ABSTRACT
The government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands planned to expand its airport in Truk, an island group in the central Caroline Islands. In 1978 Truk International Airport was a coral runway within Iras village, barely long enough to handle the Boeing 727 airliners that landed there twice a day. The US government reached a settlement with the people of Iras in 1956 by which they paid something less than $300 per acre for the right to “indefinite use” of the land under the airport. The villagers were pleased with most of the results of mediation, though many still deeply resent the presence of the airport, the taking of land and reef, and the continuing lack of due compensation. The success of the mediation effort can be evaluated from at least three points of view: those of the government, the villagers, and the anthropologists.
