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This is the story of Tetepare, the South Pacific's largest uninhabited island. One and a half centuries after headhunters fled the island, Tetepare's virgin rainforest and teeming coral reefs were pitted against destructive logging companies and greedy 'big men'. Yet from the darkest years of the Solomon Islands' ethnic tension arose the nations' first world-class conservation initiative. Peppered with humorous anecdotes, The Last Wild Island: Saving Tetepare will entertain and inform about the culture of this intriguing island nation.
John, and wife Katherine, spent years committed to the restoration of Australia’s deserts and arid zone ecosystems, founding the Arid Recovery Project at Roxby Downs and writing about that adventure in Red Sand Green Heart (Lothian 2002). Last Wild Island: Saving Tetepare (2011) tells of the heartache and challenge of Tetepare Island, in the Solomon Islands, a conservation jewels of the South Pacific. This long, rugged island, cloaked in rainforest and fringed with reefs, is the largest uninhabited tropical island in the Southern Hemisphere. Home to leading conservation projects and a unique, locally-owned and managed ECO-lodge, Tetepare’s natural abundance attracts visitors from around the world. John describes many aid organisations claiming that although Tetepare was a unique eco-system desperate for protection, it was too remote, too political, with too many people involved and too hard. But “We thought bugger it, we'll give it a go!"
“An inspirational adventure by an observant and passionate storyteller”
- Dick Smith
"…a page turner that will leave readers dazzled that such an island still exists …by an author every bit as readable as Tim Flannery”
- James Woodford (SMH Journalist & Editor)
