Travel Guide Houaïlou

An important mining center with 4,240 inhabitants, Houaïlou(Waa Wi Lûû, in Ajië) was for a long time an obligatory passage between the two coasts, until the opening of the Koné-Tiwaka transverse in the late 1990s. It is also here that the pastor and ethnologist Leenhardt (1878-1954), a great ethnologist and specialist in the Melanesian world, set up the Do Neva school, the first on Grande Terre to open its doors to Kanak children, in 1903. He had to face the opposition of the colonists, but, tirelessly, he learned the local language, Ajië, and thus allowed its written transcription. Today, Houaïlou is mostly known for its letchis, but also for its huge nickel mining operations which provide a good part of the working population with a living. The road down to Kouaoua and through the mining village of Poro forms one of the most marked and hostile landscapes in the country. The industry has lacerated the mountains here, exposing them in immense expanses. Technical feat synonymous with jobs for some, it is also an environmental disaster for others...