From the Guardian:

“There is perhaps nowhere in the Pacific where the costs of extractive industries are as heartbreakingly clear as Rennell Island.

“The island, a tiny dot in the vast South Pacific that lies at the southern tip of Solomon Islands, is home to a few thousand people. And it’s starkly divided.

“On one side is pristine East Rennell, a Unesco world heritage site, which offers a glimpse of Rennell unspoiled. But in the last decade, West Rennell has suffered the triple assault of logging, bauxite mining, and a devastating oil spill from when a bulk carrier, hired by a mining company, ran aground on a reef.”

Here’s a picture of the protected side, just to set the scene:

At the other end of the island, you can do logging:

Or mine some bauxite (for aluminium, which makes my previous post on new batteries needing aluminium a little bit less alluring):

Or spill some oil:

Time to follow the money:

“While Solomon Islands government offers generous tax exemptions to mining companies operating on Rennell, companies do pay into government coffers. The governor of Solomon Islands’ central bank says that while exempt from paying export taxes, Bintang Mining Company, one of the major operators on the island, contributed SBD$142m (US$17.8m) in foreign exchange in 2020 and $131m (US$16.4m) in 2019.”

“But even current and former government officials have conceded that the way previous governments handled the process of land acquisition and granted leases for the bauxite mining industry did not abide by mining regulations and has harmed the community.

“Former prime minister Rick Houenipwela told SIBC last year: “Sadly, Solomon Islands have not benefited from the Rennell mining operations.”

“Amos Tuhaika, from Avatai Village, told the Guardian their forest, gardens and sea have been destroyed by extractive companies.”

Not so much as a peep in the article as to where those hundreds of millions of euros ended up.

As for that oil spill:

“According to a report by local and international experts into the spill, which was given to Solomon Islands government in 2019 and leaked to the ABC, the oil spill caused the direct loss of more than 10,000 square metres of reef and more than 4,000 square metres of lagoon habitat and economic losses of up to AU$50m. The report said the site could take up to 130 years to recover.”

Yippee! You lose your quality of life, your community cohesion, your environment is destroyed, and you have no more money than when you started.

Sounds like the locals got a perfect deal.