FAO Forestry country profiles - forest management

History

Forest management and silviculture

The island of Niue is believed to have been inhabited for more than 1000 years. The first migrants probably originated from Samoa or Tonga. Traditional land management (encompassing forests) largely comprised shifting cultivation, which depleted soils and converted much of the island's forest cover into fern-scrub or secondary forest. A small patch of limestone forest in the Huvalu Tapu area has, however, been protected under customary law since pre-European times, largely because tapu land is considered sacred. More recently, it has been declared a forest conservation area.