Contents - Previous - Next
This is the old United Nations University website. Visit the new site at http://unu.edu
Because the imminent demise or depletion of commercially usable natural forests can be so readily foreseen in many Pacific Island countries (Watt 1980, 297), governments and development agencies have in several places promoted either some form of restocking or enrichment of commercially logged areas or the establishment of forest plantations on degraded grassland sites. Not all these efforts can be classified as agroforestry, strictly speaking; but in the Pacific context, as in most of the tropical world, the traditional, if transient, shift of land use back and forth between forest and agriculture on any particular site makes it relevant to consider what at first glance appear to be purely forestry projects.
Many of the timber species institutionally promoted have been exotics such as Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea), West Indian mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), cordia (Cordia alliodora), and Eucalytus spp., although some indigenous Pacific species such as Albizia falcataria, Agathis spp., Araucaria spp., and Endospermum spp. have been successfully established, often as exotics in areas beyond their natural range. Many other species - including West Indian cedar (Cedrela odorata), the silky oak (Grevillea robusta), teak (Tectona grandis), mahogany (Swietenia mahogoni), toon tree ( Toona australis), cadamba (Anthocephalus chinensis), and Albizia lebbeck along with several indigenous trees - have also been the subject of trials, and planted to various degrees throughout the islands.
Firewood and multi-purpose species that have been successfully introduced include Leucaena leucocephala, Erythrina spp., Casuarina spp., and Gliricidia septum, and, to a lesser extent, Securinega samoana and Adenanthera pavonina. Other species, all of which have been planted experimentally and which seem to grow successfully, but which have not yet become so well established, include Cassia, Acacia, and Calliandra spp. Apart from timber and fuel wood, the major multi-purpose objectives of such plantings are site reclamation and amelioration, erosion control, wind protection, shade, multipurpose construction and handicrafts, nurse cropping, fodder, green manure, and food.
The indigenous casuarinas, particularly Casuarina equisetifolia, have also shown considerable promise for reforestation programmes, and have been planted in Tonga in land reclamation projects, in the Cook Islands for the rehabilitation of degraded lands, and on atolls as sources of fuel wood and to protect coconut plantations from saltwater damage. C. oligodon and C. papuana are traditionally used for reforestation and to enrich fallow land in Papua New Guinea, and are now promoted in some areas for land rehabilitation and as shade plants for coffee.
Pine planting in relation to agroforestry
Of the total area of timber plantations in the Pacific, well over 50 per cent is accounted for by Caribbean pine (Pinus caribaea). The largest area of pine planting is in Fiji, where that country's Pine Commission together with the Forestry Department has established over 50,000 ha of plantation since 1960, mostly on degraded anthropogenic grasslands (Drysdale 1988a, 110; Watt 1980, 301). Some pine timber is used locally, but the wood was intended mainly for export, and a wood-chipping mill is now in operation. In the mid1960s, under a programme now discontinued, woodlots of Pinus caribaea on smallholder sugar-cane farms were promoted by the colonial government.
Sized from 0.4 to 2 ha, these woodlots were planted on steeper non-cane areas of farms to control erosion, provide on-farm supplies of timber and fuel wood, and for undergrazing by farm animals (Eaton 1988b, personal communication). Apart from this woodlot grazing and grazing of cattle in association with larger pine plantations (described below), there has been no institutional support for any form of intercropping or other agroforestry activities in pine plantations (Drysdale 1988b).
Similarly, in the limited areas of pine planting in New Caledonia, Western Samoa, Tonga, and the Cook Islands, there has been little or no link to agroforestry in such programmes, with the main focus being on creating a timber resource, land improvement, erosion control, and employment creation in rural areas.
In highland Papua New Guinea large areas of degraded grassland have been planted with pines (Pinus spp.) and Araucaria spp. Intercropping activities are few and consist of the intercropping of coffee and cardamon on a trial and demonstration basis (Howcroft 1983).
In Vanuatu, P. caribaea var. hondurensis is the main species planted in forest plantations in seasonally dry and highly degraded sites on the southern islands of Aneityum and Erromango, where some 550 ha had been established up to April 1985. The commercial viability of such plantings is still uncertain, however, due to poor access to markets and high transport costs. On Erromango, high costs of clearing land of the indigenous pioneering species Acacia spirobis has stopped the development of pine plantations. Benefits in the form of erosion control and aiding the local economy through wages were the main motives behind these programmes (Neil 1986a).
Non-pine forestry in relation to agroforestry
To judge from programmes in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga, and Western Samoa, there seems to be greater promise and greater institutionalized promotion of intercropping with other, primarily broadleaved evergreen, species than has been the case with pines.
In Papua New Guinea, where extensive areas of Eucalyptus deglupta have been planted, cocoa and coffee have been successfully grown at 4 m x 4 m and 3 m x 3 m spacing, respectively, in conjunction with E. deglupta planted at 10 m x 10 m (Jacovelli and Neil 1984, 10).
Also in Papua New Guinea, severe environmental degradation resulting from rapid urban expansion and associated subsistence gardening and "fuel-wood mining" prompted the cities of Lae and Port Moresby to institute fuel-wood-planting programmes. In Lae, in 1978, it was decided to plant 200 ha of sloping land (20°-30°) in Leucaena leucocephala for firewood and to intercrop fuel-wood species with annual food crops in zones designated for subsistence food gardening. The project, which was allocated K250,000 (US$275,000) over six years, had a management component coupled with a public education programme and a team of local government rangers to control gardening and to police the area (King 1987). Follow-on projects were planned but not carried out because of lack of funding. By 1988 the project had ceased to operate, and the original plantings of some 100 ha of L. Ieucocephala, Acacia auriculformis, and Eucalyptus spp. and 5 ha of "agroforestry plantings" of fuel-wood species with food crops had been cut down or removed completely (King 1987).
In Vanuatu, Cordia alliodora, a hardwood native to Central America, has been the main commercial silvicultural species since the mid-1970s, with over 1,000 ha planted on 12 islands as of 1984 (Neil 1984). Cordia was first planted on various islands in 5-10-ha blocks called Local Supply Plantations (LSP). As the potential contribution of forestry to rural and national development became evident, larger, export-oriented Industrial Forest Plantations (IFP) were established on the islands of Pentecost, Erromango, and Aneityum (Jacovelli and Neil 1984). The rapid expansion of IFPs, sometimes with plantings of up to 200 ha per year on single sites, led to unprecedented demands for land and aroused fears among landowners, especially on Pentecost, that these silvicultural activities would make land unavailable for planting subsistence and commercial crops. This prompted the Vanuatu Forest Service to establish, on Pentecost in 1984, demonstration plots growing a wider range of subsistence and cash crops within forestry plantations of Cordia alliodora (Jacovelli and Neil 1984).
Crops established between line plantings of Cordia alliodora included 8 sweet potato cultivars, 6 cassava cultivars, 13 aroid cultivars from Colocasia esculenta, Xanthosoma sagittifolium, and Alocasia macrorrhiza, 12 yam cultivars, kava (Piper methysticum), and trials with coffee (Arabica and Robusta), cocoa, and cardamon. In addition to these trials, subsistence gardens have also been established under Cordia alliodora by both local landowners and forest workers alike (Jacovelli and Neil 1984, 8).
Because C. alliodora may be severely attacked by root rot (Phelli nus noxius) in some conditions, and does not perform well on some sites, other species currently being tried in Vanuatu include Terminalia brassii, T. calamansanai, Eucalyptus deglupta, Swietenia macrophylla, Toona australis, and Cedrela odorata. However, the barks of both T. brassii and E. deglupta are palatable to cattle (Jacovelli and Neil 1984, 10; MacFarlane 1980). The species showing greatest potential as an alternative species to C. alliodora may be S. macrophylla, and if grown with nurse species to reduce pest problems, intercropping should be possible during the early years of rotation (Neil 1986b).
Several other systematic experiments on tree species, both exotic and indigenous, have been carried out in Vanuatu in a search for species especially suitable for fuel wood, timber, or pulpwood, but none of this research was connected with agroforestry. Research on agroforestry has focused almost exclusively on "cash crops which appear to have great potential, particularly coffee and cocoa, and possibly kava and cocoa" (Jacovelli and Neil 1984, 11).
In Fiji, some 22,953 ha of tropical hardwood forests have been planted as of mid-1986. Of these, 14,987 ha are West Indian mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), 3,058 ha are Cordia alliodora, 2,963 ha are cadamba (Anthocephalus chinensis), 928 ha are Maesopsis eminii, 438 ha are Eucalyptus deglupta, and 202 ha are the indigenous species Endospermum macrophyllum (ADAB 1986). Despite such considerable silvicultural activity, in terms of both hardwood and pines, it is essentially monocultural, and, as the General Manager of the Fiji Pine Commission has stated: "Institutionalized agrosilviculture is non-existent in Fiji at present" (Drysdale 1988b, personal communication).
Tonga's silvicultural activities are more diverse, some being significantly agrosilvicultural. More purely silvicultural activities include a major reforestation programme begun on the island of Eua in the mid-1960s. Over 40 ha of mixed exotic species including Toona australis, Cedrela odorata, Cordia alliodora, Grevillea robusta, Agathis robusta, Pinus caribaea, and Eucalyptus spp., as well as suitable indigenous species, such as Casuarina equisetifolia, Terminalia catappa, and Dysoxylum tongense, were planted on the Eua Forest Farm. Tests of seed stock from throughout the world were also carried out on the farm. Larger areas were subsequently planted, with 104 ha alone being planted in 1979 (Thaman 1984e, 3).
The species most commonly planted in 1984 were Eucalyptus saligna, E. tereticornis, Toona australis, and Pinus caribaea. Seedling pro auction for these species and other timber species, such as Cupressus lusitanica, amounted to 77,491 seedlings (42,427 of which were planted) in 1979 (MAFF 1985, 100-102). Reforestation continues, as the small areas of remaining indigenous forest on Eua are exploited, with the local mill "approaching the end of its productive life as the local hardwood timber supply is cut out and cannot be replaced from the Forest Farm for at least another 10 years" (MAFF 1985, 99). The only truly agroforestry aspect of the Eua silvicultural activities, a taungya system of combined tree-planting and temporary gardens, was phased out because "it has greatly increased pressures for settlement of unsuitable land, and is thus clearly not in the national interest" (MAFF 1985, 100).
A second and continuing agroforestry activity has been the Forestry Extension Programme, which began in the 1960s to produce seedlings for distribution to smallholder farmers for planting in small woodlots or as windbreaks around their agricultural allotments (see chapter 5 on Tongan agroforestry). The major species distributed included Casuarina equisetifolia, Grevillea robusta, Cedrela odorata, Eucalyptus spp., Agathis spp., and Gmelina arborea (Thaman 1984e, 3).
With the establishment of the Extension Nursery at Mataliku on the main island of Tongatapu in 1978, the programme was expanded to include the propagation and distribution of a wide range of timber trees, "cultural" species, and species providing food, medicine, and ornamentation. The considerable interest shown by the people for planting on both rural and town allotments led to a "blossoming of forest extension work" to the point that, in 1978, the nursery could not cope with the demand, which exceeded 8,000 trees per month (MAFF 1979, 99).
According to programme records, as of 1984, at least 155 species had been tested and/or propagated for distribution on Eua and Tongatapu. Of these, 66 were timber species, 45 ornamentals, 32 "cultural" plants of particular importance to the Tongan society, 11 food plants, 6 plants used for coastal protection or land reclamation, 4 for living fences or hedgerows, 3 medicinal plants, and 2 each for windbreaks and firewood. Among the most popular nontimber species were Casuarina equisetifolia (planted as an ornamental, living fence, or wind-break); culturally important sacred or fragrant plants, known locally as akau kakala, such as heilala (Garcinia sessilis), langakali (Aglaia saltatorum), sandalwood, or ahi (Santalum yasi), pua (Fagraea berteriana), pipi (Parinari glaberrima), huni (Phalaria disperma), perfume tree, or mohokoi (Cananga odorata), allspice (Pimenta doica), and Pandanus cultivars; fruit-trees, such as mango, Malay apple (Syzygium malaccense), and macadamia nut (Macadamia integrifolia); and ornamental or shade plants, such as flamboyant, or poinciana (Delonix regia), hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis), Cordyline fruticosa, copperleaf, or beefsteak, plant (Acalypha amentacea), bougainvillea (Bougainvillea spp.), poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima), gardenia (Gardenia spp.), and the hedge panaxes (Polyscias spp.) (Thaman 1984e).
The final major area of activity has been the testing and establishment of trees for land reclamation, such as the project to rehabilitate low-lying areas at Sopu to the west of the capital of Nuku'alofa on Tongatapu. Reclamation work at Sopu began in the 1960s, with the planting of Casuarina equisetifolia to stabilize the area, and has continued to the present with extensive plantings of Lumnitzera littorea, Rhizophora mangle, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Xylocarpus granatum, and other selected species. As recently as 1980, 6 acres of Lumnitzera littorea, 4 acres of Terminalia catappa, and 3 acres of Queensland kauri (Agathis robusta) were planted. The vegetation has reportedly been well-established, with the operation becoming more maintenance than reclamation.
Grazing, usually of cattle, with commercial tree cropping and silviculture consists mainly of the widespread practice of grazing cattle under coconuts or commercial timber species, and the limited grazing of cattle under Leucaena leucocephala or other fuel-wood or multipurpose species.
Livestock under coconuts
The grazing of cattle (primarily beef, but also dairy cattle) under coconuts (in some cases with pasture improvement) is by far the most widespread practice. It has been encouraged throughout the Islands since colonial times, particularly on large coconut estates. In addition to providing meat and dairy products, cattle are seen as effective weed control and fertilization agents, thus facilitating plantation management and the collection of fallen nuts.
Although primarily promoted on large, often foreign or state controlled estates or plantations, some governments, such as those in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Niue, have encouraged smallholder grazing of cattle under coconuts and other trees. In the case of Tonga, smallholder agriculturalists have been encouraged to fence limited portions of their 3.3 ha bush allotments to graze cattle, and sometimes horses, under coconuts and other tree crops and protected trees, or, alternatively, to tether animals to trees and graze on a rotational basis.
The practice has been particularly important in Vanuatu (both before and after independence in 1980) and New Caledonia, where beef cattle production is a major activity. Beef cattle production became so important in Vanuatu, prior to independence, that some plantations were turned into cattle properties. The importance of cattle grew in the 1950s, when steeply rising labour costs made planters increasingly dependent on cattle to keep their plantations clean. At one period in the 1950s, herds became larger than the plantations could support, especially during dry spells, and by the end of the decade, town butcheries had opened in both Port Vila and Luganville, the two main towns. By the end of the 1960s, copra production had become no more than a sideline on a number of plantations (Brookfield with Hart 1971, 164165).
In Fiji, in 1973, 10.5 per cent of the local beef requirements were supplied by the 9.9 per cent of the cattle population grazed under coconuts (MAF 1973; Manner 1983). This is particularly significant given the large proportion of range-fed cattle raised on extensive large-scale developments in the dry zones of Fiji. Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia in Melanesia, and Western Samoa and French Polynesia have also actively encouraged cattle under coconuts with trials having been conducted on optimum stocking rates and pasture improvement. Much of the Western Samoa Trust Estates (WSTEC) Mulifanua Copra Plantation, reportedly one of the largest copra plantations in the world (Carter 1984), is undergrazed by cattle.
The potential for the formal promotion of large-scale grazing of cattle under coconuts is greatest on the larger islands of Melanesia and Polynesia. On smaller islands, such as those in Tonga and the Cook Islands, where high population densities and land scarcity make more extensive agrosilvipastoral developments less relevant, small-scale rotational undergrazing of tethered animals is more appropriate. In Nine, where population density is low because of emigration to New Zealand, there have been problems of overgrazing and lack of fodder during times of drought- for example, during the severe drought of 1977-1978, when hay had to be imported from New Zealand.
Richardson (1983, 59) cautions that grazing under coconuts can create problems of soil compaction and, especially in the case of free grazing, preclude intercropping, which should take precedence in areas with limited land resources. As shown by studies in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere, smallholder beef cattle production can have harmful impacts on subsistence cropping (Grossman 1981). Where cash cropping or subsistence production is feasible, Richardson (1983, 59) argues that intercropping should take precedence over grazing under coconuts.
Cattle under timber species
The grazing of cattle under commercial timber species has been actively promoted in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji. In Papua New Guinea, reforestation projects in both the highlands and lowlands offer opportunities for beef production, and cattle have been actively promoted to control weeds and reduce fire danger by consuming the fuel. Pinus caribaea planting has also been encouraged in order to provide shade for cattle in open grasslands (Watt 1980, 308). The introduction of pasture legumes into timber plantations and surrounding areas has also been actively encouraged, and the development of pastures, followed by grazing, has been more or less standard practice in a number of forest plantations in Papua New Guinea, where klinki and hoop pine (Araucaria spp.), Pinus caribaea, and Eucalyptus spp. are grown. Government forest plantations are made available to local Braziers who establish adequate fencing and pastures and follow acceptable range management and stocking practices (Howcroft 1974; 1983).
In the Solomon Islands, where there is a "Cattle Under Trees" (CUT) project, cattle have been grazed under Eucalyptus deglupta in forest plantations established by the government in logged forest (Macfarlane and Whiteman 1983; Schirmer 1983, 101; Watt 1980, 308) and in Vanuatu under both "Local Supply Plantations" and "Industrial Supply Plantations" of Cordia alliodora, as well as under Pinus caribaea on Aneityum, Erromango, Pentecost, and Santo (Jacovelli and Neil 1984, 8). Grazing under pines in Vanuatu is seen as a means of reducing the significant fire threat in plantations (Neil 1986a).
It is in Fiji that the practice has probably been tried most exten sively, owing to research undertaken by the Fiji Pine Commission (FPC), a statutory body with the objective of facilitating and developing "an industry based on the growing, harvesting, preserving and marketing of pine and other species of trees grown in Fiji" (CPO 1980, 141). The FPC is responsible for managing over 45,000 ha of Pinus caribaea out of an envisioned gross estate of 80,000 ha on the highly degraded talasiga (sunburnt) soils of the drier leeward grasslands of the two largest islands of Fiji. The relatively infertile and eroded areas are vegetated with a grassland sub-climax of presumed anthropogenic origin, including species such as Pennisetum polystachyon, Pteridium esculentum, Gleichenia liners, Psidium guajava, Dodonaea viscose, and Casuarina equisetifolia. On moister slopes, Miscanthus floridulus forms almost impenetrable thickets. These grasslands are subject to frequent and unauthorized burning.
The FPC undertook research into cattle grazing for two reasons: to examine the effects of cattle grazing on reducing fuel in high fire-risk zones; and to test the use of cattle as a site-preparation tool for clearing the land of Miscanthus floridulus, which proved difficult to eradicate by more conventional means such as slashing and burning (Drysdale 1982). Research has yielded variable results. Vincent (1971) concluded that grazing of cattle under 5- and 6-year-old pine plantations in poor soils had a detrimental effect on the incremental growth of pines, whereas grazing trials in the Nausori Highlands to determine the effect on fire hazard reduction resulted in a reduction in fuel from 2,500 kg per hectare to 800 kg per hectare, an average cattle weight gain of 0.24 kg per day, and no pasture deterioration despite heavy stocking rates (Gregor 1972). At Nawaicoba, Partridge (1977) reported weight gains twice this, when trees were planted at 2 m x 3 m spacing, with two rows in every five missing. In variable spacing trials, Bell (1981) found slight bark damage to trees less than one year old because of trampling, when the trees were spaced 3 m apart within rows and 2.5, 3, 3.5, and 4 m apart between rows, the cattle being introduced into the plantation when the pines were 54 cm high.
In 1982, the FPC reviewed various research projects on cattle under pines and concluded that given "the high overhead and general costs of FPC operations, commercial cattle grazing of unimproved pasture under pines, is an unlikely prospect" (Drysdale 1982, 4). Although fuel loadings were considerably reduced, the cost of using cattle for fuel reduction was "considered unacceptably high compared with alternatives such as burning" (Drysdale 1982, 3). In contrast, the use of cattle as a site-preparation tool where Miscanthus predominates was termed an "outstanding success" (Drysdale 1982, 8) because other methods of clearing the giant grass gave incomplete results, were impractical, or cost too much.
Because of the high cost of fencing, the long-term and extensive grazing of cattle under pines has been found to be an uneconomic proposition for the Fiji Pine Commission, although some 480 cattle are allowed to graze under pines free of charge at Drasa and Tavaka-bo, and some cattle owners unofficially graze their cattle in Fiji Pine Commission forests. Native landowners are also allowed to graze cattle under their own pine plantings, subject to certain restrictions. But cattle owners also are unlikely to find fencing a profitable venture. Open-range grazing with night-time penning may be a possibility. In addition, the economics of cattle grazing on improved pastures under trees in Fiji still needs to be ascertained.
Other silvipastoral activities
Trees such as Leucaena leucocephala are used as fodder in Tonga and Papua New Guinea, where they are browsed by cattle as a dietary supplement (Watt 1980, 308). There is perhaps some scope for the grazing of other animals such as pigs, goats, and chickens on improved legume pastures or fallows under coconuts, commercial timber species, or other trees (Quartermain 1980; Richardson 1983).
In the Pacific, as elsewhere, interest in agroforestry has recently grown rapidly among scientists, land-use experts, conservationists, and the development professionals of national governments and international agencies. As already noted, systems of commercial production that would now be classified as agroforestry were initiated early in the Pacific's colonial past, particularly in the form of multistorey arrangements of coconut palms with other crops or with cattle. With regard to agroforestry systems in the subsistence sphere, this book has sought to demonstrate their prevalence and antiquity in the Pacific Islands. As Yen (1980b, 91) comprehensively expressed it in his discussion of "Pacific Production Systems," there is nothing new about multi-storey cropping even though it has often been suggested to smallholders as an innovative technique they might adopt.
In fact native systems have always involved such techniques in village gardens with descending storeys of palms, trees, productive vines, shrubs, herbaceous root crops, and vegetable plants and ornamentals. Similarly, in swiddens, mixed species and variety plantings are themselves multi-storey. In this case such plantings also take on a successional aspect, for following the root crops, some cultigens such as banana and longer-term plants such as breadfruit and other fruit and nut trees, industrial shrubs, and vines, prolong the production of these gardens.
Geographers and anthropologists who have studied these sorts of indigenous systems find ironic some of the attempts made to introduce institutional agroforestry into the Pacific context. On the other hand, in a time of deforestation and agrodeforestation, it is apt to encourage both of the approaches to agroforestry described in chapter 1- the institutional approach, which generally seeks to introduce commodity-focused systems devised on the basis of modern forms of analysis, and the cultural-ecological approach, which is concerned more with long-standing indigenous systems, empirically devised and deeply embedded in the cultural landscape. Whether or not the two approaches can be usefully meshed remains open to question, although some forms of "progressing with the past" do seem possible (Clarke 1978).
When attention is turned to the future of institutional agroforestry in the Pacific, it can be clearly forecast that if individual smallholders are to benefit over the long term from the introduction of an unfamiliar institutionalized agroforestry system, they will need to receive an ongoing package of inputs and information, which suggests the need for some sort of extension service. Unfortunately, it is acknowledged that extension work in many Pacific countries is generally poor, and extension services often have only secondary ranking within ministries or departments (Hau'ofa et al. 1980, 188-189). How to remedy this deficiency raises several complex but pervasive issues, which have been dealt with at length in a large literature and which can only be superficially treated here.
With regard to the initial introduction of a new agroforestry system, it is easy - given the current popularity of agroforestry in the development world to find funding for workshops and projects, but these by their nature lack continuity, and they are often administered by staff unfamiliar with local agroforestry traditions. The Pacific is littered with projects advanced in support of all sorts of good causes their collapsed remnants remain, like the military paraphernalia rust ing on beaches after World War II. One way to incorporate continuity into projects and to move beyond reliance on inadequate extension services is to form a centralized management system for smallholders (sometimes referred to as a plantation mode of management). Such a system has been successful in several instances, notably the efficient smallholder production of sugar so important in Fiji's economy and also in tobacco production in that same country (Eaton 1988a). Some other attempts have been less successful. The pros and cons of the approach have been cogently summed up by Hardaker et al. (1984a; 1984b) and Ward (1984).
Aside from problems common to any project-based introduction, a specific constraint to the full realization of the potential of agroforestry by institutional means relates to the disciplinary compart-mentalization that characterizes institutions concerned with land use, whereby - as the Director of ICRAF commented - "agriculture and forestry normally fall under different ministries or, if they are under the same ministry, under separate departments,' (Lundgren 1987, 44). Writing specifically of the forestry sector in the South Pacific, Watt (1980, 302-303) noted that "the separation of agricultural and forestry extension services encourages the impression that agriculture and forestry are mutually exclusive alternatives rather than complementary land uses." Following on from and related to this sectoral compartmentalization is each institution's imperative to maximize the individual component that is the focus of that institution. In contrast, as has often been observed:
The subsistence land user's strategy and aims are to use his labour and land resources to optimize, with minimum risk, the production of various products and services required to satisfy all his basic needs. The fundamental inadequacy of conventional-discipline-oriented institutions lies in the failure to acknowledge and understand these basic facts, strategies and aims, and in the inability to adapt to them. The aims, infrastructure, rationale and philosophy of these institutions, as well as the training of their experts, are geared to the maximization of individual components, be they food crops, cash crops, animals or trees. There is little understanding that the land user needs to share out his resources for the production of other commodities or services (Lundgren 1987, 46).
When maximization is aimed at commercial products, as it most frequently is in the Pacific, a set of sometimes contradictory processes comes into play. For example, attempts to produce cash crops while continuing to meet subsistence needs may bring agricultural involution if land is limited, or it may result in an extension of cropping onto marginal sloping lands as cash crops or cattle take over better lands. A specialization in commercial products may not be accompanied by any concomitant increase in labour availability or extension advice (often restricted to larger producers) on how to increase subsistence production (Ward 1986; Yen 1980b).
Even the Fiji-German Forestry Project, which commenced in the mid1980s, appears mainly focused toward facilitating export cash cropping, although its terms of reference suggest a broader approach that includes "providing ecologically sound advisory assistance in the fields of forestry and agroforestry in line with the social, cultural and economic requirements of target groups" (Tuyll 1988, 3). Consultants to the Fiji-German Forestry Project have also made holistic and wide-ranging recommendations, but the Project's current activities, as described earlier in this chapter, are concentrated on improving the production of ginger as a cash crop by introducing exotic trees to prevent erosion and replace artificial fertilizer.
This accomplishment is not to be decried, but the approach, distinguished by its introduction of and experimentation with exotic trees alley-cropped with a cash crop, does little to preserve existing agroforestry systems or to maintain a balance between commercial agroforestry activities and activities that could protect the existing subsistence base. One consultant recommended to the Project that "agroforestry and forestry extension should not attempt to remain with or return to pure forms of subsistence economy but focus on including profitable cash crops at low risks" (von Maydell 1987, 35). This recommendation does indicate an appreciation of the need to minimize risk, but both it and all the other consultants' recommendations to the Project fail to support strongly the maintenance of a viable subsistence base. Another consultant, who had been selected to identify suitable sites for demonstration plots for the Project, was asked to comment on the idea of putting greater emphasis on the subsistence aspects of agroforestry and of analysing existing local agroforestry systems as demonstration plots into which selected improvements could be introduced. He responded that it was quite unrealistic to expect either the Fiji Government or the German funding agency to support such an emphasis in place of an emphasis on using agroforestry as a way to improve monocultural cash cropping.
In summary, export crops, timber trees, and grazing under coconuts have been the continuing focus of almost all official agroforestry activities for the past century. Regardless of whether it has been the colonial or post-colonial agricultural and forestry departments or, re cently, international aid agencies, the focus has been almost exclusively on monocultural, often large-scale production for export or, in the case of timber and fuel-wood production, for import substitution. Even the intercrops are usually cash crops for export or local sale. Consequently, most indigenous wild species and the wide range of traditional cultivars have received little official promotion and have been the focus of only limited research. Few technical experts or development entrepreneurs know enough about traditional mixed agricultural systems and their component plants to be willing or able to promote their expansion or maintenance. It is not only projects intended to develop commercial agriculture and forestry that may displace or degrade traditional agroforestry systems; modern institutional agroforestry projects may themselves play the same role.
Agencies and educational institutions promoting agroforestry
However, there are also movements in support of traditional systems. The growing popularization and recognition worldwide of the value of the "wisdom of the elders" (Knudtson and Suzuki 1992) may motivate increased institutional attention to indigenous polycultural systems of agroforestry in the Pacific. This section provides information on several examples of such attention and on the institutions involved; mention has been made earlier of some of these, but they will be referred to here briefly again to provide a coherent single account.
All the major universities within the Pacific region (University of Guam, both of Papua New Guinea's universities, the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and its School of Agriculture in Western Samoa, University of Hawaii, and the developing francophone institutions in New Caledonia and Tahiti) support staff with interests in traditional matters, including agriculture, agroforestry, and the management of soil and vegetation. Rather than attempt a full listing of course offerings relevant to agroforestry to at least some degree, we note here only that, on the basis of current information at hand, the courses most directly focused on agroforestry are found within the Geography Department at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, and the Department of Agronomy and Soil Science at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. To the best of our knowledge, the University of Hawaii is distinguished by being the only university in the region to have a named Professor of Agroforestry, who is located in the Department of Agronomy and Soil Science. The Col lege of Micronesia in Pohnpei also has staff with active and direct interests in indigenous agroforestry.
Agroforestry promotion by the Fiji-German Forestry Project, a bilateral agency, has been described in the previous section. A different approach is followed by the South Pacific Forestry Development Programme, which is a multilateral 5-year project funded by UNDP, executed by FAO, and now based in Suva, Fiji. The Programme is concerned with forests and trees in 15 countries, so far particularly with forests in the larger countries, but atoll countries are making enquiries about coconuts and other multi-purpose trees. The role of the Programme is to stimulate activities and provide technical advice, not to operate activities itself. For instance, it facilitated the import of seeds of superior rattan from Malaysia for planting in Pacific forests in order to increase their non-timber production capability. Aside from technical advice, the Programme acts as a focal point for information about forests and trees and publishes the quarterly South Pacific Forestry Newsletter. It is also trying to organize the documentation of local knowledge on indigenous agroforestry, with studies planned or under way in Pohnpei, Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tonga, and other island countries.
The Programme has worked cooperatively with the international NGO The Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific (FSP) on a project intended to develop sustainable forestry in local areas while slowing down or stopping rapid conversion of forests by large-scale industrial logging. This objective is based in part on selling small mobile sawmills to rural entrepreneurs and community groups so that they may develop small-scale but profitable and locally utilitarian logging, carried out in ways that avoid major environmental damage and that maintain the essential structure of the forest for traditional uses and ecological services.
A US Government project based in Hawaii is carrying out work related to several aspects of agroforestry in Hawaii, American Micronesia, and American Samoa. Called Agricultural Development in the American Pacific (ADAP), the project has provided agroforestry educational materials to all the public (land grant) colleges and universities in the American-affiliated Pacific. In association with the US Department of Agriculture and the US Forest Service, ADAP is also developing training programmes in agroforestry.
The Environment and Policy Institute of the East-West Center in Hawaii maintained a strong programme of research, seminars, and publication on agroforestry for several years during the 1980s (e.g., Djogo 1992; Nair 1984). Although agroforestry is no longer a principal focus of its work, the Institute remains a repository of a large volume of published and unpublished material on the topic.
Mentioned at the beginning of this chapter was the report (Clements 1988) of a technical meeting on agroforestry in tropical islands held at the Institute for Research, Extension and Training in Agriculture (IRETA), which is part of the University of the South Pacific's School of Agriculture in Western Samoa. IRETA is also involved in research projects to improve or strengthen atoll agroforestry in Kiribati.
In the Melanesian countries, with their comparatively larger natural forests, forest-resource inventories are under way or planned, generally as a cooperative, aid-funded project between the local Forestry Department and overseas technical personnel. The inventories are intended to provide the information base necessary for effective land-use planning and management, but now, unlike some past forest assessments, the inventory process includes collection of data on watershed vulnerability and on the indigenous ethnobotanical value of forest plants, as in the forest-resource inventory now being completed by the Vanuatu Forestry Department with technical assistance from the Queensland (Australia) Forest Service and the Division of Tropical Crops and Pastures of the (Australian) Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
Finally, mention should be made of the work of ORSTOM, the French organization that promotes French scientific research in the third world, mainly in the tropics. With centres in the Pacific in Nouméa and Tahiti, ORSTOM has sponsored work not only related to many aspects of modern development but also to traditional cultural-ecological matters, for example, with specific relevance to agroforestry, the work on the cultivars of kava (Piper methysticum) in Vanuatu (Lebot and Cabalion 1986).
Contents - Previous - Next