NZ expats staying in Solomons for now

By JOSIE CLARKE

The Government has not yet made any plans to evacuate the 220 New Zealanders living in the Solomon Islands, most of them in Honiara.

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has warned travellers to stay away from the islands.

Many New Zealanders in the Solomons work as business consultants - some for banks and others for the Honiara base of the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency.

A former Auckland area police chief, Superintendent Rangi Rangihika, who was posted to the Solomons as commissioner last September, is out of the country, recovering from a throat operation in Brisbane.

Donovan Storey, a lecturer at the Massey University School of Global Studies in Palmerston North, says at least 12 New Zealanders worked at the Honiara base of the University of the South Pacific until earlier this year, when unrest forced them to shift to Suva.

Other New Zealanders work as missionaries for Solomon Island churches, most of which are based in Honiara.

Mr Storey says a few New Zealanders are involved with small hotels or run tours around the islands, although tourism is a relatively minor industry in the Solomons.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman Brad Tattersfield says few New Zealanders tourists are there.

Adventure Travel director Peter Gibbs says hundreds rather than thousands of New Zealanders visit the Solomon Islands every year, mainly to dive at reefs and Second World War shipwrecks renowned for their clear water and fish life. The islands also boast pristine forests and the South Pacific's largest lagoon, about an hour's flight north of Honiara.

"It's probably one of the more laid-back countries of the South Pacific as far as tourism goes, but it's still a very attractive destination, particularly for people who want a more natural holiday," says Mr Gibbs.

Tourist numbers have dropped since Solomon Air stopped direct flights from Auckland to Honiara about a year ago, he says.

A party of three New Zealand officials led by the director of the South Pacific division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, John Hayes, has been in Honiara since Saturday reporting back to Wellington on the political situation.

The other two members of the party are police staff - the national operations manager, Superintendent Neville Matthews, and the general manager of training and development, Superintendent Steve Long.