Olivier Houdan, a history teacher, has spent years gathering the accounts of Caledonian families about the period known as the “Events”. Co-founder of the Histoire et Patrimoine de Bourail association, in a commune on the west coast of Grande Terre, vice-president of the “Heritage and Memory” commission, and an advocate for opening archives still under classification, he remains convinced: “History can also heal, ease memories, and reconcile people with one another.” This same man, accustomed to making archives speak, now an elected municipal official, today leads one of the most accomplished ecological restoration programs in New Caledonia: PERENNE, winner of the 2021 Kiwa Initiative, run by WWF France with the support of the Caledonian government.
Work on the ground
On the West Coast, extensive livestock farming and intensive agriculture have long weakened the soil and hastened its erosion. The nearby barrier reef, a UNESCO World Heritage site, bears the consequences directly: silt-laden rivers carry sediment torn from farmland straight toward it; hence the need to restore riparian forests¹. In Bourail, the program draws on a decade of trust built between WWF, schools, environmental groups and local customary authorities, along with the Chamber of Agriculture and Fisheries, whose technical staff support farmers. “It’s the coming together of all these players that has made this program a success”, Olivier sums up. Open to everyone regardless of age or educational background, PERENNE’s training worksites draw on the resources of a commune with close to two thousand schoolchildren, a battalion of the adapted military service, and a vocational training centre for adults. On the banks of the Nera, vetiver roots planted by hand now hold in place what runoff once threatened to wash away: more than 10,800 seedlings grown in nurseries since 2021, 870 rooted here, 1,200 along the Boghen, 400 mangrove saplings at Nessadiou, on land belonging to nine farmers in the region. To reduce PERENNE to these figures would be to miss the point: the project shows that a territory can heal itself, provided the right people are brought together around the table. Restoring a riparian forest also means protecting the very reef that borders the West Coast — a continuity that dovetails with global climate and biodiversity goals without needing to name them. “You could almost call it low-tech. But let’s give imagination free rein, and the results are worth pondering”.
The systemic argument
Olivier also makes an economic point: every cent not spent on riprap, for instance, stays available for something else; every restored soil gains in value. He points to the agroforestry operation run by Mr Sansoni, where enriching soil life curbed runoff at lower cost; a method he considers replicable across the whole of Grande Terre, provided decision-makers come to see it for themselves. In his view, the governance, funding and methods developed in Bourail are transferable to other communes and to the provinces responsible for environmental matters. This conviction speaks to a challenge New Caledonia shares with small island states and territories across the Pacific, united around the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent: the administrative burden that international funding frameworks place on communities with limited human resources. Olivier recalls that in 2013, a Pacific Community workshop brought ministers and officials from twenty-two member states and territories to the banks of the Boghen, to see, on the scale of a single municipal council, what can be achieved with local materials and modest means; an environmental diplomacy that moves from the ground up toward the region’s larger institutions, rather than the other way around, and an invitation to reflect on a shared “océanitude”, or oceanian identity.
A territory, not a periphery
What remains, he admits, is the difficulty of winning over decision-makers further up the chain. “Locally, people are ready, willing and able to act”, he observes, before noting that converting decision-makers higher up the chain often takes time. For Olivier, the answer isn’t administrative but sensory: “There aren’t enough people getting out into the field, not enough decision-makers going down into the fields themselves.” Bourail is neither a model to be put on a pedestal nor an isolated corner of the Pacific waiting for the attention of the world’s capitals: it is a territory to be relearned, for its own people, rather than a landscape to be preserved from afar. Olivier closes with an invitation, addressed to anyone who owns a patch of land: “Plant trees, as soon as you have the space. They will repay you quickly, and well.”
¹ Riparian forests: forest ecosystems located along waterways that play a major ecological role. They protect riverbanks from erosion, filter pollutants, regulate flooding, and shelter distinctive biodiversity. Restoring them is essential to a territory's resilience in the face of climate change, particularly in island settings such as New Caledonia, where they also help protect coral reefs by limiting sediment run-off.
