Solomon Islands - Future trends

There was much optimism about the economic future of Solomon Islands in the 1990s because of its wealth of timber, fish, minerals, and other resources. At the same time, there was a recognition that the timber resource was being exploited at an unsustainable rate, and that it would be only about a decade before the accessible forests were logged out. There was also some apprehension late in the 1990s about the oversupply of the global fishing infrastructure and the increasingly competitive nature of the industry in the Pacific. By 2000, ethnic tension between groups on Guadalcanal and Malaita raised fears about the survival of the nation-state. By early 2001 there was some optimism that the peace agreement of October 2000 would hold, and that the economy would eventually return to normal. However, many critical industries were still closed awaiting assurances of ongoing security. The future of the Islands' forests remains uncertain, but some efforts to improve the effects of over-fishing included sustainable harvesting of black pearls.