Biologist at Missoula lecture: native landholders central to conserving Solomon Islands forests amid logging and governance gaps

Dr. Chris Velardi, a biologist at the Center for Biodiversity Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, told a Missoula audience that conservation of biodiversity in the Solomon Islands depends on strengthening native landholders’ capacity to govern and to negotiate with national and international markets.

Velardi said customary land tenure — in which family groups or language groups control land — remains the dominant form of ownership across the archipelago and is central to any conservation strategy. “For native people in the Solomons … who you are and where you live are intimately entangled,” he said.

Why it matters: The Solomon Islands host very high endemism among birds, frogs and other taxa, making their forests globally important for biodiversity. At the same time, Velardi said, urgent local pressures — a roughly 4% population growth rate he cited, rising cash needs for medicine and school fees, and lucrative export markets for raw logs and reef fish — are driving rapid resource extraction that often bypasses landowning communities’ interests.

Key points from the lecture

- Customary land tenure and colonial legacies: Velardi described how a customary land court was created before independence to recognize collective land claims, while later parliamentary regulations enabled individuals to grant timber or mineral rights. He called this a “deep contradiction,” saying regulatory rules…