A $3.8m project known as Planim Fiuja fo Yumi (‘Planning our future together’) will see Australian academics collaborate with colleagues and partners to help coastal communities in the Solomon Islands, with spatial education being one element of it.

The five-year project, funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), uses a model of community-led development rather than a traditional top-down approach.

The aim is to enable coastal peoples and those involved in small-scale fishing to take ownership of their futures.

“These communities face complex challenges — from climate change to resource extraction — that make long-term planning difficult,” said James Cook University’s (JCU) Associate Professor Amy Diedrich, who leads the project.

“Instead of arriving with ready-made solutions, we’re supporting them to define their own visions and pathways forward.”

“Communities are dealing with overlapping challenges — climate, livelihoods, governance — so we’re taking an integrated approach that connects them all.”

The overall project has strong support in the Solomon Islands, with government ministries responsible for fisheries, climate and disaster management, forestry, culture and tourism, and planning and development, all engaged in its planning and guidance.

Spatial skillset development

One important goal is to build and develop local scientific and planning capacity, and that’s where the spatial education element comes in.

Activities will include:

• Developing, refining and integrating a set of tools used to implement a participatory and integrated approach to support coastal communities and decision-makers to protect livelihoods and the environment.   
• Supporting the scaling up of community-informed, risk-based, spatially explicit planning to marine spatial planning.

In partnership with Solomon Islands National University (SINU), the Planim Fiuja fo Yumi project will develop a four subject short course in spatial science, with a view to helping SINU establish the country’s first spatial science degree program, which could also potentially provide a model for other Pacific nations.

The course will cover basic and advanced GIS (using open-source software), remote sensing, and GIS for communication and decision-making.

“The goal is to develop and deliver one subject per year over the coming four years in collaboration with SINU, who will then become the owners/providers of this course,” said Assoc. Prof. Diedrich.

“SINU is keen to develop a Bachelor of Spatial Science, and our subjects would likely fit within that degree, while also being a standalone short course.”

The idea is to attract participants who are already professionally employed within government and NGOs, but who want to add spatial planning capabilities to their skillsets. It will also be open to SINU students and staff.

“We hope that this course will eventually be available at the regional level, and are in discussion with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community about how to align with their efforts to develop a regionally accredited course in Marine Spatial Planning,” said Assoc. Prof. Diedrich.