ABSTRACT
This chapter recounts the author’s work in the field of appropriate technology (AT) in the South Pacific, following recruitment by a US AT organisation to look for partners in Southern Africa and the South Pacific. This was at the peak of the enthusiasm for AT, inspired by Fritz Schumacher.
His work in the South Pacific identified organisations that were: training oxen for ploughing then airlifting them into Papua New Guinea (PNG) highland villages; researching the production of biofuel ethanol from cassava for PNG, emulating alcohol from maize in Kansas; pioneering improvements in shifting cultivation in the Solomon Islands by massive mulching of opened-up rainforest land; producing methane for cooking from biogas plants all over the islands; and producing electricity from micro-hydro plants, again all over the islands. The lessons learned were the value of AT in encouraging people to think outside the box, but the dangers when it was driven by AT ideologues who were not from the places where they urged its adoption.
He recounts stories of the Jon Frum cult in Tanna, Vanuatu, Mormons all over the South Pacific looking for their lost tribe, and returned Fijian British Army soldiers looking to be self-employed.
