Abstract: The island of Lauru (Choiseul) in the western Solomon Islands is a high (up to 1,060 m) mixed volcanic and limestone uplifted island, located between 6.5° and 7.5° S latitude and 156.5° and 157.5° E longitude. The central part of the island is suggested for inclusion in the Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect (PABITRA) system. The proposed area consists of the north-central coast, Mount Barokasa (850 m), Mount Maetabe (1,060 m), and the primary watershed systems that drain these mountains and the central plateau between them. Some of the concerns and expectations of traditional land owners and the Solomon Islands government are considered. These play important roles in any research activity and will be central to the success or failure of the project. The Solomon Islands, Lauru, and the specific study area are briefly described with synopses of previous research and current, preliminary research activities. Preliminary species checklists are given for plants and vertebrates in the area. Initially we propose to establish two transects, each passing through two biomes suitable for comparisons with similar biomes in other PABITRA sites: the tropical montane cloud forest of Mount Maetabe (the highest point in the island), and the lowland rain forests, between 200 and 500 m in elevation to the southwest of Susuka at the base of Mount Barokasa. The two proposed transects will stretch through two different watersheds, one of which has had traditional agriculture practiced in the coastal strand area and the other of which has had traditional agriculture practiced in the lowland forest of midelevations. A research agenda is proposed that will help achieve key objectives of developing local research capacity and internal biodiversity management systems while conserving traditional knowledge.

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FOLLOWING THE 1994 DIVERSITAS forum in Paris, DIWPA (DIVERSITAS in Western Pacific and Asia) was formed to implement the DIVERSITAS agenda for biodiversity research in Asia and the western Pacific. In 1998, PABITRA (Pacific-Asia Biodiversity Transect) was formed to organize research activities in the tropical Pacific islands in association with DIWPA (Mueller-Dombois 1998). The horizontal (trans-Pacific) transect for proposed biodiversity study passes through the Solomon Islands (see Figure 2 in introductory paper in this issue [Mueller-Dombois and Daehler 2005]). PABITRA research in each site along the horizontal transect as well as in the proposed site on Lauru Island is intended to: (1) produce an inventory of biological diversity, (2) conduct an analysis of the ecosystems present, (3) integrate an inventory with ecosystem studies through vertical transects traversing a range of ecosystems, and (4) conduct comparative studies of ecosystems with other islands along the horizontal trans-Pacific transect to test hypotheses of biodiversity relationships and of distributional vicariance colonization of the Pacific islands.

A Partnership Agreement

In 1998 researchers of the Solomon Islands National Herbarium and their Solomon Island and foreign research partners agreed to form a collaborative biodiversity research group: Solomon Islands Biodiversity Initiative (SIBI). SIBI is intended to organize and execute biodiversity research projects that meet the agenda of PABITRA and serve to document the diverse ethnobotanical knowledge of the...