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The only township and ferry terminal is Salelologa, the main entry point to the island, situated at the east end of Savai'i. A tar sealed road serves as the one main highway, connecting most of the villages with local buses reaching most settlements. Savai'i is made up of six itūmālō (political districts). Each district is made up of villages with strong traditional ties of kinship, history, land and matai chief titles. There are also some limited ecotourism development which operate mostly within the villages. The Mau, Samoa's non-violent movement for political independence during colonialism in the early 1900s, had its beginnings on Savai'i with the Mau a Pule movement. The island is the largest shield volcano in the South Pacific with recent eruptions in the early 1900s. The central region comprise the Central Savai'i Rainforest, 72,699 hectares which forms the largest continuous patch of rainforest in Polynesia. It is dotted with more than 100 volcanic craters and contains most of Samoa's native species of flora and fauna, making it globally significant in world conservation areas. |