Valuable Kauri
p. 34 · Read in the full issue
Timber In Pacific Islands
rE biggest stand of kauri timber re maining in the world is that on Vanikoro, a large island (some 80 square miles) in the Santa Cruz Group, Southern Solomon Islands. The timber has been worked for many years by the Vanikoro Kauri Timber Company, of Melbourne, who have rights to all the timber on the island, and who have established a considerable industry here.
Mr. S. S. Boye, manager of the Vani koro lumber establishment, with Mrs.
Boye, are at present enjoying a furlough in Australia, after the difficult and anxious years of the war. While the Americans were driving the Japs out of the Solomons, Vanikoro was frequently in the line of fire; and articles describ ing how Mr. and Mrs. Boye assisted the Americans have been published from time to time.
There are only a few score natives on Vanikoro —a village or two on the north east side. Otherwise, it is mostly jungle and mountain—the highest peak is over 3,000 feet. Ships called at Vanikoro about three times a year, before the war, and took the timber away to Melbourne, where it is highly valued mostly for plywood purposes. Since the war, there have been no ships, and millions of feet of this most valuable hardwood are lying there, awaiting transport.
Timber-getting, of course, has almost ceased, awaiting the resumption of ship ping. Mr. Boye gets all the labour he wants from the adjoining Reef Islands.
There is one trader on the island, Mr.
F. L. Jones. When fell
upon timber-getting, it was assumed that Mr. Jones would have a thin time. Actu ally, he is prospering. The Reef Islan ders, finding themselves unable to earn money in the kauri forests, have turned energetically to trocas-fishing; and they mostly sell their shell to, and buy their supplies from Mr. Jones. Trocas today day is a much-sought commodity.
It is expected that the Vanikoro kauri industry, which was valuable before the war, will flourish greatly, because the shortage of good timber throughout the world now is most acute. Mr. Boye says that the Vanikoro kauri is better than the New Zealand .kauri, which has a world-wide reputation.
There is kauri pine on all the Pacific islands in that longitude, from Auckland northwards, through New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, to the Santa Cruz Group; and a survey of its possibilities should be well forth the while of any timber concern with wide interests.