Enhancing economic opportunities offered by community and smallholder forestry in Solomon Islands

The project aimed to make community and smallholder forestry in the Solomon Islands more profitable through wider application of high value agroforestry and improved management of secondary forests.

Community and smallholder forestry could make many rural communities in the Solomon Islands economically secure, but 8-10,000 hectares of smallholder plantations need thinning to the final stocking rate to produce high value timber, and infrastructure is often inadequate to get the timber to market.

The research activities seek to promote wider adoption of the locally adapted agroforestry system, in which teak is planted at the final stocking rate and inter-planted with Flueggea flexuosa, an indigenous, locally useful species that is progressively thinned for use or sale.