MS1
Suliana Siwatibau 1
Pacific islanders developed a diversity of cultures as they adapted to the wide variety of forest types that clothed the islands. These forests have important commercial and non-commercial roles. Many local communities continue to rely on forests and trees for subsistence needs, and maintenance of cultures. Official institutions recognize the importance of native forests and trees but fail to take effective action to promote sustainable use. Demands on forest land for agriculture and other needs of growing populations result in rapid deforestation that threatens associated cultures. As forest diversity decreases, so do local cultures of human communities that become increasingly drawn into the global economy with loss of distinctive identity. Forest and tree conservation is urgently required in order to meet human needs and enrich human culture in the future.
Indigenous islanders settled this oceanic region from as early as 20,000 BC. Through generations they accumulated knowledge of and adapted well to the cycles and peculiarities of their natural surroundings, extracting from them to meet their survival needs. They were largely self-sufficient with some trading. Many species useful to island communities are native, but waves of human settlers introduced exotic species that have become important components of the indigenous communities' current forest and agroforestry systems. Modernization has wrought rapid changes, including deforestation and erosion of people's knowledge of nature, together with decreasing respect for their relationships with it.
This paper describes the various important roles of forests and trees for island communities, and analyses changes that have taken place through time and space in relationships between human cultures and forests. It argues that loss of certain forest types has a significant impact on associated human cultures. The paper ends with a vision to strive for in the coming decades.
Native forests
The richly forested nations of Melanesia (Papua New Guinea [PNG], Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu) are net log/timber exporters where the forestry sector is a significant contributor to the national economy. Medium-forested countries (New Caledonia, Samoa, Tonga, French Polynesia, Niue) are net importers. The temptation of quick returns to landowners and government, the prevalence of transfer pricing accruing high profit margins to loggers, and poorly resourced forestry management units, all resulted in unsustainable harvest and destructive logging practices. In response, government forestry authorities of the region began to review forestry policies, and develop a code of logging practice for national adoption. Given entrenched bad practices and widespread corruption, both the policy and the code may take several years and much political will to be successfully implemented.
By world standards, the island resources are miniscule. PNG, with the largest forest resource, accounts for only 1.5% of the world's tropical forests (CSIRO, 1992). However, the rich biodiversity and high rates of endemism increase concerns over the rapid rate of deforestation ranging from 0.7% (Fiji) to 3.5% (Samoa). This compares to 0.6% for Brazil, 1.0% for Indonesia and 2.0% for Malaysia (World Bank, 1995).
High exploitation is driven by governments' desire to maximize employment, gross domestic product, revenue and export income; and by corrupt deals between individual landowner leaders and aggressive logging companies. Landowning communities are persuaded with promises for development. Most times, they are much worse off after logging than before. Landowners' shares of returns from forest harvests range from about 10% to 16%. Governments' shares range from less than 10% to about 30%. Excess logging profits for the companies are around 30% (World Bank, 1995)
Pacific communities are still largely rural, living in mixed subsistence-cash economies. Much of the forest destruction is clearing for subsistence gardens. Where native landowners have forest resources, logging is an easy source of cash. Selective logging of indigenous forests results in degradation rather than destruction. It is assumed that if the logging cycle is long enough, harvests can be sustainable. Unfortunately, island countries are harvesting beyond sustainable levels or have allocated licences at unsustainable extraction rates (Heads of Forestry Meeting, 2003). Forest regeneration is generally weak.
Through concerns for sustainability, some success has been achieved in ecotimber production and fair trading, which bring better returns to landowners. Official forestry authorities at national and regional levels are challenged by the competing demands on limited land of forests and alternative uses. Increasing populations stretch the supply of services from dwindling forests that have to remain healthy in order that both humans and forests may co-exist sustainably
Plantation forests
Given weak regeneration and the customary ownership of most forest land by small units, government forestry authorities have focused on developing plantation forests of largely exotic trees for future commercial wood sources. Communities within or around these forests have developed an associated culture that differs with the dominant species. In smaller islands, extensive coconut plantations have replaced native strand forests. Where plantation forests have replaced grasslands, local communities claim extra benefits of increased soil productivity, increased wildlife, and growth of useful native and exotic understorey plants.
Interplanting exotic species in native forest degrades the latter through decreased biodiversity, which has an impact on its vital role in the informal economy of local communities. Native forests have the potential to earn more cash through non-timber forest products.
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs)
There is increasing though insufficient, official attention to NTFPs. Recent developments in commercial production of edible nuts, herbal medicines, butterfly farming and local handicrafts have sometimes resulted from projects on conservation run by non-governmental organizations, which reflect increasing concerns over the rapid depletion of native forests. Some wild fruits and nuts are currently traded and show potential for further commercialization. Nutritional analysis of these nuts shows favourable results (McGregor, 2000).
Food and fodder
Wildlife and freshwater fisheries are protein food sources from forests. Forest plants provide a wide variety of food items that are especially useful during famines.
A five-village case study of community use of forests in Fiji (Siwatibau, 1992) indicates a heavy reliance on forests for food needs. Some 66% of the men of 15 years and older go hunting regularly for wild pigs, wild cattle, bats, ducks and pigeons to meet subsistence needs. Some 40% of the men and 92% of women go fishing regularly in forest streams and rivers, while all of them go collecting plant parts for food and other uses. Since 1992, unemployment levels have soared and poverty levels doubled. The subsistence sector has had to absorb many of the unemployed, increasing demand on forest food sources.
This role of forests is echoed to varying degrees in many other countries. Inland forests nurture wild game and freshwater fish, coastal and mangrove forests provide habitat for crabs, land lobsters, shellfish and other small fish of vital importance to coastal and atoll communities. Mangrove fisheries are often commercially important, which leads to overexploitation. Concern about this has led to community-based conservation efforts such as for the coconut crab, a delicacy, in Vanuatu (Whyte et al., 1998). While local communities know the vital role of forests as a source of animal protein, there is inadequate official recording and quantification of this important role.
Documentation by official forestry authorities (Pacific Sub-Regional Workshop, 1999) showed that very important timber tree species often have multiple uses, including food and fodder. Table 1 below shows these to range from 8% to 46% of such species. Several important forest food plants are cultivated in customary agroforestry systems, sometimes having been subjected to intensive type selection. Some are traded in local markets.
Table 1 - Summary of uses of the most important indigenous tree species in each country
Country |
Food Fodder |
Medicine |
Con-struction |
Custom Crafts |
Firewood |
Services |
Other uses |
Total species listed* |
Amer. Samoa |
10 |
10 |
31 |
45 |
17 |
76 |
5 |
42 |
Cook Islands |
29 |
57 |
64 |
57 |
64 |
43 |
7 |
14 |
FSM** |
11 |
5 |
5 |
58 |
11 |
32 |
11 |
19 |
French Polynesia |
22 |
20 |
42 |
42 |
6 |
- |
2 |
50 |
Guam |
44 |
6 |
50 |
44 |
31 |
100 |
- |
16 |
PNG |
28 |
2 |
96 |
34 |
90 |
96 |
- |
50 |
Samoa |
8 |
8 |
96 |
16 |
24 |
24 |
- |
25 |
Solomon Islands |
46 |
48 |
86 |
68 |
78 |
82 |
12 |
50 |
Tonga |
26 |
50 |
78 |
88 |
66 |
74 |
20 |
50 |
Vanuatu |
44 |
4 |
98 |
52 |
74 |
70 |
8 |
50 |
| * Up to 50. ** Federated States of Micronesia Source: Extracted from individual country reports at the Pacific Sub-Regional Workshop on forest and tree genetic resources, Apia, April 12-16, 1999. |
Medicines
Medicines remain an important need that forests meet despite the widespread influence of the modern health system. Pacific peoples consult both modern and native systems using customary medicine to supplement modern prescriptions. Little documentation exists on the frequency of use of each system. Customary healers use the forests as a living pharmacy, making concoctions from fresh plant parts.
Other uses
Forests provide round poles for construction and other wood uses, such as for canoes, craft and fuel. A large majority of rural dwellers cook all their meals with wood. Table 1 shows that from 6 to 90% of very important indigenous tree species are also good fuelwood sources. Non-wood uses include thatch, rope, insecticide, preservative and decorations. The table shows that a range of 5 to 98% of the most important indigenous tree species in various countries are used for construction, while other wood uses range from 16 to 88%.
Native style houses require round poles and thatch. Where forest sources have become scarce, trees for these are planted or protected (Thistlewaite, 1990; Siwatibau et al., 1998) and are sometimes important sources of income. Over generations, native builders have selected a wide variety of plants for specific components of houses, tools, canoes or other construction items. As forests contract, diversity decreases and sources for specific needs become scarce or disappear. Preserving diversity is vital for ensuring supplies to meet different needs. A survey of useful species of forest plants in Vanuatu showed some 136 different species used for house construction alone, while some 52 species are used for canoes, 37 species for tools, and 47 species for weapons and traps (Curry, 1995). Modern housing is replacing native housing in many rural communities, often through necessity as forest supplies dwindle.
Spiritual value
The important spiritual value of forests for many Pacific communities is little recorded. Special areas of forests are considered sacred because of their situation and use, or their association with some totem animals, or special spirit beings. As long as the sanctity of an area or a species is recognized, it is a powerful guarantee of conservation.
Integration in the global economy has widened gaps between rapidly growing urban communities and slower growing rural populations in Pacific countries. Unemployment has increased in the last two decades as a result of slowing economies. The rural subsistence sector has absorbed many of the unemployed so that demand on natural resources for subsistence needs is more intense. Dependence on global trade requires cash. The exploitation of natural resources for cash income is more severe when urban to rural migration takes place.
This paper has itemized the use local communities make of forests for a wide range of subsistence needs. They have developed distinctive cultures whose features include:
This paper focuses on the relationships of some Pacific human cultures and forest types on each other. These vary along a spectrum. At one extreme the human culture is quite dependent on the existence of a forest type, which in turn is independent of the human culture. Here the human community concerned passively undergoes change when the forest it depends on is destroyed through destructive logging or large-scale clearing by external agencies. Further along the spectrum, different degrees of interdependence between forest types and human cultural groups exist. These human groups actively adapt to and shape change. At the other extreme, the existence of a forest type or complex of forest types is entirely dependent on a given human culture. The spectrum reflects different degrees of exposure and adaptation to the wider world. Examples of these varying degrees of human/forest dependence associations are explained below.
Some forest communities, which are little exposed to the outside world, remain largely hunting and gathering with a culture that is well adapted to and dependent on forests for survival. This dependence is not understood and often ignored by external decision-makers, such as government authorities and operators like commercial loggers, so that the human culture involved becomes a victim just as much the forest that is degraded or destroyed. A study of a concession in PNG (Brunois, 1998) illustrates this process. It showed that in each 10 000 m2 of logged forest, some 119 trees of 65 non-commercial tree species were destroyed. Of these species, some 98% were used for animal feed, 89% for construction, 42% for food, 15% for medicine, 25% for hunting implements, 22% for rituals and 55% for crafts. A tribal member requested the study because the tribe believed that:
"the forest is an entity, a true ecosystem in which all the species are in close interdependent relationship guaranteeing its regeneration. The eradication of a species would inevitably lead to the collapse of this system and hence [imperil] their own existence."
Human communities in primary forests that undergo extensive clearing for logging or other development purposes are seriously affected as passive participants. They have little opportunity to determine the direction of change for their culture and flounder when suddenly exposed to the cash economy of a globalized world.
Communities in subsistence agriculture are further along the spectrum of forest/human dependence. The technology for subsistence agriculture is an integral component of the local culture developed over generations. This involves shifting garden sites after three or four years, burning to clear new sites, and leaving abandoned sites in fallow for some five to ten years. Fast-growing secondary forest trees dominate the fallow area, which for some years become a source of medicine, fuel, poles, food and other human needs (Thistlewaite, 1990). This secondary vegetation may be consciously shaped through selective nurturing of major useful trees that include both native and exotic species.
In such systems, people are active agents of change, deliberately choosing tree components of their agroforestry systems and wildlings they would allow to survive in the fallow areas for specific needs (Siwatibau et al., 1998). Their subsistence needs are met not only from their gardens, but also from the secondary forests, primary forests and aquatic sources. They maintain a balance between the complex of ecological systems and their culture using knowledge accumulated over generations and transmitted through practical application and oral tradition. Any major perturbations result in destruction of one or more components. In the past this occurred when human populations increased rapidly, and pressure on land necessitated shorter fallow periods. Such contraction of the traditional farming cycle resulted in poor grasslands and complete loss of forests, as fallow periods that were too short prevented secondary forests from developing and primary forests with more fertile soils were aggressively cleared for gardens. Human cultures dependent on both kinds of forests lost much of the knowledge and the uses of components of the forests concerned. The culture and forests associated with this kind of agricultural system are now threatened as subsistence agricultural practices are modified through adoption of cash-cropping culture with its own technology.
In mixed subsistence-cash cropping communities, cash cropping interferes with the traditional practice of abandoning a garden area to fallow. The cycle of clearing, cultivation and fallow over the same area is replaced by new clearing of primary forests every year as permanent cash tree plantations take over previous garden lands. Cash cropping also changes the daily habits of people who begin to meet some subsistence needs from the shop rather than from the forest or sea. This change progressively results in a modification of culture of local peoples, loss of knowledge associated with the use of wild species and a concomitant disappearance of the system of secondary forests. Through cash earnings and participation in export trade, such communities increasingly integrate with and depend on the wider world.
Very few island communities exist at the extreme end of the spectrum in plantations deliberately maintained by humans. These communities are mostly migrant settlers, earning low wages and surviving largely on traded goods for their survival needs. They and the forests they are associated with are components of the modern tree cash-cropping culture that sustains the plantation forest maintained for global trade.
These progressive changes in human cultures with decreasing dependence on forests accompany changes in value systems that are unfortunately detrimental to the survival of forests and of human societies in the long run. The semi-nomadic PNG tribe who were concerned about destructive logging had a deep respect for the forest, and this was integral to a belief system that asserts a spiritual as well as an ecological role for the forests that meet almost all if not all human survival needs. The more settled subsistence agricultural communities creating secondary forests, which meet much of their forest-related needs, had become less dependent on primary forests and lost some of the respect and spiritual connection that the forest dwellers have. With the arrival of modern goods and services, aspirations for modern lifestyle necessitate cash income for trade. Cash values of forests and land resources dominate decisions on use, with decreasing dependence on natural resources for meeting basic human needs.
Pacific communities' relationships with their forests have progressed from a passive role in forest changes through various degrees of active influence. At each major change, human needs are met in new ways as special features of human culture evolve to adapt to new conditions. This process could be actively designed, not only in the Pacific islands but elsewhere, to shape future human/forest associations that enable greater benefits to be gained from forests that maintain their diversity through being used sustainably. Such use would include timber and NTFP production for cash. Effective action is needed to ensure that vulnerable island forests are sustained into the future taking into account the subsistence and cultural needs of local communities and their special relationships to their land and forests. As this special relationship is lost, so are important aspects of their culture and identity. Pacific nations, and others in a similar situation, should act now to establish nationwide representative forest conservation areas maintained and managed sustainably by local communities. These could develop in the next decade as centres for education and research on local cultures, as well as on forest use and conservation. They should be supported internationally. As biodiversity feeds natural evolution, so cultural diversity feeds cultural evolution - a necessity for human survival in a changing world.
Brunois, F. 1998. A forest concession revised and revisited. APFT News, Sept. 1998, pp. 13-15.
CSIRO. 1992. A blueprint for sustainable use of PNG's forests. Canberra, Australia.
Curry, P. 1995. The Department Of Forests Genetic Database. Dept of Forests, Government of Vanuatu.
Heads of Forestry Meeting. 2003. Nadi Fiji, May 2003, SPC Regional Forestry Programme.
McGregor, A. 2000. Land use profile: Tree nuts. Vanuatu Land Use Planning Project, Land Use Planning Office, Government of Vanuatu.
Pacific Sub-Regional Workshop on Forest and Tree Genetic Resources. 12-16 April, 1999. FAO, SPC, AusAID.
Siwatibau, S. 1992. Other forest products in Fiji. Fiji German Forestry Project Technical Report No.14. GTZ.
Siwatibau, S., Bani, C. & Kalotap, J. 1998. A community forestry survey of over twenty rural communities in Vanuatu for nineteen selected tree species. Vanuatu, A report to the SPRIG Project.
Thistlewaite, R. J. 1990. Vanuatu national forest resource survey - Phase 1 of an assignment on community forestry. Report prepared for the Queensland Forest Service. unpublished.
World Bank. June 1995. Pacific Island economies: Sustainable development of forestry.
Whyte, J., Siwatibau, S., Tapisuwe, A., Kalotap, J. & Fraser T. November, 1998. Participatory resource management in Vanuatu: Research report. An FSPI project for ACIAR.
1 Community development consultant, P O Box 4641, Samabula, Suva, Fiji. [email protected]