prominent of all from his vantage point was a glaring white track thirty yards wide made of compacted and rolled lump coral, crawling miles inland through the swamp forest to the hundreds of species of more valuable trees available on the slopes of the mountain in the centre of the island. These were in the process of being uprooted in their hundreds and transported down the slope by the logging company. Large rolls of black plastic sheeting littered the side of the track, ready to be rolled over the surface should the rains come and stop work.
On either side of the path inland from the beach was a contorted assemblage of tin-roofed houses, sheds, tarpaulins and canvas tents erected haphazardly for the workers on the island. To make room for this shanty town, bulldozers and excavators would have torn the topsoil from the ground, uprooted trees and demolished the huts of the islanders who had originally lived there on custom land.
Kella muttered a short prayer to the
agal I matakwa
, the sea ghosts, for his safe deliverance from his recent journey. From the bottom of the canoe he picked up a coconut that he had found lying on the ground at Munda. He hefted it in his handand then threw it into the sea behind the dugout as a propitiatory offering to his ancestral sharks that, according to Lau custom, would have accompanied him unseen on this trip so far from his home island.
He steered his canoe into the shallows and dragged it up on the discoloured and pitted beach. He had hired the dugout from Joe Dontate at the Munda rest-house earlier that morning, after negotiating a trip on one of the irregular charter flights linking Honiara with the Western District. He had expected the usual battery of caustic remarks from the one-time boxer. His path had crossed that of the wily and truculent Dontate on a number of occasions, and despite their mutual respect, there was little love lost between them. However, the Western man had seemed too preoccupied with a flock of disorganized and vocally demanding American tourists squawking like demented chickens around him to do more than direct a virulent scowl in the direction of the police sergeant. If he had to spend more than a few days in the lagoon, decided Kella, he would pay an island craftsman five pounds to build him his own small canoe.
He picked up his rucksack from the bows and stood and surveyed the sight before him. Although his face remained impassive, he felt sick. Close up the island seemed in an even worst state than it had done from a distance. He knew that the desecration of the interior rainforest inevitably meant that in addition to erosion, the habitats of hundreds of birds and small animals would have been destroyed, diminishing sources of food for the few remaining indigenous inhabitants. All the available coral had been removed from the reef. If the company wished to drive the track even farther into the bush, it would also be removing all river gravel suitable for bedding rock, thus further poisoning the island’s main drinking water supply. He could see that no efforts had been made at reforestation. Creepers and weeds were smothering any new trees trying to sprout.
There was less noise than Kella had expected. Patched-up tractors, bulldozers and chainsaws all waited beside the track to be moved inland. The area had an oddly unfinished and temporary look. On the edge of the logging camp he could see a 350-horsepower Cummings engine still in its marked containers, and the prefabricated units of a steel barge waiting to be assembled. The whole area was so haphazardly constructed, and with such little regard for hygiene or protection from fire, that Kella instinctively stooped and smeared his arms and legs with mud from the mangrove swamp as some sort of protection against the malarial mosquitoes that he knew instinctively would proliferate viciously in such conditions of neglect.
Two groups of men were standing facing one another in the rough undergrowth at the
On either side of the path inland from the beach was a contorted assemblage of tin-roofed houses, sheds, tarpaulins and canvas tents erected haphazardly for the workers on the island. To make room for this shanty town, bulldozers and excavators would have torn the topsoil from the ground, uprooted trees and demolished the huts of the islanders who had originally lived there on custom land.
Kella muttered a short prayer to the
agal I matakwa
, the sea ghosts, for his safe deliverance from his recent journey. From the bottom of the canoe he picked up a coconut that he had found lying on the ground at Munda. He hefted it in his handand then threw it into the sea behind the dugout as a propitiatory offering to his ancestral sharks that, according to Lau custom, would have accompanied him unseen on this trip so far from his home island.
He steered his canoe into the shallows and dragged it up on the discoloured and pitted beach. He had hired the dugout from Joe Dontate at the Munda rest-house earlier that morning, after negotiating a trip on one of the irregular charter flights linking Honiara with the Western District. He had expected the usual battery of caustic remarks from the one-time boxer. His path had crossed that of the wily and truculent Dontate on a number of occasions, and despite their mutual respect, there was little love lost between them. However, the Western man had seemed too preoccupied with a flock of disorganized and vocally demanding American tourists squawking like demented chickens around him to do more than direct a virulent scowl in the direction of the police sergeant. If he had to spend more than a few days in the lagoon, decided Kella, he would pay an island craftsman five pounds to build him his own small canoe.
He picked up his rucksack from the bows and stood and surveyed the sight before him. Although his face remained impassive, he felt sick. Close up the island seemed in an even worst state than it had done from a distance. He knew that the desecration of the interior rainforest inevitably meant that in addition to erosion, the habitats of hundreds of birds and small animals would have been destroyed, diminishing sources of food for the few remaining indigenous inhabitants. All the available coral had been removed from the reef. If the company wished to drive the track even farther into the bush, it would also be removing all river gravel suitable for bedding rock, thus further poisoning the island’s main drinking water supply. He could see that no efforts had been made at reforestation. Creepers and weeds were smothering any new trees trying to sprout.
There was less noise than Kella had expected. Patched-up tractors, bulldozers and chainsaws all waited beside the track to be moved inland. The area had an oddly unfinished and temporary look. On the edge of the logging camp he could see a 350-horsepower Cummings engine still in its marked containers, and the prefabricated units of a steel barge waiting to be assembled. The whole area was so haphazardly constructed, and with such little regard for hygiene or protection from fire, that Kella instinctively stooped and smeared his arms and legs with mud from the mangrove swamp as some sort of protection against the malarial mosquitoes that he knew instinctively would proliferate viciously in such conditions of neglect.
Two groups of men were standing facing one another in the rough undergrowth at the
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