A matter of survival: Pacific Islands vital biodiversity, agricultural biodiversity and ethno-biodiversity heritage.

Biodiversity is the foundation for survival and sustainable development on pacific Islands, with a high proportion of pacific Islanders livelihoods coming from natural resources, writes PROFESSOR R. THAMAN. But urbanisation and western development, deforestation, forest degradation, and loss of agrobiodiversity are proceeding at frightening rates, along with erosion of pacific Islands' sophisticated knowledge systems. Yet there's great potential to reverse these trends. For food security and cultural and economic survival, the highest priority must be placed on preserving the ethno-biodiversity, agroforestry and agrobiodiversity models of pacific Islands. This will require education and re-education to foster the understanding of existing trees, agroforestry systems and ethnobiodiversity before the knowledge dies out. The tools are in the trees and the dynamic existing traditional systems that have sustained pacific Islanders over thousands of years. (part two of a two-part article.)

Vital coastal and mangrove biodiversity

An analysis of the ecological and cultural importance of 140 coastal and mangrove species in Pacific agroforestry systems showed these coastal plant communities had many uses. The area of this study reached from New Guinea and New Caledonia in the west to the smallest atolls of Easter Island and the Hawaiian islands in the east. (1) The most important ecological functions of these plant resources, include: providing shade, as animal and plant habitats; protection from wind, erosion, flood and saltwater incursion; land stabilisation, protection from desiccating effects of salt spray, soil improvement and mulching; and as animal food or links in important terrestrial and marine food chains.

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Mangrove ecosystems have particular importance, contributing either directly or indirectly, through primary and secondary productivity, to the nutritional requirements of many marine food species. (2) Research in Fiji has shown over 60% of commercially important species live in mangroves or depend on mangrove food webs at some stage in their life cycle. (3) More rigorous research gives figures of 67% and 80% for eastern Australia and Florida. (2) Destruction and reclamation of mangroves have deleterious effects on fisheries yield.

Similarly, Pisonia grandis is the most important seabird rookery species throughout the atoll Pacific, providing phosphate-rich, bird-guano which is very important for pig feed in many parts of the Pacific. Where Pisonia has been removed, often to be replaced by coconut plantations, seabird populations decline and the location of schools of tuna based on the presence of seabird flocks becomes problematic for fishermen.

One of the most important ecological roles of coastal plants is in the protection they give inland agricultural areas, non-coastal vegetation and fauna, settlements, and water supplies from saltwater spray and storm surge. Plants with very high tolerance to salt spray and saltwater incursion are particularly valuable. Farmers throughout the Pacific purposely leave strand or mangrove forests intact on the seaside of their gardens, knowing removal of these trees makes farming difficult.

Imprudent commercial agricultural expansion in Tonga into the coastal zone where trees were removed on the windward coast of Tongatapu, the main island, to make boxes for shipping bananas to New Zealand, made agricultural production difficult in inland areas. Later, a successful coastal reforestation program begun in 1993 by the local community, in collaboration with the Forestry Department, planted 20,000 trees with over 20 native coastal species along the 2 km of coastline. The lesson learned was that reforestation is possible, but it's far easier to protect than to recreate the multi-species diversity and community structure created by God or generations of traditional agroforesters! (4)

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Cultural-use analysis shows there are 75 different purpose/use categories for coastal plants, and 1,024 frequency uses for 140 plants, an average of 7.3 purpose/use categories per plant, ranging from no reported uses for only two species to as many as 125 for the coconut, if distinct uses within categories (e.g., tools with distinct functions) are counted. Another 17 species have 20 or more reported uses, and 29 species have at least seven uses each. However, the list does not include the more strictly ecological functions of coastal plants, e.g. shade, protection from wind, sand and salt spray, erosion and flood control, coastal reclamation, animal and plant habitats, and soil improvement, which are important to Pacific societies.

Medical and other plant uses

Medicinal use of plants was most widespread with 113 species (81%) used medicinally, in at least one area of the Pacific. Almost a quarter (27) of these 113 species, are used medicinally for a variety of purposes, wherever they are found in the Pacific, as well as in Southeast Asia, the ancestral homeland of Pacific peoples.

Other widespread specific uses of plants, are for: general construction, body ornamentation, fuelwood, ceremony and ritual, cultivated or ornamental plants, tool-making, food, boat or canoe making, dyes or pigments, magic and sorcery, fishing equipment, cordage and fibre, games or toys, perfumes and scenting coconut oil, fertiliser and mulching, woodcarving, weapons or traps, food wrapping, subjects of legends, mythology, songs, riddles, and proverbs, domesticated and wild animal feed, handicrafts, cooking equipment, clothing, fish poisons, items for export of local sale, adhesives or caulking, and musical instruments, all of which were reported for at least eleven species. The analysis, however, is based on traditional uses, many of which have lapsed or are only employed in emergency, because modern technology has pre-empted them.

Greater detail on those plants of particular importance for specific purposes can be found in my paper "Batiri kei Baravi: the Ethnobotany of Pacific Island Coastal Plants." (1) Examples are given of only the medicinal, ceremonial or spiritual and body ornamentation or perfumery use of coastal plants. The ceremonial and spiritual importance of plants cannot be overstated, with 40 species having ceremonial or ritual importance, 29 used in magic and sorcery, and 18 featuring legends, mythology, songs, riddles, or proverbs.

Most societies show the importance given to clothing, jewellery, perfumes, and other items of personal adornment, and in more affluent societies the expense is extravagant. Pacific island societies, similarly, placed great importance on plant products for body ornamentation and perfumery, with 44% (62 of 140) of all coastal species being used in body ornamentation and 21 species used to scent coconut oil or for perfumery. Many places, e.g. Hawaii or Tahiti, are commonly associated with flower leis or sweet smelling flowers, such as the tiare Tahiti. The salusalu, kahoa and sisi, ula, and te bau, the Fijian, Tongan, Samoan, and Kiribati equivalents of the Hawaiian lei, are all of great social, ceremonial, magical or spiritual importance, and other Pacific societies have equivalent terms for such body ornamentation.

Similarly, in low-lying limestone islands of Ha'apai in Tonga, there are over 300 plants with economic or cultural significance and almost 100 species of cultivated and wild plant products sold by local communities. Cultivated plants include fruit trees (mangoes, papayas, oceanic litchi, coconut); root crops (taro, yam, cassava); non-tree fruits (sugarcane, passion-fruit, pineapple, and granadilla); export crops such as squash and vanilla; vegetables; handicraft plants such as pandanus (used for weaving) and paper mulberry (used to make tapa cloth); a range of culturally important plant products used for scenting coconut oil, leis or garlands; the important social and ceremonial beverage, kava; and a number of timber species including raintree, kauri and Caribbean pine. (5)

These few examples show the cultural sophistication of Pacific island societies as well as the vast treasury of empirical knowledge on biodiversity which Pacific Islanders possessed. This knowledge and use of biodiversity by Pacific Island peoples is almost incomprehensible to the ordinary urban planner or scientist who has lost touch with the natural world and subsistence living systems. The term "biodiversity" for people who depend on it and know it, particularly rural Pacific peoples with only limited opportunities for generating cash incomes, takes on immense meaning. Yet the wider economic, cultural and ecological value of biodiversity is rarely acknowledged in development plans, project documents, or aid proposals, even though the products and benefits provided by it, in the case of coastal vegetation alone, would be extremely expensive or impossible to replace with imported substitutes.

Deforestation/Forest Degradation/Agrodeforestation Sadly, this incredibly rich agroforestry, agrobiodiversity and ethnobiodiversity inheritance is being lost and degraded. "Deforestation," "forest degradation" and "agro-deforestation." (6,7,8) are most directly responsible for past and ongoing destruction and neglect of trees as a foundation for sustainable development on small islands.

Deforestation is defined as: The deliberate and accidental destruction or removal of forests through use of fire, felling for timber and fuel, over-grazing, clearance for agricultural and urban-industrial expansion, and other human activities. Deforestation has been going on for millennia on small Pacific islands, caused mostly by fire, which is responsible for the almost complete absence of inland forest on most inhabited atolls in the Pacific, and the extensive sunburnt or talasiga grasslands found on most of the high islands in Fiji, the extensive saafa (Guinea grass) grasslands of Tonga, the niaouli savannas and woodlands of New Caledonia, and extensive areas of almost tree-less grassland, savanna, scrubland and fernland, or total replacement by monocultural coconut plantations on small islands throughout the Pacific Islands.

Forest degradation, is defined as: The degradation or impoverishment of forests, measured in loss of species diversity (biodiversity) and economic, cultural and ecological utility and stability, resulting from selective removal of trees or other forest plant and animal species or the degradation of forest environments, through processes such as destructive logging, burning, or invasion of disturbed habitats by weedy or less useful exotic species.

Forest degradation has occurred through selective removal, of target species favoured for export timber production, local house construction, canoe building, firewood, medicinal use and other purposes. It is a continuing process, referred to in the timber business as "creaming," which probably started with the first arrival of Pacific Islanders but which has accelerated rapidly over the past 50 years due to natural population increase, increasing need for products that valuable multipurpose trees provide. Commercial logging of selected high value tree species, and the failure of the younger generation to protect, replant and to use wisely and unselfishly arboreal resources that are technically renewable if used wisely means any remaining "forests" are really degraded forests which no longer have all the valuable component species that a true indigenous forest on any island would be expected to have. Such forests often have many introduced exotic species, some of which are invasive species that further degrade the already degraded forests, of their biodiversity and their cultural and ecological use.

Agro-deforestation, is defined as: The removal of trees or de-emphasis on planting and/or tree protection in agricultural systems through the promotion of modern agricultural development. (9-11) This refers to a little recognised process that has accelerated over the past 50 years, despite strenuous efforts over the last 25 years to promote "agroforestry." Over-emphasis on mono-cropping a wide range of export cash crops like, copra, bananas, cocoa, oil palm, sugarcane, coffee, ginger and butter pumpkin (squash), etc, has brought about complete removal of countless tree groves and individual fruit trees and multipurpose trees, and the loss of many genetic varieties or cultivars of important trees (e.g., coconut, pandanus, breadfruit, banana and citrus cultivars) from agricultural areas and the loss of associated agrobiodiversity and ethno-biodiversity.

Most of these trees were components of traditional agricultural systems, deliberately planted or protected in the matrix of traditional agricultural systems found throughout Pacific Islands. In the past, such trees were planted, protected, severely pruned, pollarded or cut to the base, but not killed, so they would mature or regenerate into tree-rich fallows or tree groves after ground crops had been harvested. But today they are commonly bulldozed, killed outright or burned completely through periodic indiscriminate, rather than controlled, burning, in an effort to plant more cash crops to gain a few extra dollars, a "profit" far overshadowed by the irreversible loss in the value of the multipurpose trees sacrificed. (8,7)

There are serious cultural, economic, nutritional and ecological implications from these destructive processes. Most Pacific Island countries and their rural communities' isolation from major markets for primary and industrial products, has meant historically they have been almost entirely dependent on agroforestry, agrobiodiversity and wildland and fisheries production as the foundation of sustainable development.

Urbanisation: traditional life declines

Today, however, the small-island states of the Pacific Ocean are among the most rapidly urbanizing areas of the world and increasingly large proportions of their people no longer have access to their traditional inherited agricultural and wildland holdings or fisheries grounds. Consequently, most Pacific Island countries are dangerously, dependent on imported food, fossil fuel, medicines and other industrial products to satisfy basic needs. For most Pacific Island countries, food and fossil fuel imports make up a disproportionate proportion of strongly imbalanced foreign trade accounts, with food security being a major concern for all independent island states. (12,13)

Pacific Islands peoples have some of the highest rates on Earth for nutrition-related non-communicable diseases, e.g. diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, hyperglycemia and gout, obesity, iron-deficiency anaemia, and dental disease. The main cause has been shown to be the shift from a biodiverse diet, based on traditional agroforestry and wildland food systems to increasing dependence on nutritionallyinferior highly processed, largely imported foods. (14-18)

Rapid urbanization, monocropping and plantation forestry also have serious environmental consequences. Trees, multispecies cropland and coastal and mangrove forests are cleared for urban expansion. This leads to loss of fuelwood, a wide range of medicinal plants, destruction of remaining areas of habitat for birds, crabs, finfishes, shellfishes and a wide range of other organisms and increased vulnerability of coastal areas to erosion, saltwater incursion and flooding due to tidal waves, king tides and tsunamis. (19,20)

Biodiversity and sustainable development

For most rural, and many urban Pacific Island communities, "biodiversity," is the "capital" needed to develop and maintain local communities and the basis from which almost all "income" (both cash and non-cash) is derived. It's a capital inheritance enhanced by past generations and passed on to the next generation. Biodiversity is not income to be spent or destroyed for short-term economic gain. (21)

Importantly, an estimated 25 to 90% of the real income of Pacific Islands rural or outer island communities comes from non-cash income derived from local terrestrial (mainly agroforestry) and marine plant and animal resources. This income is relatively unaffected by inflation and deterioration in trade terms in the Pacific which historically has caused imported goods (e.g., petrol, outboard engines, medicines, flour, sugar, kerosene, clothing, fishing nets, etc.) to increase in cost more rapidly than increases of wages in the cash economy or payments received in return for products exported overseas or sold locally (e.g., cash crops, timber, fish, handicrafts, etc). The availability of local products is also not affected by the unreliability, breakdown or non-existence of transport networks.

Biodiversity (ecosystems, species and genetic diversity), including agrobiodiversity (both rural and urban), is the foundation for almost all sustainable development in the Pacific Islands. The stability of this "biodiversity foundation" is supported by ethnobiodiversity. If we lose or don't reinforce our biodiversity traditions, it's likely almost all development in the biodiversity-dependent small island developing states of the Pacific Ocean will ultimately fail.

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In the Pacific Islands, the focus of biodiversity conservation, and an increasing part of "scientific research," should be on the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity as the basis for ecological, cultural and economic survival of local communities that own, use and know their biodiversity. Without this emphasis, sustainable development will be difficult if not impossible to achieve, let alone the long-term conservation of many of the Earth's "biodiversity hot spots."

Conservation Focus: Hot Spots/Cool Spots

The main focus for most rich-country motivated biodiversity conservation and scientific research has been on "hot spots" and charismatic megafauna, like whales, dugongs and sea turtles. Biodiversity conservation efforts have focussed on: uniqueness or endemism, importance as potential gene pools for genetic engineering, biotechnology, plant breeding, medicinal discoveries or other technological breakthroughs for humanity's benefit, and export or tourism potential.

But for cultural survival and sustainability, biodiversity conservation programs and scientific research must include small-island and coastal "cool spots" and the wide range of endangered or ecologically and culturally important ubiquitous, indigenous species, and exotic, and wild and domesticated species or varieties. Examples include local trees of importance for medicinal, construction and fuelwood use and cultivars of important food and multipurpose trees, like coconut palms, pandanus, breadfruit and bananas, most of which are found in and around active agroforestry systems. Loss of traditional and contemporary knowledge on the uses, management systems and language related to biodiversity and could be one of the most serious obstacles to successful biodiversity conservation in Pacific Islands. Site-based biodiversity conservation will be difficult if local people cannot marry traditional conservation strategies with modern scientific models as part of co-management systems. If local people no longer know the local names, uses and management systems for their biodiversity, chances are they will not place a priority on its preservation.

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Many sincere, hardworking, well-meaning policy makers, leaders, doctors, scientists, teachers, diplomats, environmental NGO personnel, local resource owners and the general public, do not understand the main issues affecting the sustainability of our islands, our forests, agroforestry systems and our oceans. It's a "crisis of ignorance," caused by the modern western-biased, highly specialized nature of their education, which means they know little or nothing of their own island-based cultures and island-based languages or about the natural environment and their species-rich agroforestry heritages.

Education and media development systems for over 200 years have alienated Pacific Island peoples from their oceanic environment and biodiversity-based cultures. This alienation process has accelerated rapidly over the past 20 years with the "communications revolution" and "institutionalized globalization" which has swamped Pacific Islands. Television, movies, and videos are probably the main reasons why Pacific peoples, particularly our young, have become "couch potatoes," vicarious TV rugby pundits, knowing more about the environment and environmental challenges of trees and animals of other countries shown on the Discovery Channel than they know about the biological problems in their own island backyards. Youth no longer have the time or interest to share the wealth of information their elders may still have in their hearts and minds. This ethnobiodiversity and cultural heritage is irretrievably slipping away with each passing generation.

Action plan

We must place the highest priority on preserving ethno-biodiversity and its application to agroforestry and agrobiodiversity conservation and, more widely, to biodiversity conservation. To do this we urgently need to identify knowledgeable men and women, systematically collect and document this knowledge, and acknowledge these persons as strategic resources of national importance. To further these aims it would help to award scholarships, and training at degree and vocational levels for biodiversity conservation practitioners to be trained in both traditional and modern scientific modes. There's also a need to finance the recording and dissemination of ethnobiodiversity for use as a resource for both agroforestry development and agrobiodiversity conservation and to develop curriculum materials for use in local schools. We also need to insure foreign and non-local researchers are instructed to provide copies of all survey results, hopefully also in the vernacular, for local host communities where such studies are conducted. National legislation should require this information be given to host communities and lodged with appropriate local repositories.

Deforestation, forest degradation, agrodeforestation and loss of associated agrobiodiversity in our agroforestry systems are proceeding at frightening rates in the Pacific Islands and monocultural models are favoured. But there's great potential to reverse these trends. Through systematic protection and enrichment, rather than trying to replace Pacific Island agroforestry, agrobiodiversity and ethnobiodiversity systems, it should be possible to expand, strengthen, and adapt existing agroforestry systems and ethno-biodiversity to changing conditions in a more populous, rapidly urbanizing island world.

It will require education and re-education to foster the understanding of existing trees, agroforestry systems and ethnobiodiversity and to build identification programs to protect, replant, propagate, and distribute appropriate plants and materials. In this way, it should be possible to promote biodiversity conservation in the more humanized biodiversity "cool spots" as a foundation for sustainable development and cultural preservation. The tools are there in the trees and the dynamic existing traditional agroforestry systems, agrobiodiversity and ethnobiodiversity that have sustained the peoples of the Pacific Islands for thousands of years.

NOTES

(1.) Thaman, R.R. 1992b. Batiri kei Baravi: The ethnobotany of Pacific Island coastal plants. Atoll Research Bulletin 361:1-62.

(2.) Watling, D. 1985. A Mangrove management plan for Fiji. Phase 1. Zonation requirements and a plan for the mangroves of the Ba, Labasa and Rewa Deltas. Government Printer, Suva.

(3.) Lal, P.N., Swamy, A. and Singh, P. 1983. Mangroves and secondary productivity: Fishes associated with mangroves in Wairiki Creek, Fiji. In Lal, P.N. (ed.), Proceedings of an interdependent workshop, 24 February 1983, Suva, Fiji. Technical report 5. Fisheries Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Suva.

(4.) Thaman, R.R., Smith, A., Faka'osi, T. and Filiai, L. 1995. Tonga coastal reforestation and protection project. Pacific Islands Forests & Trees 3/95 (September): 8-10 and 2.

(5.) Thaman, R.R. 2004b. Sustaining culture and biodiversity in Pacific Islands with local and indigenous knowledge. Pacific Ecologist Autumn-Winter (7 & 8): 43-48.

(6.) Thaman, R.R. 2002a. Threats to Pacific biodiversity and biodiversity conservation in the Pacific Islands. In Thomas, P.M. (ed.), Environmental sustainability and poverty reduction: Pacific Issue. Special issue of Development Bulletin 58 (July): 23-27.

(7.) Thaman, R.R. 2004c. Trees of Life: Trees Outside Forests and Agroforestry as a Foundation for Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development in the Small Island States of the Pacific Islands.

(8.) Thaman, R. R. 2002b. Trees outside forests as a foundation for sustainable development in the Small Island Developing States of the Pacific Ocean. The International Forestry Review 4 (4)(December): 268-276

(9.) Thaman, R.R. 1989a. Agrodeforestation and agricultural development: The role of modern agricultural development in deforestation and the neglect of trees. In Haynes, R.J. and Naidu, R. (eds.), Agricultural development in the Pacific Islands in the 90s: Proceedings of an International Conference and Workshop held in Suva Fiji, March 31 to April 1, 1989. Fiji Institute of Agricultural Science, Chemical Society of the South Pacific and The University of the South Pacific, Suva. Pp. 124-134.

(10.) Thaman, R.R. 1989b. Agrodeforestation and the neglect of trees: Threat to the wellbeing of Pacific societies. SPREP Occasional Paper No. 5. South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, South Pacific Commission, Noumea.

(11.) Thaman, R.R. 1992a. Agrodeforestation as a major threat to sustainable development. Box 19.4 in Thistlethwaite, R. and Votaw, G., Environment and development: A Pacific Island perspective. Asian Development Bank, Manila and South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, Apia. Pp. 194-195.

(12.) Thaman, R.R. 1988b. Environmental issues in the Pacific Islands: Constraints to sustainable island development. Pacific Issues 1:1-77 (complete). Pacific Circle Consortium, Woden, Canberra, Australia.

(13.) Thaman, R.R. with input from Andrew Smith and Noah Idechong. 2002b. Island life in the 21st century: Current status and challenges for mainstreaming the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in the Pacific Island. Conference papers of 6th Pacific Islands Conference on Nature Conservation and Protected Areas, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, 8-12 July 2002 (Online and distributed to delegates in conference binders).

(14.) Coyne, T.(Badcock, J. and Taylor, R., eds.). 1984. The effect of urbanization and western diet on the health of Pacific island populations. Technical paper no. 186. South Pacific Commission, Noumea.

(15.) Thaman, R.R. 1988c. Health and Nutrition in the Pacific Islands: Development or Underdevelopment. GeoJournal 16(2):211-227.

(16.) Parkinson, S.V. 1982. Nutrition in the south Pacific--Past and present. Journal of Food and Nutrition 39(3):121-125.

(17.) Thaman, R.R. 1982a. Deterioration of traditional food systems, increasing malnutrition and food dependency in the Pacific Islands. Journal of Food and Nutrition 39(3):109-121.

(18.) Thaman, R.R. 1982b. The foods that came first. Alafua Agricultural Bulletin 7(3):105-116.

(19.) Thaman, R.R. 1990a. Coastal reforestation and coastal agroforestry as strategies to address global warming and to promote sustainable development in the Pacific Islands. In Hughes, P.J. and McGregor, G. (eds.), Global warming-related effects on agriculture and human health and comfort in the South Pacific. South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), Noumea and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi. Pp. 65-84.

(20.) Thaman, R.R. 1993a. Climate change, forestry and agroforestry in the Pacific Islands: Impacts and appropriate responses. In Hay, J.E. and Kaluwin, C. (eds.), Climate change and sea level rise in the South Pacific Region: Proceedings of the Second SPREP Meeting, Noumea, New Caledonia, 6-10 April 1992. South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, Apia, Western Samoa. Pp. 119-136.

(21.) Thaman, R.R. 1994. Land, plants, animals and people: Community-based biodiversity conservation (CBBC) as a basis for ecological, cultural and economic survival in the Pacific Islands. Pacific Science Association Information Bulletin 46 (1-2):1-15.

R.R. Thaman is Professor of Pacific Islands Biogeography at the University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji Islands. This article is part two of a two-part article abridged by Pacific Ecologist editor Kay Weir from a paper, titled Pacific Island Agroforestry, Agrobiodiversity and Ethnobiodiversity Under Threat: the Need for Conservation, Enrichment and Sustainable Use.