Stimulating investment in pearl farming in ... - World Fish Center

3.7 Natural disastersEnvironmental risks come in many forms, from earthquake, tsumani, cyclone, through todisease and long-term sea level rise. Most of these are poorly predictable or equallylikely (or unlikely) over wide geographic scales. Of the few “extreme event”-relatedenvironmental risks that are frequent enough to be quantifiable, cyclones and their relatedphenomena can be devastating to pearl farms (see Appendix III). Analysis of theprevalence of cyclones at Solomon Islands (Figure 7) suggests that its risk profile issimilar to Tahiti and places it between PNG, where cyclones are extremely unlikely andNorthern Cook Islands, where one cyclone has passed within 50 km in the period1969/70 to 2004/05. One cyclone has passed a similar distance from Honiara over thatperiod, though none has passed though or affected the Western Province. Cyclones aremuch more likely to pass close to Fiji, Vanuatu and Australia. Cyclones can be seen as aminor risk for pearl farms in Solomon Islands, particularly if placed in they are located inthe northern part of the country.Average Annual number of tropical cyclonesFigure 7. Approximate positions of existing black and white pearl farms and SolomonIslands (blue circle) superimposed on the average tropical cyclone frequency for thesouthwest Pacific.14