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SOAN 246 - Cultural Geography
Professor Roger Baty
Spring 2002

             The Solomon Islands are located in Melanesia just east of Papua New Guinea.  For a more accurate picture, they are found at 8 00 Latitude, 159 00 Longitude.  The total area of the country is 28,450 sq km, yet only 27,540 sq km of that is land, which makes this region slightly smaller than Maryland.  As of 2001 the islands were populated with 480,442 peoples, which include Melanesians, Polynesians, Micronesians, Europeans, a very small amount of Chinese and “others.”.  The religious beliefs on the islands vary just as much as the ethnic makeup: Everything from Anglican, to Roman Catholic, to Indigenous beliefs are found throughout the islands.  The primary language spoken on the islands is lingua franca (Melanesian pidgin).  The Solomon Islanders depend on their exports to succeed in the ever-changing global economy.  Their major exports are timber, fish (mainly tuna), palm oil, cocoa, and copra.  The peoples depend on Japan and other Asian countries to be their export partners.  Each island holds a culture which is all their own, which makes it extremely difficult to make an over-all statement about the peoples and their traditions.    

East Rennell

           The Solomon Islands hold many treasures that remain almost untouched by the Western world. Only one World Heritage Site has been established in this group of islands. The site is found on the eastern portion of the southern most island Rennell (11 39-11 43’S, 160 18’-160 20 E). Only about 500 people living in four separate villages inhabit East Rennell. Each village depends on hunting various birds and/or bats, fishing in Lake Te Nggano (the largest body of enclosed water in the insular Pacific), and gardening to provide subsistence throughout the year. The region functions on a social level with no apparent nodes (centralized points of power). The communities have divided the land into four regions containing about 57 sq. km each. The boundaries separate each village’s vegetation and hunting space, yet all share Lake Te Nggano. Those who inhabit East Rennell feel topophilio for the region. There appears to be no distinct cultural line between the different groups located here. The unaffected people, as a whole, have fought against commercial logging or selling of live birds, which exemplifies their appreciation and love of their surroundings. The land division pattern reveals the cultural landscape of East Rennell due to the importance of the sparse amount of soil found in the region. There are a number of reasons as to why this area is worth preserving as a part of the world’s cultural heritage, but in the simplest of terms "East Rennell has a number of marine, coastal and forest values that are better displayed in other Pacific locations…However, East Rennell combines them in one place and in a relatively undisturbed state" (WH site pg. 6).