PACIFIC TROPICAL RAINFORESTS

Forest and Bird, Volume 17, Issue 2, 1 May 1986, Page 2

PACIFIC TROPICAL RAINFORESTS

By

Guy Salmon

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Ms of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific still live close to their forests. They know their forests well and love being in them. Very often the outsider coming to a remote village and seeking permission to explore the surrounding forest will be assigned two or more young men of the village as guides. A deep sense of courtesy and concern for one’s safety (and perhaps also a desire to watch what the visitor is up to) seems to be the motivating spirit for this practice. A reciprocal gesture of a gift is therefore very appropriate. Whatever the reasons for their assignment, there is no mistaking the enjoyment of these young people at simply being in the forest; nor their familiarity with the forest world.

Absorbing its richness

It is not just a question of knowing the tracks and routes, the edible fruits and birds, and the plants useful for medicine or building materials, although these things are all obviously important to their way Of life. There is more to it than that. A seemingly endless knowledge of the traditional names of numerous plants and animals, and a keen appreciation of beauty in the forest; tells of a people who spend much time in contemplation in the forest, and who have absorbed its richness into their own being. In the strangely scented luxuriance of the tropical forest — across all the barriers of language and culture — there grows a gradual mutual recognition: that we are each conservationists. It is that recognition, reinforced several times in the backblocks of Fiji, Samoa and New Caledonia, that gives this particular conservationist a lot of hope about the development of conservation action in the South Pacific. Yet a grassroots conservation spirit in the village communities is far from being the only force at work in the Pacific. In the villages themselves, rapid population growth in recent years has dramatically increased the need for land clearing for growing food — throwing the people into an unsustainable relationship with their surrounding forests. And the lure of wealth and modernity seen in the cities — and among the tourists — has sharpened the desire for modern material goods and

services, most of which have a high imported component. To pay the import bill, governments are increasingly resorting to forest exploitation and the export — not only of timber — but also of vast quantities of unprocessed logs.

Dereliction and resentment

In the Solomon Islands, giant companies like Unilever hop from one island to the next, stripping off all the logs as they go, leaving dereliction and resentment behind. Log exporting has recently spread to Fiji and Samoa while woodchipping as well is expanding in Papua New Guinea. These developments have gravely shortened the lifetime of the South Pacific’s potentially merchantable lowland native forests. In the most serious cases — such as Western Samoa — almost all will be gone in 10-12 years. While the plight of the Pacific forests appears grim, the conservation of tropical forests in the world as a whole amounts to an immense and desperate problem. These tropical forests are a world heritage of profound importance. They are an incredibly rich storehouse of plant and animal species compared to temperate forests like ours. Their protective influence on land, water, food and genetic resources and on climate is vital to the future of hundreds of millions of people. Their progressive destruction by multinational timber companies and by the land-clearing activities of poverty-stricken rural peoples — often displaced, landless, and nearly hopeless — is a contemporary planetary disaster. The degradation and clearance of this great forest resource has reached such colossal momentum now that one can say with certainty that it is the ability and will of enlightened people to act within the next decade that will determine what if anything survives.

For us in New Zealand, the problem may seem unmanageably large. Nonetheless there is a contribution we can make to conservation in the area nearest to us — the South Pacific. This is an area with strong biological links to our own nature heritage — as anyone quickly appreciates on seeing the variety of recognizeably familiar plants in the forests, from the ferns and orchids up to the giant Pacific species of the podocarp and kauri families. These Pacific forests are close to us, and increasingly readily visited; and it is our own accelerating demand for their decorative timbers that is contributing markedly to the destruction of these forests. Our official overseas aid programme is

assisting reforestation in several Pacific countries — taking over obligations which the exploiting timber companies invariably neglect. Unfortunately, our replanting role also eases the conscience of some island decision-makers as they authorise increased native forest exploitation. The replanting is almost entirely in exotic trees, and aimed very largely at industrial rather than village use. Environmental assessment of the aid programme remains vestigial and there are grounds for concern about some of the projects. Little is being done to help define watershed protection forests, permanent nature reserves or national parks. To some extent, the aid programme is limited by the fact that it depends on requests from recipient governments.

Conservation groups come in

That is where non-governmental conservation groups can come in: to seed and support the establishment of conservation groups in Pacific countries, and to work with concerned local people to build awareness of the need for conservation policies and practices. That in turn will feed back into new types of requests of the New Zealand aid programme, whose implementation we can also encourage. Already, Australia is funding the establishment of a nature reserve of a Pacific kauri species, Agathis macrophylla, on Erromango island in Vanuatu. Pacific Island local concern is there all right. For example, the furnituremakers’ association of Western Samoa has fought a lonely fight against log export policies, invoking the broad conservation conscience of the community in pamphlets and broadcasts which speak not only about the

imminent loss of timber resources but also about water supplies, recreation, the hunting of Jupe (pigeon) and the long term welfare of the whole community. In the Solomon Islands, where village residents have ransacked a logging camp and bitterly opposed logging, efforts are being organized to bring other village leaders who are considering log export deals on their own islands into contact with those island communities which have already experienced the results of logging. In Samoa, the alternative concept of ‘‘village parks’’ promoted by Iosefatu Reti in an accompanying article needs funding for a demonstration park. And Fiji has an established National Trust which promotes con-

servation and environmental education but is desperately short of staff, expertise and financial support for its projects and activities. Clearly there is much which can be done to help fledgling conservation efforts in the Pacific, as well as to influence the substantial overseas aid programmes of governments like Australia, New Zealand and Japan which are heavily involved in the region. Voluntary conservation organizations in New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific are now forming a "joint campaign"’ grouping to pursue these goals. The support of all our members will be needed in these efforts.

Memorable experience

New Zealanders will increasingly want to visit the beautiful Pacific forests themselves. The way into a Pacific island forest is usually through a village; and there visitors will encounter the old-fashioned values of politeness, hospitality and reciprocity, and the strong sense of respect for the individual, that make up such an important part of all the Pacific cultures. Exploring their forests with these people is one of the most memorable experiences there is. We must remember that upholding the values and expectations of the tangata whenua is a vital part of such an experience. More and more young New Zealanders are exploring the Pacific; we are losing the sense of belonging wholly to Europe. Quite a good test of whether we may consider ourselves people of the Pacific is whether we can take up the challenge of involving ourselves in Pacific concerns, and do so in a manner welcomed by the island peoples themselves. #&