\n<\/p>\n
Scientist Katy Soapi\u2019s earliest memories are of the sea. She grew up on Rendova, a lush island in western Solomon Islands, and life centred around the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember when the big waves came, we would dive under them and come up laughing on the other side. Being part of those natural elements brought me so much joy.\u201d<\/p>\n
At school, she excelled in chemistry and would later go on to study medicinal plants, fascinated by the possibility that nature could hold cures for modern diseases. She studied in Fiji, Australia and the UK and later became the first woman from Solomon Islands to achieve a PhD in natural sciences.<\/p>\n
Yet Soapi kept being pulled back to her first love \u2013 the ocean. And what would end up being her most personal and satisfying work, defending one of the Solomon Islands\u2019 most precious places, Tetepare island.<\/p>\n
In the mid-1990s, the sound of chainsaws echoed through the forests of Solomon Islands as commercial logging swept across the country. Soapi had watched Rendova fall to the axes of loggers. Rivers once crystal clear turned brown with silt, and the forest songs of birds and insects faded into silence.<\/p>\n
When whispers began that Tetepare might be next, the people of Western Province felt they were facing more than an environmental threat. Tetepare was tabu \u2013 sacred ground, home to ancestral gardens, burial sites, and memories etched deep into the soil.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo lose Tetepare would have been like losing part of ourselves,\u201d Soapi says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about trees any more, it was about identity and heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Dr Katy Soapi in Honiara.<\/span> Photograph: Sera Sefeti<\/p>\n Soapi joined others to resist logging and dedicated her spare time to the movement. Then a university student, Soapi was a founding member of the Friends of Tetepare, a grassroots movement that later evolved into the Tetepare Descendants\u2019 Association (TDA).<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked with everyone on the island to conserve Tetepare, writing letters to certain individuals telling them not to do this,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n They lobbied governments and rallied international allies to block logging concessions. The campaign was relentless. Soapi worked diligently, connecting descendant groups and holding meetings across villages \u2013 all united by a shared purpose: to keep Tetepare wild. The logging company tried to sway some families with money but people stood firm \u2013 and they made sacrifices to prove their commitment.<\/p>\n Soapi acted as a bridge between tradition and emerging conservation science.<\/p>\n \u201cWe needed both \u2013 the knowledge of our ancestors and the tools of science to show the world why Tetepare mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n Their fight attracted global attention and in the 1990s a film crew arrived to document the story. Years later, the Australian documentary Since the Company Came carried Tetepare\u2019s struggle to the world.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was when we realised the world saw what we had. We had to protect it \u2013 not just for ourselves, but for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Their fight paid off and no company was allowed to log Tetepare at the time. Today, it remains one of the last untouched places in Solomon Islands. It is managed by the TDA which has thousands of members. Its rainforest canopy stretches unbroken, rivers run clear, and endangered leatherback turtles nest on its black-sand beaches.<\/p>\n Community rangers \u2013 descendants of Tetepare \u2013 patrol the island, drawing on both traditional knowledge and modern science.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just western science at play. Traditional knowledge is woven into everything we do,\u201d Sopai says.<\/p>\n Map of Tetepare<\/p>\n The conservation effort also sustains livelihoods. The Tetepare Eco Lodge, managed by the TDA,lets visitors experience conservation in action. Income from the lodge supports rangers and community projects, while annual gatherings bring descendants together to make collective decisions.<\/p>\n Protecting Tetepare has never been easy. In communities where money is scarce, the lure of fast cash from extractive industries lingers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always easier to sell trees for a few hundred dollars and have the money in your hand today,\u201d Soapi admits. \u201cBut conservation gives us fish, food and clean rivers for generations. That\u2019s harder to measure in the short term.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, threats remain. TDA patron John Read says a recent proposal seeks to clear part of the forest that borders the island\u2019s main marine-protected area, home to an abundance of sea life.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately being large, fertile and uninhabited makes it attractive to developers as well as landowners less committed to conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n Read says that at this year\u2019s TDA annual general meeting in October, members expressed anger over the proposal and vowed to reject any plan for logging, settlements, commercial extraction or destructive practices on Tetepare.<\/p>\n Soapi says: \u201cI hope those seeking to establish settlements on the island will respect the ongoing conservation efforts our communities have worked hard to uphold for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n For Soapi, now a respected regional scientist and ocean advocate, Tetepare\u2019s story is a leading example of Pacific-led conservation.<\/p>\n <\/span>Dolphins near Tetepare Island. \u2018Pacific people don\u2019t just inherit conservation models \u2013 we create them,\u201d Soapi says.<\/span> Photograph: Christophe Rouziou<\/p>\n \u201cTetepare taught us that conservation isn\u2019t just about protecting land,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s about protecting who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n Elisabeth Holland, former professor of ocean and climate change at the University of the South Pacific, has worked with Soapi for more than a decade. She describes her as a \u201ctalented Pacific scholar and a science rock star\u201d.<\/p>\n Holland says Soapi\u2019s work \u2013 particularly in ocean acidification \u2013 has had significant impact, while her leadership has given emerging scientists a \u201cclear career path and strong mentorship to help secure ocean sustainability for the region\u201d.<\/p>\n Tetepare\u2019s success has inspired communities across the Pacific. In 2012, the TDA won the prestigious United Nations equator prize, a global recognition of its community-led conservation model.<\/p>\n \u201cIt shows that Pacific people don\u2019t just inherit conservation models \u2013 we create them,\u201d Soapi says.<\/p>\n Now working as a partnerships coordinator at the Pacific Community Centre for Ocean Science, she continues to advocate for indigenous knowledge and community-led approaches. Soapi remains deeply tied to Tetepare.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019m just one of many. I may have access to platforms and institutions, but the real work belongs to the Tetepare descendants. They are the true guardians of the island.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientist Katy Soapi\u2019s earliest memories are of the sea. She grew up on Rendova, a lush island in western Solomon Islands, and life centred around the ocean. \u201cI remember when the big waves came, we would dive under them and come up laughing on the other side. Being part of those natural elements brought me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[2171,7623,8711,4634,1125,4124,11927,2136,9536,1259],"class_list":{"0":"post-33761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-fight","9":"tag-helped","10":"tag-islands","11":"tag-pacific","12":"tag-piece","13":"tag-protect","14":"tag-sacred","15":"tag-scientist","16":"tag-solomon","17":"tag-win"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Pacific model of conservation<\/h2>\n