LAND IN KWARAAE AND DEVELOPMENT IN SOLOMON-ISLANDS

This paper documents land tenure and the effects of economic developme nt in Kwara'ae on the island of Malaita. It uses local histories to co nfirm the essential flexibility of a system of cognatic inheritance, b ased on social and economic values which contradict the more exclusive unilineal emphasis preferred and promoted by government land and deve lopment policy in Solomon Islands. In considering the resulting proble m of land disputes, the paper questions the value of reforms which und ermine the tradition of communal control of natural resources.