South Pacific islanders strive to rescue their home from toxic legacy

This article is published in association with United Nations.

More than 80 years after World War Two, the Solomon Islands remain one of the most heavily mine-contaminated places in the Pacific.

Today, the UN is supporting the process of making the land safe to walk and build on again, but the risk to public health from corroding munitions is growing.

For many years, islanders have suspected that this toxic legacy has been harming them and their children, and now a UN-partnered study has found strong evidence to back this up, by confirming the presence of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium and explosive residues.

Leading the study – funded by the Government of Japan and supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) – Dr. Stacey Pizzino from the University of Queensland explained that the risk for islanders is growing as unexploded ordnance – known as UXO – is part of daily life there.

“You can see UXO in the reefs when you’re travelling, when you look down off a boat,” she told journalists in Geneva. “Unexploded ordnance are used as anchors in the canoes and children are interacting with devices on a regular basis. 

“In one area that we were in, we were hearing explosions on a fairly regular basis and the children were playing with the devices and harvesting the explosives out of them to create bangers, to blow up coconuts.” 

Dr. Pizzino noted reports of sore eyes, rashes and breastfeeding babies developing mouth ulcers, boils and rashes, after their mothers had eaten suspected contaminated seafoods.

Lethal discovery

In another case, she described how a mother brought a bag of munitions confiscated from children that they had found under water, on a reef. 

Testing of the dust in the bag containing the devices showed “incredibly high levels of lead…There’s no safe level of lead for children,” said Dr Pizzino. “It has health impacts in terms of brain development.”

The UN study’s findings are the first of their kind in the Pacific.

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Food chain threat

At Lever’s Point and other sites, soil samples revealed elevated levels of heavy metals. The highly explosive compounds TNT and PETN were also detected. In some locations, traces were found in marine life, including shellfish.

The episode highlights the long-term consequences of unexploded ordinance and the need to protect public health, urgently.

Making areas safe is a slow and complex operation because the contamination threat is vast.

But it changes everything.

“The Explosive Ordnance Device unit comes and blasts lots of bombs,” said Fred, a farmer from Gavatu island. “When we know the area is clear, we can relax. We can plant crops. We don’t worry for the children.”

For UNDP, making the land and reefs safe is central to development.

“Unexploded ordnance had always been an important issue,” says UNDP Deputy Resident Representative Raluca Eddon. “Time is running out as more hazardous chemicals leak into the environment, harming reefs, sea life and coastal communities.” 

Another islander, Billy, who’s a farmer and fisherman, agrees. “Now we understand there might be an even greater risk,” he says. “We want the bombs to be removed. We want to live in safety.”

While UNDP’s research does not claim to represent the entire country nor establish a definitive causal link, the combined environmental evidence, community reports and observed health patterns point to a “credible and growing risk”, the agency says.