Transcript
Kokonut Pacific is a company that deals with a network of over 1,000 farmers in the country, but the Managing Director Bob Pollard says the industry is under attack and the future is bleak.
"If you had a plantation of coconuts and the beetle comes in, basically 50, 60, 70 percent of your nuts would be wiped out so basically it would be almost untenable to keep running the coconut business, so it really does threaten the industry seriously."
Mr Pollard says the beetle lays its eggs in trees and the larvae eat the tree from the inside out, threatening the 29,000 hectares of coconut trees in the Solomons.
Project Manager Tony Matelaomao's job is to try and stem the tide of the beetle, which has now spread right across Guadacanal and into other provinces. But he warns that the beetle could completely change life in the country, far beyond business.
"I cannot imagine Solomon Islands without coconuts. Coconut is not only a cash-crop, it is basically an important livelihood where people use on a day to day basis, for their meals, for their medicines. It is a very important crop to us and without coconuts I do not know what it will be like."
Priscilla Muka knows all about the struggle to maintain her coconut crops. Her family lost over 50 of their 100 trees.
"Our fathers and our grandfathers grow those coconuts here. We have had those impacts. It is like a tree of life to us. We use a lot of things from coconut. It's a source of food for us plus we construct our homes from coconut leaves as well."
BioSecurity's Gideon Suda says the department is struggling to deal with the issue.
"This situation is very difficult for us to do like eradication. So actually, we just do containment and control the beetle to reduce the population of the beetle and at the same time we do clean-up campaign in the field and get rid of all the palms that have been damaged or killed by the beetle and we have to hire people to chop down and bring it here."
Mr Suda says donor assistance may be needed to boost their capacity.
That assistance may be on its way with New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters visiting the Solomons and assessing the problem.
"Our High Commissioner has updated us on the level of concern and how widespread it is and it's a serious impending crisis. We would like to leave here with at least some idea of how we might collectively, countries like Australia and New Zealand and elsewhere, try and get on top of this menace. Because it is a menace."
Kokonut Pacific's Bob Pollard says New Zealand is helping with scientists to try and find a virus and fungus to eliminate the beetle. But the urgency has reached new levels.
