ABSTRACT
Dudley’s village of Aola, on the horth coast of the island of Guadalcanal, recently connected by road to the Solomon Islands’ capital of Honiara to the west, is a paradise for children who like to hunt and fish. Most of the dwellings are made in the traditional way: light poles support rafters above which are roofs of sago palm leaves; the walls are bamboo or thatch. The Solomon Islands, which gained independence from Britain as recently as 1978, comprise a banana-shaped line of six large islands and innumerable smaller ones curving south-eastwards from Papua New Guinea and running parallel to the north-east coastline of Australia. The Solomon Islands saw in the deal with Taiyo Gyogyo a way of realising several of their own goals: a share in the profits from tuna sales; an entree into world markets offered by one of the few companies that could compete with the other big international companies.
