Lilisiana Community

Lilisiana is third community visited during the POCCA engagement in Solomon Islands. Lilisiana is a coastal settlement that is seven minutes ride from the Auki town in Malaita Province. Despite being close to the Auki urban centre, there is limited development including geographical landscaping in the community because it is one of the informal settlements. The settlement is built using traditional wooden houses on stilts and wall stones along the coast (Coastal Community Adaptation Programme, 2014).

However, oral history indicated that the first artificial island was constructed in 16th century by people from the mainland of Malaita. Although environmental disasters inclusive of climate change were not articulated as a reason for their movement to the lagoon, tribal or social issues such as tribal war, sorcery and famine were some of reasons for their movement (Moore, 2017).

As they moved in, they developed survival skills to support their livelihood in the lagoon. The knowledge to build an Island, a wooden boat, sail, fish and to survive was not passed down by books, but by understanding the nature of the environment, the land and the ocean in particular. Thus, the environment offers unique perspectives to enhance resilience through Island building, boat building and shell money production.

Using Indigenous Knowledge for Resilience: Island Building

Firifau Island was a Man-made Island visited during the POCCA research in September 2023. The Man-made Island is named after the person who built it. The Island was built up in the lagoon with chunks of coral rock dug from coastal reefs within the mangroves.

The coral rocks were piled perfectly to withstand extreme events such as high swells, cyclones and sea level rise. There are no cement or hardware products used to fasten the rock wall. The islands were built by bare human hands and skills using chunks of coral rocks. Over time, the land profile is expanded to cater for the growing population.

Impacts of Climate Change on Firifau Island

The participants from Firifau Island, the man-made Island, stressed that they experienced impacts of sea level rise that are more intense than what they felt in the past. Impacts include regular reconstruction of stone wall to protect their homes from being destroyed. Their livelihoods are also dependent on sea resources such as fish, shellfish and mangrove beans. Changes in weather patterns and increases in storm surges affected their fishing schedules which further affected their main source of protein.

Livelihood in Firifau Island

Since the Island is built from chunks of rocks, people are dependent on food and water collected from the mainland. They survived all extremes over the years by gathering food from the ocean and water from the mainland, the Malaita Province. The majority of the people from Firifau have farms on the mainland. Daily transportation for farming and gathering food and water is through reliance on small wooden boats.

Their journey of survival was both physically and emotionally challenged by increase in extreme weather events. For example, on stormy and rainy days, the ocean waves grew taller, and fierce, and rain would poured down heavily, making it difficult to see the island ahead. Such event demands their strength and resilience, yet their sacrifice to ensure their children are fed at the end of the day has driven their faith and courage to continue with the journey. When they experienced extreme weather that was beyond their capabilities, they remained on the man-made Island.

The impacts of extreme weather led to food and water shortages and limit connection between the mainland and artificial Island dwellers. To address food shortage, most households in Firifau preserved shell money to be exchanged for food supply during disastrous events. Furthermore, living on a man-made island does not hinder some households from growing vegetables such as cabbage, tomatoes, beans and eggplants as well as banana trees using raised garden beds. Such survival skills with no costs, are seen as significant creative and innovative approaches that need to be transferred to support coastal and low-lying atolls not only in the Solomon Islands but other smaller atolls to withstand the current impact of sea level rise and coastal flooding.

Food Preservation Method: Shell Money

A respondent from the Firifau community specified the method for preservation of resources for usage during a disaster in the following quote:

“Here on the artificial island, we do not have decent gardens or any food preservation method. We only process the seashells and preserve some for sale or exchange for food during disaster or needy times. Our grandparents practised this method as a survival process. For instance, when there is no food supply, the shell money is exchanged for a bag of potatoes/taro/rice from the mainland.”

The production of shell money also contributes to the generation of family income within the Langalanga lagoon community. The shell money is made through crushing and grinding of seashells into discs which are later threaded into different patterns (Faradatolo, 2008). The shell money is a cultural and economic commodity that plays an important role in the lives of people from the Malaita Province. It is used purposely to pay the bride price, land and compensations (Faradatolo, 2008). People in Firifau Island now used shell money as an adaptation strategy to cope with climate change related disasters. They preserved strings of ready-made shell money to exchange for their needs during disaster.

Socio-economic Resilience in Artificial Island

Langalanga people live in the ocean on artificial islands, they have a close connection with the Ocean as the main source of livelihood. Their interaction with the Ocean is possible through wooden dug-out canoes and boats. They were also known as boatbuilders (Barclay et al., 2018). A respondent narrated the story of building a wooden boat in the following line:

“It takes quite a while, it depends on your financial strength, a minimum of 5 years to build the full, left of 75 feet boat if you have enough funds. But for us at home, it takes about 10 to 20 years due to financial issues. We built bit by bit depending on how much we earned to support us with building materials.”

It was also revealed during the interview that the boat-building business is capital-intensive, with costs as high as 80% of the sale price. Families must therefore mobilise a range of income-generating activities to enable them to finish the boat. Likewise, as the population increases and demand from timber milling industries and home constructions also increases, it is difficult to locate the specific species of trees within the mainland. As a result, knowledge and skills of boat building are not fully utilized compared to island building and shell money production.