UQ Solomon Islands Partnership Members

Simon Albert

Since 2004, I have been involved a range of environmental research projects in the Western Province, primarily Marovo and Roviana Lagoons. Specifically focussing on anthropogenic impacts on coastal marine ecosystems. At the request of local communities that are involved in this research work I have developed a range of educational products targeted at rural Solomon Islanders that attempt to convey the complex linkages within coastal ecosystems and how they support productive fisheries. Living in Gizo in the Western Province I am constantly challenged by the need to make our research locally appropriate and practical. Hence we have developed research approaches that rely heavily on interactions with local community members with flow of knowledge between all parties.

Bridget Appleyard

Bridget Appleyard is a PhD student with School of Population Health, UQ and Queensland Institute of Medical Research investigating health systems and social aspects of malaria in pregnancy in Solomon Islands. Bridget is also a member of the Solomon Islands Ministry of Health’s Malaria in Pregnancy Technical Working Group, currently investigating the burden of malaria in pregnancy in Solomon Islands and testing a health service based intervention to help control malaria in pregnancy. She has had a relationship with the Solomon’s since 2001 working on various AusAID projects, working in malaria control with the World Health Organisation, her Master’s project in Marovo Lagoon, and more recently with AusAID’s Pacific Malaria Initiative Support Centre based at UQ’s School of Population Health. Bridget’s relationship with the Solomons is also a personal one; she is married to a Malaitan.

Jillian Ash

Jillian Ash is a PhD candidate with the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland. Her research critically analyses policy and planning for socially just development in relation to the emerging mining industry in Solomon Islands. Prior to commencing PhD studies, Jillian practiced as a social planner and has delivered a number of social impact assessments and social impact management plans across a range of sectors and locations, including in the Solomon Islands.

Anthony Austin

Mr. Austin works as an Associate Lecturer at the School of Law at the University of Queensland. He taught and co-ordinated Contract Law 1 and 2 at the University of the South Pacific at Emalus Campus Port Vila, Vanuatu in 2014 and has also taught online courses for USP from 2014 to 2015. He has continuing interests in legal, historical, social and political issues relating to the South Pacific and the education of law students in the South Pacific.

Graham Baines 

Dr Graham Baines’ lifelong interest in, and commitment to, Melanesian studies, began when his adventurer father sent him, at the age of fourteen, to spend his school holidays with a professional crocodile hunter in a village on the Gulf of Papua.

He later studied and researched in universities in Australia, Canada and Britain before he found a niche in the Pacific islands -- at the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji. Six years at USP and another three as Fiji government environmental management adviser, nine years in Solomon Islands, and extended periods in almost all other countries and territories of the Pacific Island region has given him an extensive experience in tropical island natural resource management that draws on his academic background in agricultural science, ecology and micrometerology. In the Solomons he worked as an adviser in environmental management and in development planning, both at Provincial (Western Province, Isabel Province) and at national levels.

Always interested in the social dimensions of resource management he has long been engaged in collaborative associations with anthropologists and other social scientists. A number were post graduate students he has mentored, always emphasizing the application of their research skills and theoretical insights towards practical outcomes that benefit the communities that host them. His interests now are focused on Melanesian customary land and sea tenure and natural resource management and, also, on aspects of the ethnology of Vella Lavella and Santa Isabel.

He has a voluntary role as adviser to the Office of Paramount Chief of Isabel, for which one of his major contributions has been a series of papers designed to capture the essence of Isabel customary land tenure and to present the issues and questions that Isabel people need themselves to resolve so as to ease land disputes and to ensure long-term food security.

Since he has long worked as an independent consultant, many of his Solomon Islands writings are in agency-authored “grey literature” rather than academic journals. These include reports on resource and environmental management, customary land and sea tenure, development planning and constitutional reform. Some are useful source material for researchers and are accessible through www.academia.com and the Western Solomons Research Database which, as Senior Associate Scholar with the Pacific Studies Research Group at the University of Bergen he co-manages with Edvard Hviding and Ane Straume. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow (Anthropology) at the University of Queensland (g.baines@uq.edu.au).

Nigel Beebe

Dr Nigel Beebe is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland with a dual position with CSIRO. He is a vector biologist with a research career that has focused on aspects of mosquito evolution and distribution through the Southwest Pacific region that have facilitated a fundamental understanding of mosquito species and their role in mosquito-borne. Using strong collaborative links into the field (currently projects running in the Solomon Islands), his work integrates traditional entomological procedures with molecular genetics and informatics-based technologies to deliver new insights into vector biology that has helped answer fundamental questions including which species transmit disease pathogens, where they exist, and why they are there, as well as how mosquito populations connect and move. Thus his work incorporates molecular genetic studies to identify morphologically cryptic mosquito species and develop DNA-based diagnostic tools, which are then used to identify vector species from non-vector species. Studies on molecular evolution and population genetics permit insights into mosquito biology, ecology, movement and pathogen transmission. For more information please see his web page.

Marguerite Bennett

Marguerite comes from a background of water, health and finance/law. She has spent the last 14 years in and out of the field predominantly in the Pacific, Indigenous Australia and SE Asia working on a range of projects for NGOs, private sector and some short consultancies for USAID and DFAT. Her connection with the Solomons includes an initial one year consultancy working with State Owned Enterprises post-conflict in 2008-2009 followed by her deciding to move to Honiara for a Operations lead role in 2012. This resulted in her living in the Solomons for three years and whilst there, gaining a strong interest in water resource, water supply, sanitation and health management issues. Recently returned from Cambodia/Laos/Myanmar where she worked on Water Governance projects, she is working at UQ as a casual researcher and completing her Masters of Integrated Water Management through IWC/UQ.

Ben Breen

Ben originally went to Solomon Islands in 2005 to support Honiara City Council develop and launch its inaugural Youth Policy. Since then, he has worked in a variety of roles in country, including managing Australian Government funded volunteer programs, large scale surveys on people’s perceptions of RAMSI and most recently, as Country Representative with the NGO, Caritas Australia in Solomon Islands. Ben’s areas of interest include local level governance, youth development, community development and sustainable shared resource programs, as well as other broader socio-political issues in Solomon Islands. He has a Bachelor of Psychology and a Masters of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development.

Morgan Brigg

Dr Morgan Brigg is lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland, School of Political Science and International Studies. His research deals with questions of culture and governance in conflict resolution and development practice. He has spent time in the Solomon Islands as a volunteer (1995) a provider of conflict resolution training (2003 and 2005), and researcher. Relevant publications include “Networked Relationality: Indigenous Insights for Integrated Peacebuilding” Research Report Series, Hiroshima University Partnership for Peacebuilding and Social Capacity, 2008, and “Exporting Western Conflict Resolution: A Perspective on Training in the Solomon Islands”, World Arbitration and Mediation Report, 15(8): 239-242. He is currently researching how Melanesian social organisation can serve as a resource for peacebuilding, development and good governance.

Christine Buckius

Christine Buckius is a PhD student on the Marovo Project. Her research interests are in the sustainable harvest of sea cucumbers, and their impact on the benthic algal mats. She also partakes in the development of the community education and participation workshops of the project. Lastly, she is a volunteer for Project Survival Pacific, which is part of the U.N. program Australia Youth Climate Coalition for the South Pacific.

Tamar Cohen

Tamar is an anthropology honours student at The University of Queensland. Having just graduated from a dual degree in Arts (anthropology) and Science (geographical sciences), her interests lie in the social aspects of natural resource management. She has been involved in the social science aspects of the The University of Queensland Marovo Project since 2008, conducting research on issues of food and garden security, perceptions of environmental change and climate change impacts and adaptation. Tamar's current thesis topic concerns local perceptions of and response to increased coastal inundation in a small village in Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands. She explores local investment in the global crisis narrative of climate change which is being used by villagers to explain the coastal inundation and associated village relocation despite historical and anecdotal evidence that complicates such a cut and dried model of causation.

Jennifer Corrin

Emerita Professor Jennifer Corrin is a former co-convenor of UQSIP and former Executive Director of Asia Pacific Law in the Centre for Public, International and Comparative Law and Associate Professor in the UQ School of Law. From 1987 to 1996 she ran a private legal practice in Honiara. Jennifer taught and coordinated South Pacific Comparative Law at Masters level and a special topic on South Pacific law as an LLB and JD elective course. She also taught and coordinated the Law of Evidence. Jennifer’s research concentrates on the development of South Pacific Islands’ jurisprudence and, more particularly, the relationship between introduced law and customary law in small island countries of the South Pacific. She has recently conducted research in relation to the application of human rights in the South Pacific; legal transplant theory and the compatibility of introduced and customary penalties; custody in the South Pacific; a comparative project focusing on adultery; and patriation of Solomon Islands legislation. Jennifer has published in the areas of South Pacific law, customary law, constitutional law, human rights, court systems, civil procedure, family law, land law, contract law and legal education. She is author of ‘Courts and Civil Procedure in the South Pacific, 2004, Cavendish: London and ‘Contract law in the South Pacific’, 2001, Cavendish: London. She is co-author of ‘Introduction to South Pacific Law’, 2nd edn, 2007, Routledge-Cavendish: London and ‘Proving Customary law in the Common Law Courts of the South Pacific’, 2002, British Institute of International and Comparative Law: London.

Jennifer has consulted on a large number of projects in the South Pacific, including a review of land sector reforms for AusAID. Current projects include a cross-institutional project in Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. She has also delivered two advocacy training workshops for Solomon Islands Bar Association, funded by Queensland Law Society. Jennifer is a life member of Solomon Island Bar Association and Associate Member of the Women Lawyers Association of Solomon Islands.

She is a member of the International Editorial Board of the Journal of South Pacific Law.

Peter Dart

Associate Professor Peter Dart is in the School of Land, Crop and Food Sciences at the University of Queensland. He has been involved in International Development issues since 1972. Peter oversaw the establishment of a forestry nursery at the village of Duvaha, in North New Georgia in 2000. This nursery was constructed by the villagers and is capable of producing more than half a million high quality tree seedlings a year for planting. Seedlings are raised as clones from cuttings or from seed and the Community has done a wonderful job in planting more than 1500ha since then with the trees growing very well. This is one of the best examples of community forestry in the world. Peter is interested to extend community planting systems like this to the rest of the Solomon Islands so that reforestation on a large scale can begin now and give the country a future economic stability that is likely to be in jeopardy once the current primary forests are logged out. He is also interested in developing sustainable forest management systems for the remaining primary forests and financing development for the Solomon Islands through carbon credits for Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD).

Contact details: p.dart@uq.edu.au; pjdart@gmail.com 61 7 3365 2867; 0411 276 593 - Room S319 Hartley Teakle Building, St Lucia Campus,The University of Queensland 4072.

Norm Duke

Dr Norm Duke, Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Marine Studies, School of Botany, is recognised worldwide for his specialist knowledge of mangrove forest ecosystems, especially regards their floristics, biogeography, evolution, climate change effects, sea level change, vegetation mapping, productivity, plant-animal relationships and habitat restoration. Over the last 30 years, he has lead international marine science projects studying coastal ecosystems and mangroves, particularly in Australia, Central America and Western Pacific. Human effects have also been considered in broad-scale studies of pollutant stress from major oil spills and severe storms. Dr Duke’s findings contribute toward development of mitigation strategies like the use of dispersants, bioremediation and mangrove planting, as well as standardising practical assessment techniques and monitoring methods. In recent years, Dr Duke has focused on two major research themes: assessing historical and short term change in mangrove stands particularly regarding management issues, habitat restoration, and climate change; and conducting studies of genetic variation of mangrove plant species worldwide. He is involved in the project, Conserving the Marine Biodiversity of Marovo Lagoon, Solomon Islands.

Mike Foale

I reported to the Colonial Administration in Honiara at the age of 23 to take up a post in the Department of Agriculture. My background was a farm in the South Australian mallee, an Ag Science degree from Adelaide and preparation for the Colonial Service at Cambridge and Trinidad. I was seconded to Levers Pacific Plantations at Yandina after a few months as the Coconut Agronomist, responsible for research on issues of productivity and renewal of the plantations. After 9 years at Yandina I left and joined CSIRO in Queensland working on other crops than coconut, but have clung to the description “coconut specialist” ever since. From 1985 I was coconut consultant to ACIAR which funded a series of projects on coconut genetic resources, particularly in Melanesia and Polynesia.

In retirement I have adopted the mission statement “coconut redemption” relating to a desire to reverse the negative image that has been bestowed on coconut as food by rival vegetable oil marketers. I am convinced that the only way that the coconut producers of Solomons will achieve a sustainable income is when coconut is recognized as a highly valuable dietary item.

My first coconut publication, based on the work in Solomons was the following:

The improvement of the coconut palm production on the high islands of the tropical Pacific. AH Green and MA Foale . Proceedings of the 10^th Pacific Science Congress (1961) South Pacific Commission. New Caledonia.

I have since had more than 40 coconut articles published but none could be regarded as specific only to Solomons. I am hoping to contribute to a survey of coconut resources in Solomons that has been proposed as a first step in developing supports for coconut producers.

Craig Forrest

Professor Craig Forrest is the Director of the Marine and Shipping Law Unit in the Law School. Craig teaches and undertakes research in the areas of maritime law, private international law and cultural heritage law. Craig has a particular interest in maritime law and cultural heritage in the Asia- Pacific region and has had a long association with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

He has acted as an advisor to UNESCO regional cultural heritage meetings in Solomon Islands (2009), Cambodia (2012), St.Kitts and Nevis (2013) and Indonesia (2017). Craig has recently completed a UNESCO project, with Dr Bill Jeffery (University of Guam) on the protection on underwater cultural heritage in Micronesia. He is an Australian representative to the International Law Association's Committee on Governance in Global Cultural Heritage Governance.

Craig has undertaken research in the Solomon Islands with Professor Jennifer Corrin on the protection of cultural heritage, and, together with Professor Clive Moore, assisted Solomon Islands National University in further developing its research framework.

Craig is the general editor of the Australian and New Zealand Maritime Law Journal, associate editor of the Australian International Law Journal and on the editorial boards of the World Maritime University Journal of Maritime Affairs and the International Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook.

Jonathan Fulcher

Jonathan Fulcher is director of the Centre for International Minerals and Energy Law. He has been appointed on a fractional basis. This Centre seeks to explore with its stakeholders and potential partners ways in which it can be an independent source of legal research and advice to industry bodies and companies in the mining and energy sectors. Rather, it seeks to offer with the support of the profession a research and advice service for those projects which typically require long and detailed research and examination, and which are difficult to deliver commercially because of the time involved and the necessary costs incurred in the development of such research. Its model will therefore be similar to that of the Sustainable Minerals Institute, only in the area of law. As the Centre/Program is interested in the development of research on minerals and energy on a broad basis, engagement with the Solomons Islands and Pacific Islands generally in relation to these two industry sectors is well within the remit of the Centre/Program. The litigation over major mining projects in the Solomons suggests that research may assist in framing laws to provide more certainty for the Government of the Solomons, while ensuring the land-holding groups in the Solomons are able to benefit from the mining which may take place on their land.

Michael Furlong

Michael Furlong is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at UQ. His research focuses on the sustainable management of insect pests of agriculture, with an emphasis on developing local capacity in Pacific island countries. Current research in the Pacific is focused on the development and implementation of a regional plant health clinic programme to equip local agricultural extension personnel with the skills to provide local farmers with diagnoses of pest and disease problems and the expertise to provide appropriate management advice. On-going biological control research is investigating the genetic structure of coconut rhinoceros beetle populations across the region and interactions of these populations with virus biological control agents.

Nicole George

Nicole George is an Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies in the School of Political Science and International Studies.  Nicole's research interests are focussed on Gender, Conflict transition, Peacebuilding, Conflict, Gender-related violence, Regulatory Institutions and Political Representation in the Pacific Islands region where she has conducted research since the early 2000s.  Since 2017 Nicole has been involved in research examining women's participation in conflict transition and governance in the Solomon Islands, working with provincial women's organisations and National women's organisations based in Honiara.

She has produced published work on this topic in journals such as International Feminist Journal of Politics, International Affairs and Cooperation and Conflict.  In 2020 she was part of a collaborative team that won ARC funding to study innovations and reform in the Policing of gender violence in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.  

Alistair Graham

Alistair is a senior research fellow in the School of Civil Engineering and has been actively researching in the Solomon Islands for over 10 years. His research has focused on the development of physical and biogeochemical models of coastal lagoonal systems: these include Marovo and Roviana in the Western Province and Jejevo in the Isabel Province. Primary research activities have been creating digital elevation models of these systems and monitoring sea level and water currents as well as benthic, pelagic and catchment biogeochemical processes. These research activities have been to support efforts in the sustainable development of marine resources in the face of global climate change as well as to better understand the impact of catchment modification (e.g. logging and mining activities) on these systems.

Martin Hadlow

Martin Hadlow is currently undertaking PhD studies at The University of Queensland on aspects of the history of radio broadcasting in Solomon Islands. He lived for four years in Solomon Islands (1980–1984) employed as News/Program Trainer and, later, as Head of Development and Training, with the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC). Martin has worked extensively elsewhere in the Pacific, including Papua New Guinea as Station Manager of Radio Bougainville (Kieta), Radio Morobe (Lae), Radio Gulf (Kerema) and in training roles in Port Moresby. He is an Honorary Board Member of the Pacific Radio Heritage Foundation and spent 16 years with UNESCO in postings in Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East and at Headquarters in Paris. He has also researched at the East-West Center, Hawaii and at the University of Leicester, UK. Until recently, he was an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at and Director of the Centre for Communication and Social Change in the School of Journalism and Communication at The University of Queensland.

Shahar Hameiri

Shahar Hameiri is Associate Professor of International Politics and Associate Director of the Graduate Centre in Governance and International Affairs, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland. His research has focused on the politics of security and development in the Asia-Pacific. His most recent books are International Intervention and Local Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017), co-authored with Caroline Hughes and Fabio Scarpello, and Governing Borderless Threats (Cambridge University Press, 2015), co-authored with Lee Jones. He has published widely on the effects of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and other state-building efforts in Solomon Islands.

Javier Leon

I am a coastal geographer with broad interests in the study and management of tropical environments, in particular coral reefs and islands. My aim is to apply geospatial analysis and develop techniques to answer questions related to the links between morphology, ecology and management of coasts in the current changing climate and sea-level rise context.

More recently my research has focused on the vulnerability of coastlines to sea level rise under the Australian Sea Level Rise Project (ASLRP) at the UQ Global Change Institute. Here I have undertaken terrain analysis and geomorphic mapping of coral reefs, sandy beaches and seagrass in study sites across the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and Pacific Islands including Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands.

Catherine Lovelock

Catherine Lovelock is a Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at UQ. Her research focuses on climate change and its impacts on coastal plant communities (mangroves, saltmarshes and seagrass) as well as the role of coastal wetlands in climate change mitigation or blue carbon. She is interested in the ecological and biogeochemical processes that lead to the accumulation of blue carbon in coastal wetlands and how blue carbon can be used to support climate change mitigation and coastal adaptation strategies.

Kristen Lyons

Kristen is an environmental and development sociologist with over fifteen years’ experience working in the global south, including on the African continent and the Pacific. Her research spans across food, agriculture, forestry and carbon markets, with a specific focus on local level impacts of global development interventions across these sectors.

In terms of her specific work in Solomon Islands, Kristen is engaged in social research related to plantation and agro-forestry as environmental forms of socio-economic development in Solomon Islands. Kristen has worked on a number of ACIAR and PARDI funded projects that seek to critically assess the contributions of community and agro-forestry to socio-economic and environmentally sound responses to logging. Her research has mapped current environmental and social challenges facing villages in the context of the logging of natural forests, and community responses and strategies in the context of such crises. Projects have also considered barriers to the expansion of forestry projects.