Dear Editor,
I have the privilege of growing up and seeing the beauty of our town post ethnic tension and prior through photos of old. The community feeling, the mangoes, the rain trees, the Christmas trees, frangipanis, the coolness, the shade, the island beauty reverberated still fully in the surrounding.
Slowly changes have occurred, raises emerged and the vegetation s disappeared, the unprecedented rapid change occurring much faster than anticipated. Consequentially, resulting in the loss of the vegetation that provide shade against the direct heat from the sun, buffer against the prevalent dust in the air and a direct and instigator of cool fresh air.
Expansion and reconstruction of roads is beneficial, but will it fix the ongoing traffic issues? Consequentially, they (mass expands of concrete roads and infrastructure) too are emitters of reverberated infer-nous heat that hung over the city centers which can cause over time heat waves in the country’s capital. Additionally in the long term such extensive heat contributes to climate change.
Beneficial developments they are, but what is development to you? is it the removal of mother nature then being replaced by a concrete jungle, well designed and built drainage systems only to become used as a rubbish dump site which would later clog the entire drainage system and sometimes flooding, well developed infrastructures and facilities only to become poorly maintained and most commonly misused?
We are seeing development but not living as a society capable to handle such change and the responsibilities that comes with it, let only facing the consequences that would befall in the future. We are reacting to life rather than living life.
Changes that have occurred are so compounded into the Honiara capital rather than being decentralised and much of what Honiara is, is overly shadowed by foreign owned business rather than locally. The capital has seen a tremendous transformation from a tropical island beauty to a concrete jungle continental beauty.
Looking ahead is this the future we can hope for our generation and our children?
Joshua Palmer
