Rodents are a key pest to agricultural and rural island communities of the South Pacific,but there is limited information of their impact on the crops and livelihoods of small-scale farmers.The rodent pest community is known,but the type and scales of damage to different crops on different islands is unknown.Knowledge about rodent pest management in other geographical regions may not be directly transferable to the Pacific region.Many studies on islands have largely focused on the eradication of rodents from uninhabited islands for conservation benefits.These are unlikely to translate to inhabited islands.The livelihoods,culture and customs of poor small-scale farmers in the South Pacific have a large bearing on the current management of rodents.This paper describes the current situation on islands across the South Pacific and identifies the constraints and opportunities for each,their similarities and differences,and identifies where findings from one location could be transferred to another.Two case studies will be compared and contrasted: rodents in cocoa plantations in Vanuatu and native rodents in Papua New Guinea.We conclude that (a) damage is unknown and unreported, (b) the impact on human health is unknown, (c) the relationship between the pest species and their food sources,breeding and movements is not known and (d) there are few well-trained rodent ecologists actively working in these areas and few well funded research projects.