Solomon Islands

BLACK pearls from the Western Province will be sold in Solomon Islands for the first time later this month.
The pearls will be offered for sale by the WorldFish Center at the Mendana Hotel on the 16th and 17th of September.
Cultured black pearls from the WorldFish Center’s demonstration farm in the Western Province have been sold offshore by auction in 2000 and 2004.
This collection of pearls is being sold in Honiara to showcase the jewels and to give people in Solomon Islands a chance to buy them.
The pearls are the rich rewards of an international aid project designed to provide new jobs in the country.
The WorldFish Center (formerly known as ICLARM), teamed up with the Department of Fisheries and Marine Resources, and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) to do the research that produced the pearls.
The project partners adapted the successful methods for farming black pearls in Cook Islands and French Polynesia to suite conditions in Solomon Islands.
“The project has been a great success” says Dr Johann Bell, who supervised the research.
“Surveys over much of the Solomon Islands showed that good numbers of small oysters (“spat”) can be collected reliably near Noro and Gizo, and then quickly grown to the size ready for pearl farming” he said.
The research team then learned the best times of year to collect spat (November to March), and how to grow them so that a high percentage survive.
The key to bringing benefits to people in rural areas through pearl farming is to attract a large pearl farming company, said Dr Bell.
He explained that the reason for this is that pearl farming is not a simple process.
“First you have to catch and grow the thousands of oysters needed to farm pearls, then you have to attract an expert technician to operate on the oysters to culture the pearls.
“Finally, you need to look after the oysters carefully until the pearls can be harvested.
“This range of activities, and the investment involved, is beyond smallholders,” he said.
The benefits of attracting an experienced pearl farming company to invest in Solomon Islands will come through sensible licensing arrangements that encourage the farm(s) to buy their small oysters from villagers.
Simple methods for coastal communities to do this have been developed and demonstrated during the research in the Western Province.
A similar model has been used to start commercial pearl farming in Fiji.
As part of the efforts to develop alternative sustainable rural income earning opportunities, utilising EU Stabex funds, the Department of National Planning and Aid Co-ordination is considering the next steps for promoting the development of pearl farming in Solomon Islands.
It is expected that this will include a survey of whitelip pearl oysters.
This valuable species of pearl oyster does not occur in the Pacific Islands further east but is expected to be one of the main attractions for any pearl farmers considering investment in Solomon Islands.
Whitelip pearl oysters produce the most valuable pearls and Australia is leading the world in production of these gems.
The sale of pearls at the Mendana Hotel on the 16th and 17th of September will raise awareness of the prospects for producing fine pearls at low cost in Solomon Islands.
To assist the communities in the Western Province that participated in the project, the profits from the sale of the black pearl jewelry will be donated to the hospital at Gizo.