About Kolombangara Island and the Kolombangara People

Kolombangara is dormant or semi-extinct volcano last active probably about 10,000 years ago. It now forms a classic shattered rim shape as the cone has slowly eroded.

Kolombangara Island has very high biodiversity (meaning the variety of living things – animals, plants and other life) compared to the rest of the New Georgian islands in Solomon Islands, Western Province

Kolombangara people, the Dughore, believe that their ancestors came from the original couple that lived inside the Kolombangara Crater, Kongu Rano, at the centre of the island.

Over time, the people moved out of the crater to live in villages further down the slope, in the valleys of the Vila, Kukundu and Rei rivers.

More recently, the Kolombangara people settled around the coast, leaving behind old village sites, burial sites and other tambu sites in the mountains and the crater.

See also the general introduction to conserving Kolombangara Island.

Acknowledgement: In compiling this information KIBCA has drawn on information from Dughore people and from The Social Forest - Landowners, development conflict and the State in Solomon Islands by Ian Scales, an unpublished thesis submitted for a Doctor of Philosophy at ANU, Nov 2003