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Within Melanesian society, the land and the culture are closely interlinked: the territory is the very foundation of the culture. For centuries, this relationship of land and culture had beeil evolving in the closed environment of the island. Now, at the dawn of the XXIst century, the island is opening up to the world. For an island-based system, development is generally considered as the main road to integration within the greater context of the modern world. In New Caledonia, much as in other parts of the Pacific, this opening up leads to confrontation between the "land-culture" concept and the development policies that are being implemented. Out of these confrontations, can we expect to see the birth of a new type of "landculture-development" relationship ? We shall try to answer this question through the study of three examples : The first shall concern the transversal axis from Koiié to Tiwaka, in the North Province of New Caledonia, and the regional development that centers around it. The second example concerns the Territorial project for the harbour at Wé, in the island of Lifou, which constitutes one of the main items on the economic development program for the Islands Province within the current Territorial policy of economic redistribution. The third example deals with the development of coffee farming in the Melanesian community, a project which has been touted by the authorities for the last fifty years as a model of Melanesian integration into the Territory's economic and commercial life.