FAO Forestry country profiles - forest management

History

Forest management and silviculture

The oldest evidence of settlements in Vanuatu date back at least 4 000 years. Traditional forest management in Vanuatu reflects the country¿s Melanesian cultural origins, with areas of forest (particularly in coastal areas) integrated into shifting cultivation agricultural systems. European interest in Vanuatu¿s forests was initiated by the discovery of sandalwood on Tanna island in 1825. This led to the development of an extensive trade in sandalwood, which eventually exhausted the resource and had devastating impacts on ni-Vanuatu communities. In 1887, Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides) was placed under the administration of a joint British-French Commission, and during this period large tracts of forests were cleared by colonial planters. Post World War II, kauri (Agathis macrophylla) logs were harvested and exported from the islands of Aneityum and Erromango. In the late 1960s the Nagriamel movement was established with an aim to obtaining rights to the ¿dark bush¿, the land alienated by Europeans but never developed. Nagriamel, the National United Party, evolved into an independence movement, and this objective was achieved in 1980. All alienated land was repossessed after independence and a system of leasing was introduced. Around 80 percent of Vanuatu¿s population still lives in rural villages, where subsistence agriculture based around shifting cultivation is the principal means of livelihood.