fiji's Fight Against Oryctes Rhinoceros
pp. 47-49 · Read in the full issue
Ppiness Beetles
fiji's Fight Against Oryctes Rhinoceros Will Cost More
Unlike the New Guinea pygmies whose diet of beetles makes them /, according to an anthropologist, Pacific copra planters see their :ular beetles in quite another light. In Fiji rhinoceros beetles cost jrs cold cash; in New Guinea there is no direct cash pay-out, only ge to plantations.
fHER Fiji planters will be ased with a Coconut Pests 1 Diseases Board recom ion to increase the copra 5/6 to 17/6 a ton is question- Whether the extra revenue lit in the destruction of more •os beetles is an even bigger L board’s recommendation is I it will become effective as inuary 1, 1957. oard, in a recent statement, had received a claim for m the South Pacific Com as Fiji’s share of the Com s research project on the os beetle. To make it pos r the Board to meet this diich was for 1955, and an l claim for 1956, and to contribution towards con i of the work in 1957, mem the board “reluctantly but msly agreed that the rate tiould be 17/6 a ton in 1957, 15/- as earlier agreed to. han to reduce the scope of i campaign in the Colony, yould otherwise have been y” oard, on September 24, re ied a tax of 15/- a ton dur to meet the cost of the n, a rise of 5/- over the 955 and 1956. The increase icessary as the reserve ited during 1954, when the ; £2 a ton, was almost ex itober 26, the board agreed after receipt of the SPC ’he main object of the SPC project is to find parasites, 5 or insecticides that used to establish biological iver the beetle, is taxed on around 30,000 copra a year, during 1957 should yield about £26,250 — Dre than originally planned e will still be a tidy amount eft, even after paying the im, and making provision 56 claim. ruinea also has the rhino tie, but there is no “beetle” opra, and little done about le. If NG makes a con to SPC research, the Ad ;ion probably foots the bill.
NG faring any worse than erhaps in Fiji, where the have to pay the tax, they
are more beetle-conscious—a n d there, of course, the main concern is to keep the beetle confined to Viti Leyu, where there are no copra plantations, and not have it spread to Vanua Levu, Tavenui, the Lau Group, etc.
r £inoceros beetle was j he Suva suburb of Lami that 9s th«°£f f s , ch 9 ol of thought was that the beetle had probably be come established in Suva at least a couple of years earlier. *™l? me + diat Jp steps were taken to the pert. if possible, and failing that to prevent it spread iqco ard was formed in May, 1953, with a fund of more than £2O 00° f rom the UK. To finance the a t A a x, initially £2, but later reduced to 10/-, was levied on each ton of copra produced.
Beetle tax collections totalled ™re than £FBB.OOO from March. 1953 to May, 1954, and the original grant was repaid to the UK. The board admitted in 1955 that at tempts to eradicate the beetle in
Levu had failed, but claimed he measures taken had greatly ;d the numbers, and had at held the pest to the Suva »ka area. lion on control methods is livided as to efficacy. Methods e systematic hunting for and ping of adult beetles, pupa and eggs, destruction isible breeding places, dusting iwns of coconuts with in de, and shipping regulations, ing inspection of inter-island ting of the palm crowns with icide is effective, but ex e, and exceedingly difficult arge plantation. It was hoped 5 that the SPC would devise easier method, but that hope has not been realised. and Mrs. C. E. Leembruggen 1 in Suva in the Southern on October 30 and will stay Colony for about two months going on to the United King- Mr. Leembruggen, who re retired from the post of of Customs in i, was in the Customs Depart n Fiji for more than 20 years, as two brothers in Suva, . C, A. and G. H. Leem n.