The coconut plantation is managed by Atoll Plantations, Ltd. which controls all such operations for the Gilbert and Ellice Islands government which in turn owns and controls the island. The manager of the company is a European under contract; currently, it is a Scotsman. All other employees are Gilbertese also under contract. Planting, maintaining, and harvesting of the copra are the main occupations of the company, but it also investigates better methods for growing and managing the coconut groves. Since 1962, much more of the area has been planted to coconuts; there remain some area in the north which is probably useful but test plots are also being tried at the southern end as well. The coconuts are gathered weekly from the groves; pay is on a piecework basis. A’man (including wife and children) has a norm of 300 units per day though some can do 1000. Upon collection of the fallen coconuts they are sliced in two with a heavy straight knife, the copra sliced out with the end of the knife, and the husk and shell are left in the grove. The harvested copra is dried in wheeled racks on rails so that the copra can be rolled under a shed to protect it from inclement. | weather. Annual harvest has been 1000 to 1600 tons. Twice per year the copra is picked up by a freighter ( of Scot registry) for shipment to the UK. It is mainly used to make cooking oil and oleomargarine. We looked for other plants which could be used by the islanders for food. There are a few breadfruit, papaya and pandanus trees generally without fruit though they seem to do well once established. At one house at Banana, we saw a pit into the water lens which had taro and at one house in London, I noted a squash vine. Tomatoes were growing at the house of the head of fisheries. Except for a few instances of individual effort, there seems to be no plan to investigate ways of growing food other than coconuts. There are a few pigs and chickens on the island which are fed coconuts (grated for the chickens) and table scraps. The natives mostly eat fish and rice. The chickens, pigs and the large crayfish (langouste) found after a wedding. on the reef are used for feasts such as The GEIDA has contracted with Enivironmental Consultants Inc. to investigate the feasibility of establishing a brine shrimp fishery for the island. Some four years ago a gallon of brine shrimp eggs were placed in the Isles Lagoon. Eggs have since been blown into other ponds by being caught up in the algal foam and thence carried across the land area. Brine Shrimp prefer a salinity of about 120 ppm (sea water is about 35 ppm); the ponds run from 40 to over 200 ppm so there has been trenching and damming of the ponds and the main la- goon to change water levels between ponds to better distribute the water. Influx to tne ponds is from underwater springs and rain. Yet to be solved completely is a method for collecting the eggs; some eggs are, however, on the market to test their sales capability. The market is expected to be commercial fish farms as well as tropical fish fanciers (which is the current