digging the earth to erect power poles and trenches to lay cables. We often unearth old bombs both large and small in this work. This area surrounding Honiara was hit by everything during the war. Planes dropped bombs, the Navy bombarded the area and soldiers fought up and down these ridges. The end result is there is a very large degree of ERW in this land. We are always using detectors, but despite this last week one of my staff hit a large bomb with a backhoe and unearthed it. The bomb did not explode but it terrified
Chris Jamakana cannot work his farm to capacity because of the presence of ERW.
the backhoe operator and he ran away home and is scared to come back to work. This has happened many times to different employees. It’s the same situation for the telecommunications company, the water company and road builders. They have to dig to do their job and they hit bombs when they do. It scares all of us. We are now developing the area behind Honiara near the Japanese War memorial. This area saw very heavy fighting and there are many old bombs. A capital city like Honiara will naturally develop and press out into the surrounding countryside. Unearthing old bombs then becomes unavoidable. When we do find a bomb we call the police and members of the police EOD team attend and remove what we find. This is done on a case by case basis. Work stops when we find something and lots of time and money is lost while we wait for the munition to be dealt with.� Tourism is one of the few foreign money earners in the Solomon Islands. Scuba diving has been very popular because of
The Solomon Islands has huge potential as a tourism destination, but the ERW threat needs to be resolved before this can happen.
the natural beauty, but an interest in the WWII history is also growing. With many shipwrecks in the waters off the Solomon Islands, the diving opportunities are varied and fascinating. While much of the tourism has focused on the water edge and into the ocean, an untapped resource lies in the pristine wilderness in many parts of the islands. Jungle trails into the remote interior of the islands could be developed as a mix of ecotourism and historical tourism. Exploring such historical sites within the natural IN SEARCH OF SAFE GROUND War Remnants
33