FAO Forestry country profiles - forest management

History

Forest management and silviculture

The nine coral atolls that comprise Tuvalu have a total land area of 26 km², with none rising more than 5 metres above sea level. Tuvaluans are of Polynesian descent, with their ancestors believed to have arrived from Tonga and Samoa early in the 14th century. Traditional forest management techniques reflect these Polynesian origins, with forests incorporated in agroforestry systems, producing a range of goods to support livelihoods. In 1892, the islands became part of the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands protectorate, and in 1916, a formal British colony. In 1974, the Polynesian Ellice Islanders voted to separate from the Micronesian Gilbertese. The country attained independence in 1978, reverting to the pre-colonial name of Tuvalu (¿eight standing together¿). Tuvalu has poor atoll soils and few remaining tracts of strand forest. Coconut palms grow in abundance across all the islands, and provide a canopy and basis for subsistence agro-forestry systems that vary little from those utilized through the past six centuries.