all imports to the atoll during fieldwork by Tim Bayliss-Smith (‘Ecosystem and Economic System’, 312–15). In the year 1970–1 there were ten visits by trading ships, either Hawk (seven visits) or Biliki (three visits). These visits provided the only opportunities for the people of Ontong Java to buy imported goods and to sell copra and trochus shell. All details of what was imported to Ontong Java during two of these occasions (Hawk I, June 1970, and Biliki III, December 1970) were recorded (see ibid., 312, footnote 5, Table 69; and TBS, field notes).

This sample (two visits out of 10) provides the basis for the estimates that are shown above for the annual volume of imported fossil fuels. From the data for the year 1970–1 we can estimate that non-food purchases totalled A$19,040, including the fossil-fuel expenditures. To calculate these expenditures, we can use the ratios 2.2, 1.6, and 1.1 per cent of the total for petrol, kerosene, and outboard engine oil respectively. The expenditures can be converted into litres of fuel using the average prices charged that year by the Hawk and Biliki traders for purchases of petrol (A$0.43 per gallon), kerosene (A$0.48 per gallon), and engine oil (A$2.40 per gallon). Most petrol was imported in 44-gallon drums, engine oil in 5-gallon drums, and kerosene in 4-gallon drums. Obviously when the fuels were divided by local storekeepers into smaller quantities for sale to consumers on the atoll, the actual prices consumers paid per litre were usually much higher.

(b) Ontong Java in 1986. The estimates shown for annual consumption on the atoll (population 1,408) are based on complete data collected by TBS in June 1986 for all imports (including fuels) by the community in Pelau (population 402) for the period December 1985 to May 1986 (see Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 7, Fig. 2; 37, Table 8). Data for Luangiua (population 1,006) are less complete and were only available for six of the 11 stores buying bêche-de-mer and copra and selling imported goods including fuel. The six-month sample period for Pelau is regarded as a more accurate sample. It includes consumption figures for petrol (24,600 litres), kerosene (1,818 litres), and engine oil (560 litres). The sample derives from 28.5 per cent of the atoll’s total population of 1,408, and we believe it is a secure basis for the estimated annual consumption figures that are shown (see Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 7, Fig. 2; 37, Table 8; and Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 13, Table 2).

(c) Ontong Java in 2007. Some data are available from the PhD fieldwork of Andreas Egelund Christensen (University of Copenhagen). AEC lived on Ontong Java during the periods November 2006 to April 2007 and November 2007 to April 2008. Our estimates for fossil-fuel use are for the year 2007 and are based on AEC’s census of the atoll’s population (Pelau 543, Luangiua 1,307) and AEC’s figure of 110 for the number of outboard engines in use by the Pelau community in that year (see Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 7, Fig. 2; 37, Table 8). Pelau contained 29.4 per cent of the total atoll population, so we can estimate a total for the atoll of 374 outboard engines in use. In 1986, Pelau had 31 outboard engines in use in 31 households (the remaining 46 households either had no engines, or they had no canoes or only traditional wooden outrigger canoes). See Bayliss–Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 41. In the year 1986, fuel use in Pelau by the owners of these 31 engines amounted to 117.3 litres of kerosene per engine, 1587.1 litres of petrol per engine, and 36.1 litres of engine oil per engine. For 2007, when the Ontong Java total number had grown to 374 outboard engines (110 in Pelau, 264 in Luangiua), we can use the 1986 estimates for the annual quantity of fuel use per engine to calculate for the whole atoll an approximate figure for total fuel use and the per capita fuel use in 2007.

Table 2. Per capita fossil-fuel use on Ontong Java, and comparisons with the UK.

Year	Resident Ontong Java population	Per capita consumption of Fossil Fuels
		Kerosene	Petrol	Engine	All fossil fuels
		(litres)	(litres)	Oil (litres)	(litres)
1970–71	853	3.38	5.19	0.46	9.03
1986	1,408	9.06	122.61	2.79	134.46
2007	1,850	23.71	320.85	7.30	351.86
UK comparison
1990 (a)	55.7 million	227	578	u	805 (b)
2021	67.3 million	404	218	u	622 (b)

Sources:

Ontong Java 1970–1, 1986, and 2007: see this article, Table 1.

UK in 1990, 2021: see RAC Foundation, ‘UK Petrol and Diesel Consumption’.

Notes:

(a) In the year 1990 the total annual UK carbon footprint per capita was about 8,850 kg (8.8 tonnes) of CO₂ equivalent (see Footnote 57).

(b) UK figures are for diesel not kerosene consumption. UK totals for All fossil fuels are for petrol and diesel only.

(u) Data unavailable.

From our later fieldwork in 1986 and 2005–8 we can document the growing consumption of fossil fuels especially petrol. Our estimates suggest a dramatic increase in the resulting CO₂ emissions, Ontong Java’s so-called ‘carbon footprint’. We can see Ontong Java as a case study or microcosm of our growing global dilemma. As elsewhere in the world, the atoll shows how once remote communities achieved ‘development’ during the 20th century. It was a remarkably sudden transition towards technologies largely based on fossil fuels, with people eager to enlist so-called ‘energy slaves’ to subsidize their own labour.

It was wealth from bêche-de-mer after 1972 that funded the acquisition of fibreglass canoes and outboard motors powered by petrol. Sometimes the new fibreglass canoes were used for everyday fishing and for transporting people more easily between islands, but they were mainly intended as a better way to access remote reef and lagoon areas where bêche-de-mer could be found.⁵² The 1986 data show that these bigger and better ‘energy slaves’ required people to consume 25 times more petrol per capita, compared with the situation 14 years previously. Annual use of petrol per capita jumped from 5.7 to 122 litres (Tables 1, 2, and 3).

Table 3. Carbon footprints on Ontong Java from direct consumption of fossil fuels.

Year	Per capita consumption of Fossil Fuels, and the resulting emissions expressed as their CO2 equivalent in kg per capita (a)
	Kerosene		Petrol		Engine oil		Total fossil fuels
	kg	CO2 e	kg	CO2 e	kg	CO2 e	kg	CO2 e
1970–71	3.38	10.64	5.19	13.52	0.46	1.56	17.36	15.12
1986	9.06	28.46	122.61	318.76	2.79	8.76	134.61	355.98
2007	23.71	74.13	320.85	834.34	7.30	22.83	351.86	931.30

Note:

(a) Litres of consumption per capita are based on the Ontong Java totals for fossil-fuel consumption divided by the atoll’s resident population. As shown in Tables 1 and 2, these populations were 853 in 1970–1, 1,408 in 1986, and 1,850 in 2007. The total consumption figures and populations are converted into emissions per capita, expressed as kg CO₂ equivalent emissions. We have done this calculation using the multipliers used by the US Environmental Protection Agency for Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions, expressed as kg CO₂ equivalent: Petrol 2.6 kg per litre, Diesel or Kerosene 3.128 kg per litre, and Engine Oils 3.128 kg per litre. See US Environmental Protection Agency, ‘Greenhouse Gases Equivalencies Calculator’, Washington, DC, EPA, https://www.epa.gov/ (accessed 15 July 2023).

In that time the actual supply of fossil fuels and their growing use everywhere in the Pacific Islands did not in themselves seem problematic. Earlier, during the 1970s, an imminent ‘energy crisis’ had been predicted and the price of oil was rising steeply. Influential forecasts suggested that ‘peak oil’ would be reached by the year 2000.⁵³ In the 1980s, however, petrol was actually becoming cheaper and threats to climate posed by the greenhouse effect were not yet widely accepted. New oil and gas fields had been discovered in many parts of the world, nuclear power was being expanded, and, while global warming was being predicted, it was an idea with almost no influence on public policy.

As an observer, TBS had concerns that mainly focused on the economic sustainability of bêche-de-mer. Ontong Java Atoll, like elsewhere in the Global South, was now the potential victim of a fragile ecological basis for uncontrolled exploitation and loss of self-sufficiency.⁵⁴ Today, however, we can see the Ontong Java experience of ‘development’ as an example of the globalization of ‘energy slavery’. This general process started in the West with the Industrial Revolution. By the 20th century it had spread to people everywhere, even to remote atolls in the Global South. Quite suddenly, all across the tropical Pacific and beyond, people were starting to import petrol for engines to power their watercraft, using this technology to enable them to strip saleable commodities including bêche-de-mer from coral reefs and lagoons. The expansion of the Chinese market was key to this change.

This commercial exploitation of reefs and lagoons provided atoll dwellers with an easier livelihood than producing dried coconut (copra) for remote export markets. Copra production was labour intensive and, with the market now dominated by other coconut producers and by other vegetable oils, its price was low. Did bêche-de-mer, the new commodity, provide a more sustainable economy? And did it really matter if everyone in the world, in different ways, was pursuing the same kind of fossil-fuel-based exploitation of natural resources?

The risks associated with unsustainable technology have both global and local aspects. Today, sustainability in the wider context of global change has become an important question, but until recently the role of fossil-fuel use in carbon dioxide emissions was not widely recognized. The first IPCC Report in 1992 was disregarded by climate-change sceptics and the scientific basis for global warming was even denied by the major oil companies. On atolls such as Ontong Java, the effects of climate change and sea level rise were not recognized until the 21st century.

The local consequences of dependence on unsustainable forms of trade were shown by the effects of government-imposed bans on bêche-de-mer exports, which had dramatic effects on the number of shipping connections to Ontong Java. In 2006, for example, after the export ban was announced, only four ships arrived at the atoll, whereas the following year when the export trade resumed, 16 ships visited. At times without bêche-de-mer sales, the import of petrol, kerosene, and imported food was much reduced. AEC observed that when outboard engines could no longer be used on a routine basis, petrol began to be seen as a luxury, reserved to provide easier access to more distant islands or to make possible family visits to Nukumanu. People could no longer rely on outboard engines as ‘energy slaves’ to provide their everyday mobility.⁵⁵

Carbon Sequestration From Copra

The historical changes that we have described represent a transformation in Ontong Java’s carbon footprint. For a century before the 1970s the carbon footprint was dominated by the sequestration of carbon through the production of sun-dried copra, a process involving very few fossil-fuel inputs and, therefore, on the atoll itself, minimal carbon emissions. In contrast, since the 1970s the economy has produced large carbon emissions from an economy centred on diving or trawling for bêche-de-mer and using canoes powered by petrol-driven outboard engines.

Neither of these alternative technologies is easy to quantify fully, but the broad pattern is clear. In the case of copra, the product itself sequesters carbon in the form of coconut oil. Copra contains 60–65 per cent crude coconut oil, and when processed 86 per cent of the oil can be converted into the fuel known as ‘coco-biodiesel’.⁵⁶ This product is not manufactured in Solomon Islands; the copra from places like Ontong Java is all exported.

For the exported copra, what is its carbon footprint at local scale? The net sequestration of carbon from land dominated by coconuts is not straightforward to estimate, but we can calculate the gross sequestration of carbon in the form of copra (Figure 2). Exports of copra from the atoll reached a peak in the 1960s before the 1967 hurricane, with exports averaging 463 tons per year in the period 1960–7.⁵⁷ To estimate what this represents in sequestration we use the multiplier of Roupsard, based on his three-year study of coconut carbon sequestration in Vanuatu.⁵⁸ In this study the estimate for carbon content is 0.7 kg C per kg of copra, so that Ontong Java’s export of copra in the period 1960–7 represents a gross sequestration of about 324 tons of carbon each year. This represents 337 kg per capita of carbon sequestered, calculated for the 1967 atoll population of 963 people.⁵⁹

Figure 2. Carbon footprint for Ontong Java in period 1960–7, when, on average, the atoll’s population was 963 and copra exports were 463 tonnes.

Source: calculations in Tables 1–3, this article; and TBS, unpublished.

When harvested in this form, coconut plantations can clearly provide a useful and sustainable source of CO₂ sequestration. After its export there will be significant emissions from the fossil fuels used in the transport of copra and later its processing, but the carbon sequestered in the product itself will offset some of these emissions.

Carbon Emissions From Bêche-De-Mer

In contrast, the post-copra economy of Ontong Java has seen little or no carbon sequestration to offset the increased emissions. It is likely that during the boom in bêche-de-mer the neglect of some coconut plantations led to the re-growth of natural forest, but we believe that sequestration in this form has been small compared with the increase in emissions from the biomass burnt to cook and dry the bêche-de-mer.⁶⁰ The result has been some local deforestation.

Processing sea cucumbers to produce marketable bêche-de-mer requires several main stages: evisceration, boiling for about two hours, cleaning in salt water, sometimes boiling again, and then drying over a fire for at least a day and a night.⁶¹ Alternatively, in the final stage, the bêche-de-mer may be dried in the sun to reduce the need for biomass fuel, but ‘processing sea cucumbers into bêche-de-mer requires a large supply of firewood’.⁶² Precise estimates are lacking for the amount of fuel required, but biologist G. L. Preston has suggested that about 10 tons of firewood are needed to produce 1 ton of dried bêche-de-mer.⁶³

On Ontong Java, the most extreme cases of deforestation are on small islands such as Pe‘iaku, Hanguailua, Keuamau, and Sulumuia, inhabited as temporary settlements by families seeking bêche-de-mer. For processing sea cucumbers, people use driftwood, locally sourced timber, coconut husks, and even felled coconut palms. As a result, these islands have lost most of their large trees and have also seen a severe decline in their seabird populations.⁶⁴ Keuamau Island, for example, had a vegetated area in 1970 of only 1.44 ha but nevertheless supported a stunted woodland of Pisonia, Ficus, Bruguiera, Terminalia, and a few coconuts. After the bêche-de-mer trade it became a base for diving and trawling in the adjacent lagoon. In 2008, when Keuamau was revisited by AEC, five families were living on the island and all mature trees had been cut down. The only remaining vegetation was coconut palms and small regrowth trees, with nesting seabirds eliminated by hunting and loss of habitat.⁶⁵

In summary, unsustainable ‘energy slaves’ in the form of petrol-driven outboard engines and other imported technologies now dominate Ontong Java’s carbon footprint (Figure 3). To these fossil-fuel emissions should be added emissions from burning biomass for cooking and drying bêche-de-mer, but these extra emissions cannot easily be quantified. As an approximation, for 1986 we can use the figure of 65 tons that we estimate for the atoll’s production of bêche-de-mer.⁶⁶ To calculate roughly how much biomass fuel was burnt to produce these 65 tons, we assume that half the energy needed came from drying it in the sunshine, and the other half resulted from burning biomass as fuel, in other words about 5 tons of fuel needed to produce 1 ton of dried bêche-de-mer.⁶⁷ We therefore calculate that a total of about 325 tons of fuel would have been used in 1986.

Figure 3. Carbon footprint for Ontong Java Atoll in 2007 (population 1,850) during the bêche-de-mer boom when exports of this commodity were approximately 108 tonnes.

Source: TBS, calculations in Tables 1–3, this article; and unpublished.

To estimate the greenhouse gases emitted from burning this fuel we use a multiplier based on the carbon footprint of shifting cultivation, where about 1.6 kg of CO₂ is emitted per 1 kg of biomass burnt.⁶⁸ These figures imply that Ontong Java’s emissions from biomass burning in 1986 might have been 520 tons of CO₂ or about 370 kg per capita, about the same as the atoll’s total per capita emissions from using fossil fuels (see Table 3).

The data available for estimating emissions from biomass burning in 2007 are even more tenuous. There are no reliable Ontong Java export figures, but we will assume that (as in 1986) the atoll accounted for 49 per cent of Solomon Islands total bêche-de-mer exports, which in 2007 totalled 220 t.⁶⁹ Therefore, the atoll’s bêche-de-mer production could have been 108 t and its CO₂ emissions 864 t or 467 kg CO₂ per capita. There is in fact no secure statistical basis for these estimates, but they do suggest the size of Ontong Java’s total greenhouse gas emissions as well as pointing to the need for further research.⁷⁰

The Ontong Java Carbon Footprint

How does the fossil-fuel component of Ontong Java’s footprint compare with Solomon Islands, the nation of which it forms one small part? Following the boom in bêche-de-mer on Ontong Java, and despite the growing mechanization of the Solomon Islands economy, linked especially to rainforest logging, the atoll’s fossil-fuel consumption has been much greater than the Solomon Islands average.⁷¹ In 2007, for example, per capita use of all fossil fuels (kerosene, petrol, and engine oil) reached 352 litres on Ontong Java (see Table 2). In contrast, in that year, the per capita consumption of petrol and diesel in Solomon Islands was only 170 litres.⁷²

This level of consumption is, of course, much less than equivalent figures for fossil fuels in industrialized countries. In the UK, for example, where diesel has become a more important fuel than petrol, the per capita consumption of petrol plus diesel is about double the Ontong Java figure (see Table 2).⁷³ Our estimates for Ontong Java in 1970, 1986, and 2007 show an increasing dependence on imported fossil fuels (see Tables 1–3). From these data we can calculate the contribution of those fuels to the carbon footprint of the population.

Ideally, in order to calculate the total carbon footprint, we should add the emissions from the fossil fuels used to transport people and cargo to and from the atoll by ship, and also the carbon emissions of imports such as cement, roofing iron, and various consumer goods. If we had an adequate estimate for the biomass used as fuel to dry the bêche-de-mer, CO₂ emissions from this source could also be added. Accurate data for these extra carbon costs are lacking, and Table 3 shows only the estimated emissions for the fossil-fuel component.

Fossil fuel use has increased dramatically. Annual emissions, calculated as kilograms carbon dioxide emitted per capita, amounted to 15 kg in 1970, 356 kg in 1986, and 931 kg in 2007. However, even if we could add to the direct consumption on the atoll of fossil fuels the additional carbon from other imports and transport, even so the total carbon footprint of the Ontong Java population would by no means match that of people living in industrialized countries.

There are some forms of direct consumption on Ontong Java that are comparable. For example, although petrol consumption in 2007 was probably about 1.5 times greater per capita in Ontong Java than in the UK, consumption of diesel (kerosene) was much less. The UK population is using today on average per capita over 400 litres of diesel per year, whereas on Ontong Java the people today probably use less than 25 litres of kerosene per capita. When added to all other carbon emissions including imports, exports, and aviation, the total UK Carbon Footprint in 2019 was estimated to be 700 million tonnes, or about 10 tonnes per capita.⁷⁴ In contrast, we estimate the Ontong Java level of emissions per capita in 2007 to have been only about 10 per cent of the UK level. It is likely that today the gap is even larger despite small declines in the emissions of both populations.⁷⁵

Conclusion

The data available from our fieldwork in 1970–1, 1986, and 2005–8 show that Ontong Java has increased its fossil fuel consumption considerably over that period, with accompanying increases in CO₂ emissions. Since 1986, with a boom in the use of outboard motors for harvesting sea cucumbers, the consumption of petrol on Ontong Java increased dramatically, greatly exceeding per capita use of petrol elsewhere in Solomon Islands and, in the year 2007, even exceeding levels of per capita use of petrol in the UK. On the other hand, kerosene consumption on the atoll has remained small, and currently is very much less per capita than diesel use in the UK. To the emissions from fossil fuels should be added some further emissions from the consumption of firewood and other biomass fuels needed to convert sea cucumbers into dried bêche-de-mer.

Our data show that this once isolated and self-sufficient atoll, supporting a tiny population by world standards and with a miniscule carbon footprint, had by the late 20th century become an emitter of carbon dioxide on a scale that, per capita, matches the scale of emissions in many other semi-industrial countries in Asia, Africa, and Central America.⁷⁶ We can therefore see Ontong Java as a microcosm of processes of globalization that have transformed so many ecosystems worldwide, as the people exploiting them become participants in new trading relations.

The atoll’s first wave of trade participation was as a British colony in the 20th century, sending copra mainly to Lever’s soap factories in Port Sunlight, Merseyside, England. Its second wave after 1973 was as a producer of bêche-de-mer, a marine product in demand in the booming China market. Its production on atolls such as Ontong Java was made possible by investment in imported outboard motors and the acquisition of fibreglass canoes. This new technology replaced the indigenous ‘energy slaves’ of outrigger sailing canoes, which had provided the inter-island mobility that made possible the previous copra regime.

With the majority of the world’s population starting to exploit natural resources using cheap fossil fuels, often on the scale we have seen on Ontong Java, then an acceleration in global emissions of CO₂ became inevitable. The current climate crisis had its origins in the industrial uses of coal and oil pioneered in the West, but the crisis has accelerated as these sources of energy have been adopted worldwide with their associated carbon footprints.

Many observers are convinced that, in the long term, these processes are not sustainable. Those people in the forefront of this recognition include atoll dwellers, those victims of climate change whose reefs are vulnerable to higher ocean temperatures, whose islands are vulnerable to increased storm damage, and whose livelihoods now depend on a fossil-fuel-based technology that may prove fragile. If an ecologically rational world order prevailed (which, currently, seems increasingly unlikely), then atoll dwellers and other inhabitants of low-lying tropical coasts would deserve some recognition of their special needs, including access to modest amounts of fossil fuels to protect their current maritime livelihoods. The alternative for atoll populations appears to be emigration as climate-change refugees.

Acknowledgments

The data from Ontong Java presented in this article could not have been collected without the active collaboration of the people of the atoll, and their vital role is fully specified and acknowledged in our previous publications. The stimulus for writing this particular paper came from an invitation for TBS to present the St John’s Lecture to the University of Hull, UK, in October 2022. TBS is grateful to Professor David Petley, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull, and to Professor Pauline Deutz of the University of Hull Faculty of Environmental Sciences for the invitation, and for their hospitality and discussion on that occasion. TBS and AEC thank University of Copenhagen and St John’s College, University of Cambridge, for their help in facilitating our research collaboration on previous occasions. We also thank two anonymous referees for very useful comments on this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship: Grant Number EM-2015-041; Danish Expedition Foundation: Grant Number Galathea 3, no. P71; UK Social Science Research Council: Grant Number 1969-72.

Notes

1 Tim Bayliss-Smith, Kate V. Gough, Andreas E. Christensen, and S.P. Kristensen, ‘Managing Ontong Java: Social Institutions for Production and Governance of Atoll Resources in Solomon Islands’, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 31 (2010): 55–69; Andreas E. Christensen and Kate V. Gough, ‘Island Mobilities: Spatial and Social Mobility on Ontong Java, Solomon Islands’, Geografisk Tidsskrift – Danish Journal of Geography 112, no. 1 (2011): 52–62.

2 Source for Figure 1: Tim P. Bayliss-Smith, ‘Changing Patterns of Inter-Island Mobility in Ontong Java Atoll’, Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 13, no. 1 (1978): 59.

3 Andreas E. Christensen, ‘Marine Gold and Atoll Livelihoods: The Rise and Fall of the Beche-de-mer Trade of Ontong Java, Solomon Islands’, Natural Resources Forum 35 (2011): 9–20.

4 Bayliss-Smith, ‘Changing Patterns’, 41–73. The Polynesian Outlier atolls (Ontong Java, Nukumanu, Takuu, and Sikaiana) were not only remote from each other but also had such similar resources that despite occasional contacts there were few incentives for trade.

5 Tim Bayliss-Smith, ‘Ecosystem and Economic System of Ontong Java atoll, Solomon Islands’ (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1973), 47–75.

6 Kalo Pakoa, Rosalie Masu, James Teri, John Leqata, Paul Tua, David Fisk and Ian Bertram, Solomon Islands Sea Cucumber Resource Status and Recommendations for Management (Noumea: Secretariat of the Pacific Community, 2014); George Shedrawi, Paul Tua, Aram Paul, Bonnie Posala, Assaneth Buarafi, Prakiti P. Rachna, Franck Bossanelle, Pauline Bossanelle, Sebastien Gislard and Andrew R. Halford, An Assessment of Sea Cucumber Population at Lord Howe Atoll (Ontong Java), Solomon Islands, to inform the Development of the Community-based Fisheries Management (Noumea: Pacific Community/Communauté, 2022), 12, 36.

7 Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 12.

8 Shedrawi et al., An Assessment, 1.

9 R. Buckminster Fuller, ‘World Energy: A Map’, Fortune, Feb. (1940).

10 Andrew Nikiforuk, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude (Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2012); Stuart McMillen, Energy Slaves (Canberra: 2017), https://www.stuart.com/comic/energy-slaves (accessed 8 July 2023).

11 Jay Winter, Dreams of Peace and Freedom: Utopian Moments in the 20th Century (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2006).

12 McMillen, Energy Slaves.

13 Howard T. Odum, Environment, Power and Society (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1971).

14 Bayliss-Smith, ‘Changing Patterns’, 64–5.

15 Ibid., 65–7.

16 Tim Bayliss-Smith, The Ecology of Agricultural Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 62; Bayliss-Smith, ‘Ecosystem and Economic System’, 304–5.

17 Tim Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java Population, Economy and Society, 1970–1986 (Armidale, NSW: South Pacific Smallholder Project, 1986; reprinted Honiara: Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, 1988), 30–32; Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 14.

18 South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, Vulnerability and Adaptation (V&A) Assessment for Ontong Java Atoll, Solomon Islands (Apia, Samoa: PACC Technical Report No. 4, SPREP, 2014), 15.

19 Tim Bayliss-Smith, ‘Taro, Turmeric and Gender’, in Polynesian Outliers: The State of the Art, Ethnology Monographs 21, ed. Rick Feinberg and Richard Scaglion (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, 2012), 109–38.

20 H. Ian Hogbin, Law and Order in Polynesia: A Study of Primitive Legal Institutions (London: Christophers, 1934; reprinted New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1972), 90; Bayliss-Smith, ‘Ecosystem and Economic System’, 393–402.

21 Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 14–6.

22 Bayliss-Smith, ‘Ecosystem and Economic System’, 81–93, 205–13; Tim P. Bayliss-Smith and Andreas E. Christensen, ‘Birds and People on Ontong Java Atoll, Solomon Islands, 1906–2008: Continuity and Change’, Atoll Research Bulletin 562 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute, 2008): 1–36.

23 Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 26; Tim Bayliss-Smith, ‘Role of Hurricanes in the Development of Reef Islands, Ontong Java, Solomon Islands’, Geographical Journal 54 (1988): 377–91.

24 Wilfred Fowler, This Island’s Mine (London: The Adventurer’s Club, 1959), 148.

25 Charles M. Woodford, ‘On Some Little-known Settlements in the Neighbourhood of the Solomon Islands’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 48 (1916): 33.

26 H. I. Hogbin, ‘Coconuts and Coral Islands’, National Geographical Magazine 65 (1934): 265–98.

27 Graham A. Golden, The Early European Settlers of the Solomon Islands (Melbourne: privately published, 1993), 109.

28 Bayliss-Smith et al., ‘Managing Ontong Java’, 57.

29 Bayliss-Smith and Christensen, ‘Birds and People’, 7.

30 Judith Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons. A History of a Pacific Archipelago, 1800–1978 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), 362–3.

31 Woodford, ‘Little-known Settlements’, 32–3.

32 Anonymous, ‘The Massacre on Board the James Birnie’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 Jan. 1875, 5; Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons, 390; Clive Moore, Solomon Islands Historical Encyclopaedia 1893–1978, ‘Ontong Java’ (St Lucia, Qld, 2013), https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:340759 (accessed 9 July 2023).

33 Anonymous, ‘The James Birnie Massacre: Attack on Howe’s Group Natives by H.M.S. Beagle’, Australian Town and Country Journal, 2 Oct. 1875, 24.

34 William T. Wawn, The South Sea Islanders and the Queensland Labour Trade: A Record of Voyages and Experiences in the Western Pacific, from 1875 to 1891 (London: Swan Sonnenschern, 1893; reprinted Canberra: The Australian National University, ed. Peter Corris), 410.

35 Anonymous, ‘Notice – Dispatch of Mails via Galle, per Nubia, from Melbourne’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 Sept. 1875, 4.

36 Bennett, Wealth of the Solomons, 366–7.

37 K. Crean, ‘Some Aspects of the Beche-de-Mer Industry in Ontong Java, Solomon Islands’, SPC Fisheries Newsletter 15 (1977): 27.

38 Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 12.

39 Bayliss-Smith, ‘Changing Patterns’, 63.

40 Ibid., 67–8.

41 Ibid., 68–9.

42 Ibid., 64. All the canoes were measured by TBS in December 1970, and they ranged in length from 2.9 to 11.7 m (average 6.57 m); 147 canoes were seaworthy, 12 were undergoing repair, and four were still under construction. Most could be sailed as well as paddled or poled in shallow water. The atoll population at that time amounted to 858 persons resident on the atoll, and of these 164 were ‘active males’ in the age group 15–59. The figures imply that there were on average 5.3 persons or 1.0 active males for each canoe.

43 Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 25–6.

44 Bayliss-Smith, ‘Changing Patterns’, 67–8.

45 Crean, ‘Some Aspects’, 40.

46 Bayliss-Smith et al., ‘Managing Ontong Java’, 65; Christensen ‘Marine Gold’, 13–14; Christensen and Gough, ‘Island Mobilities’, 55, 58.

47 Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, Table 4, 16.

48 Alexandra Holland, ‘The bêche-de-mer Industry in the Solomon Islands: Recent Trends and Suggestions for Management’, SPC Bêche-de-Mer Information Bulletin 6 (1994): 2–8; Bob Gillett and Michelle Lam, ‘The bêche-de-mer Divers of Ontong Java Atoll’, SPC Women in Fisheries Information Bulletin (September 1999): 18–20; Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 13.

49 Warwick Nash and Christain Ramofafia, ‘Recent Developments with the Sea Cucumber Fishery in Solomon Islands’, SPC Bêche-de-Mer Information Bulletin (2006): 3–4; Simon Foale, ‘Solomon Islands Government to Ban Export of Bêche-de-mer’, SPC Bêche-de-Mer Information Bulletin (2006): 49–50.

50 Pakoa et al., Solomon Islands Sea Cucumber, 8; Solomon Islands Government, ‘Fisheries (Bêche-de-Mer) (Amendment) Regulations 2014’, Solomon Islands Gazette, Supplement (Honiara, 2 Dec. 2014).

51 Bayliss-Smith, ‘Ecosystem and Economic System’, 251–329; Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 1–2; Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 11–12.

52 Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 14–6.

53 Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1971).

54 Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 1–2; Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 13.

55 Christensen, ‘Marine Gold’, 15–17.

56 Rex B. Demafelis, Bernadette T. Magadia, and Kristel M. Gatdula, ‘Carbon Footprint and Climate Change Mitigation Potential of Cocodiesel in the Philippines’, Philippine Journal of Crop Science 45, no. 3 (2020): 28–36. This study shows that a full analysis of the carbon footprint of coco-biodiesel would require an assessment of the carbon emissions at various stages from copra milling to coconut oil refining and biodiesel production, including transport costs.

57 Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, 25–6.

58 Olivier Roupsard, O. Hamel, M. Henry, A. Rouziere, T. Sileye, and Jean-Pierre Labouisse, ‘Coconut Carbon Sequestration, Part 2, Strategies for the Carbon Market and Simulating Potential Incomes for Coconut CDN Projects’, Cord, Coconut Research and Development 24, no. 1 (2008): 16–34.

59 Bayliss-Smith, ‘Ecosystem and Economic System’, 90.

60 According to William Akipu, Stephen Marie, and Gabriel Seau, interview with AEC, Luangiua, Dec. 2006, the fuel needed is ‘Firewood, sticks, and coconut husks and trees, anything so long as there is fire’.

61 Akipu et al., interview, 2006.

62 Jeff Kinch, ‘Changing Lives and Livelihoods: Culture, Capitalism and Contestation over Marine Resources in Island Melanesia’ (PhD thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 2000), 101.

63 R. Aprianto, N. Amir, Kasmiati, Matusalach, Fahrul, J. Syahrul, A. Tresnati, A. Tuwo, and M. Nakajima, ‘Economically Important Sea Cucumber Processing Techniques in South Sulawesi, Indonesia’, IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Sciences 370, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/370/1/012082; Food and Agriculture Organisation, Managing Sea Cucumber Fisheries with an Ecosystem Approach (Rome: FAO, 2023), 120–31; Garry L. Preston, ‘Bêche-de-mer’, FFA Report 92/64 (Honiara: Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Honiara, 1993), 371–407.

64 Bayliss-Smith and Christensen, ‘Birds and People’, 6.

65 Fieldnotes of TBS from Keuamau visit on 5 Dec. 1970 and Sulumuia visit on 15 Jan. 1971; and fieldnotes of AEC from Keuamau visit on 25 Jan. 2008 and Sulumuia visit on 4 Feb. 2008.

66 Bayliss-Smith, Ontong Java 1970–1986, calculated from data in Table 5, p. 23. The atoll total was calculated by assuming that Pelau, with 28 per cent of the population, also accounted for 28 per cent of Ontong Java’s total production. In 1986, the Solomon Islands total was 134 tonnes (G. L. Preston, ‘Bêche-de-mer’, 18), so that year Ontong Java Atoll produced about 49 per cent of national bêche-de-mer exports.

67 G. L. Preston, ‘Bêche-de-mer’, 17. Preston estimated a ratio of 10:1 (biomass fuel: bêche-de-mer) assuming sea cucumbers were dried or smoked by fire.

68 J.M.N. Silva, J.M.B. Carreiros, I. Rosa, and J.M.C. Pereira, ‘Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Shifting Cultivation in the Tropics, including Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis’, Journal of Geophysical Research 116, D20 (27 Oct. 2011): 1–21.

69 Pakoa et al., Solomon Islands Sea Cucumber, 14.

70 Hugh Govan, ‘A Review of Sea Cucumber Fisheries and Management in Melanesia’, SPC Fisheries Newsletter 154 (Sep.-Dec. 2017): 1–42. Govan’s estimates for total Solomon Islands exports of bêche-de-mer (p. 31) are higher than those that we have used. Govan suggests an approximate total of 150 t in 1986 and 350 t in 2007.

71 theglobaleconomy.com, ‘The Global Economy, Solomon Islands: Gasoline Consumption’ [Georgia State University, Atlanta], https://theglobaleconomy.com/solomon-islands/gasoline_consumption (accessed 9 July 2023).

72 Worldometers, ‘Oil Consumption in the Solomon Islands’, https//www.worldometers-info/Solomon-islands-oil (accessed 8 Dec. 2023).

73 RAC Foundation, ‘UK Petrol and Diesel Consumption’, https://www.racfoundation.org/data/volume-petrol-diesel-consumed-uk-over-time-by-year (accessed 9 July 2023).

74 UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, ‘2019 UK Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Final Figures’, https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/final-uk-greenhouse-gas-emissions-national-statistics (accessed 10 July 2023).

75 Worldometers, ‘CO2 emissions’, https://worldometers.info/CO2-emissions (accessed 14 July 2023).

76 Carbonindependent.org, ‘CO2 Consumption Emissions per Person in 2019. International Comparisons’, https://www.carbonindependent.org/94.html (accessed 10 July 2023).