Gizo
Encyclopedia
Western Province (Solomon Islands)
Western Province is the largest of the provinces of the Solomon Islands. The area is renowned for its beautiful tropical islands, excellent diving and snorkelling, coral reefs and WWII wrecks, ecotourism lodges, and head-hunting shrines...
in the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
. With a population of 6,154 (2005 estimates), it is the second largest town in the country. It is situated on Ghizo Island
Ghizo Island
Ghizo Island, home to Gizo the capital of the Western Province, Solomon Islands. The island is named after an infamous local head-hunter. It is located west of New Georgia and Kolombangara....
approximately 380 kilometers west-northwest of the capital, Honiara
Honiara
Honiara, population 49,107 , 78,190 , is the capital of the Solomon Islands and of Guadalcanal Province, although it is a separately administered town...
, and is just southwest of the larger island of Kolombangara
Kolombangara
Kolombangara is an island in the New Georgia Islands group of the Solomon Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean...
. Gizo also has a small landing strip on the nearby island of Nusatupe to the north east of the town, making it relatively developed compared to other settlements in the general vicinity.
These days Gizo is a tourism center with diving and surfing being popular activities.
History
This area of the Solomon Islands has had a history of headhunting. According to local stories the Gizo tribe were notorious in this activity. As a consequence the surrounding local tribes took the unusual step of joining together to obliterate the Gizo tribe. The stories further relate that the only survivors were a Gizo woman and her son. This event led to Ghizo island being declared as a property of the state, rather than the usual customary ownership prevalent in much of the rest of the Solomons. As a secondary consequence becoming an administrative and business center because of the relative ease with which registered land titles could be obtained.The Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
Mission in the Western Province
Western Province (Solomon Islands)
Western Province is the largest of the provinces of the Solomon Islands. The area is renowned for its beautiful tropical islands, excellent diving and snorkelling, coral reefs and WWII wrecks, ecotourism lodges, and head-hunting shrines...
was established by Rev. John Frances Goldie in 1902. He dominated the mission and gained the loyalty of Solomon Islander members of his church. The relationship with the colonial administrators of the British Solomon lsland Protectorate were also fraught with difficulty, at this time due to Goldie’s effective control over the Western Solomon Islands. From 1927 to 1934 Dr Edward Sayers
Edward Sayers (doctor)
Sir Edward George Sayers was a New Zealand doctor, , Methodist missionary, military medical administrator, consultant physician then Dean of the University of Otago Dunedin School of Medicine,...
worked at the Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
mission where he established a hospital at Gizo and also at Munda and Vella Lavella
Vella Lavella
Vella Lavella is an island in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. It lies to the west of New Georgia, but is considered one of the New Georgia Group...
, and carried out fieldwork in the treatment of malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
.
PT-109
Gizo was the operating base for Robert BallardRobert Ballard
Robert Duane Ballard is a former United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology. He is most famous for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989,...
's The Search for Kennedy's PT 109
The Search for Kennedy's PT 109
The Search for Kennedy's PT 109 is a National Geographic television special and video. It documents the original story of John F. Kennedy's PT 109 from World War II, and the project of Dr. Robert Ballard's successful search for the wreck of the boat...
, which was a National Geographic television special. The son of Eroni Kumana
Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana
Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana were indigenous people of Solomon Islands, of native Melanesian descent, who found John F. Kennedy and his surviving PT-109 crew following the boat's collision with the Japanese destroyer Amagiri near Plum Pudding Island on 1 August 1943...
, who was one of the two natives that found the shipwrecked Lt. John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
, lives on the island. The three islands, Plum Pudding, Olasana, and Naru, that were visited by the PT 109 survivors lie just to the southeast of Ghizo island. In 1943, the islands were occupied by imperial Japanese troops.
2007 Solomon Islands earthquake2007 Solomon Islands earthquakeThe 2007 Solomon Islands earthquake took place on 2 April 2007, near the provincial capital of Gizo on Ghizo Island, in the Solomon Islands. Its magnitude was calculated by the United States Geological Survey as being at 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale...
On April 2 Gizo was hit by a tsunami caused by the 8.1 magnitude earthquake centered only 25 miles from the town. Now known as the 2007 Solomon Islands earthquake2007 Solomon Islands earthquake
The 2007 Solomon Islands earthquake took place on 2 April 2007, near the provincial capital of Gizo on Ghizo Island, in the Solomon Islands. Its magnitude was calculated by the United States Geological Survey as being at 8.1 on the moment magnitude scale...
the final official death total throughout the Western Province and Choiseul was 52. The tsunami hit during daylight hours, giving people warning to seek higher ground, as the tide withdrew in advance of the wall of water. Ten metre-high waves hit nearby Sasamunga (to the north-east of Gizo on the island of Choiseul), destroying houses, food gardens and a hospital.
2011 Tsunami
On March 11 Gizo was put under tsunami warning following an 9.0 magnitude earthquake off Japan's east coast.Government
Construction on the Correctional Services of Solomon IslandsCorrectional Services of Solomon Islands
Correctional Services of Solomon Islands is the correctional agency of the government of the Solomon Islands. Previously it was known as the Solomon Islands Prison Service ....
Gizo Correctional Centre in Gizo began in December 2010.