“It is important to understand that relocation is much more than simply providing a house and land. It is a comprehensive economic, social and cultural change. To ensure success, special attention needs to be paid to indigenous culture. To ensure success, special attention needs to be paid to indigenous culture. Thus, capacity building and social education programs must be provided, not only for relocated people but also for local people in the area where the relocated people are settling.
The families relocated in the 1980s and the 1990s to Bougainville, a larger island near the Carterets, ended up returning to the Carteret islands due to civil conflict, hostility toward them from neighbours, or lack of living facilities.”
Click here for a full report by UNESCO 06.06.2012
SPECIAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE TULUN ISLANDS
We would like to feature the photography of Bjørn Stig Hansen on the Carteret Islands or the Tulun Islands as the islanders refer to it. Tulun means “the people from the big sea” and is used by the Bougainvillians as the name for both the people and islands on the Tulun Atoll. He chose this name instead of the more commonly used Carteret Islands, which refers to the Westener who discovered the islands. Bjørn who is from Copenhagen, Denmark says:
“Culture, tribal traditions, land ownership and a peaceful existence far from their mountainous neighbor, Bougainville – which is still struggling to maintain law and order after a civil war that ended ten years ago – are all strong arguments in favor of staying.
The tribe has lived isolated in the Solomon Sea for 400 years and communication with the outside world is limited to a two-way radio. The people live a simple life without stable electricity and use wooden canoes to travel between the islands on top of the Tulun Atoll’s 61 km (37.9 miles) long reef.”
The Carteret Islands Project 