IN preparation for a hearing before the Land Court on a piece of property which my family claims, I was very surprised to learn that practically all the official maps and charts of Palau do not have the local names (major rivers, lakes, and rock island are exceptions) for many of Palau’s natural features such as mountains, forests, reefs, shoals, and mangrove areas. These natural features, with their correct compass points, are all included in all physical maps for Palau, but they are not identified by their age-old Palauan names.
I couldn’t find the names Rois-ra-Etiruir, Ngerdiluches and many others in the official maps. They are all there and if you knew how to look for them you could locate them easily. But why were their Palauan names not printed on the maps and the charts for Palau? I suppose the people who originally made those maps and charts were foreigners who did not know or care about local names, so they simply identified these natural land and sea features as compass points. These maps and charts are about our country of Palau, and they must identify these geographical features by their correct Palauan names.The Physical Development of Babeldaob We wrote before that the opening of the Babeldaob Compact Road should prompt our public leaders to begin thinking and planning how to accommodate the expected shift of population from Koror to Babeldaob that this road will set in motion.With the National Government and many of its operating components already established on Ngerulmud Hill in Melekeok, it is probably safe to say that a major population shift from crowded Koror to Babeldaob will occur in the next twenty years. We estimate that by the year 2028 an overwhelming majority of our able-bodied citizens would be residing or plan to reside on Babeldaob. These people would need all the support they could receive from their Government to help them establish their roots in their ancestral villages. Aside from the usual public services and facilities (Water, power, phones, medical services, schools, churches, etc.) that they will need, they will also need public programs that could provide them with financial supports, at low interest rates, to build their homes and businesses.Our public leaders should take a close look at the Palau Housing Authority and the Palau National Development Bank to see if these institutions could provide the kind of services that would contribute to the physical and economic developments of Babeldaob in the coming decades. The purposes and missions of these institutions should be redefined so that they would be more pro-active in providing the kind of services the coming generation would need to develop the country.The Palau Housing Authority should be provided with additional funds to help those young people who would wish to establish their homes on Babeldaob. And sufficient funds should be provided to the National Development Bank so that it may establish a “Production Loan Fund” to provide financial assistances to individuals and small businesses that would like to engage in commercial agriculture, marine resources activities, and craft-related enterprises on Babeldaob. All of these initiatives would need “hard cash” and that is why it is important that our public leaders should begin thinking about how Babeldaob’s development could be sustained in the next twenty years.
