BEYOND THE PALMY BEACHES

Forest and Bird, Volume 17, Issue 2, 1 May 1986, Page 5

BEYOND THE PALMY BEACHES

by Executive member Professor

John Morton

Pacific Island begins with the line of wave-break where the reef-edge drops way into deep water, so very blue. Behind this rim are the shallows, sunwarmed and cloudy green. Further in, pressing down to white sand, is the coastal forest: free and lush, with waving palms to leeward, or low dense canopy on the trade wind side. Over the sand run purple Ipomea, of yellow cables of beach dodder (Cassytha). This is the coast the islands have in common. It is Pacific-wide: fed and recruited from an ocean-mix of plankton, and of woody seeds. Of these the coconut is merely the largest, originating who knows where, in the vastness of ocean and time. To find the special quality that gives each island its personality, makes it different, we must strike into its forest heartland. Into the forest depths Fiji’s Viti Levu is by Pacific standards a huge island. You can push into it from Suva's Laucala Bay up the Rewa River, with huge mangrove swamps as quiet and remote as the finest I know, in Papua New Guinea. Or you can drive west, passing at Serua a score of immense banyan figs, to Sigatoka. Here you can take the winding river road inland to the forest depths at the centre of the island. But right near Suva there is a not too strenuous afternoon’s climb, up the 600 m. of Mt Korombamba: by the logging track of bright red clay, up to the trig station where the breeze is cool and you can take in the whole expanse of Suva Barrier Reef and Laucala Bay. On this wet side of Viti Levu island, the forest is well stratified. The climb brings us up to Fiji's podocarps that — unlike New Zealand's — are trees of high level. No one has written a proper guide to this climb. After Parham’s invaluable Plants of the Fiji Islands, my own debt is to the deep knowledge of Saula Vodanivulu, botanist of the Fiji Herbarium, who taught me anything I know about the island's flora. Large trees logged All this forest has been cruelly logged. Only a few of the old timber trees, up to 30m tall, break out above the second can-

opy to show what the high forest must once have been. They are kauvulu (Endospermum macrophyllum: Euphorbiaceae) ; bauvudi (Palaquin stehlinii: Sapotaceae); makita (Parinari glaberrima: Rosaceae); and — most notably — the Fiji kauri, dakua (Agathis vitiensis) now almost milled out save at the island’s deep centre. But the second storey is immensely rich. Diversely assembled are all those hardwood families marginally represented by one or two species in New Zealand. Here is to be found a host of Myrsine, and Elaeocarpus and Geniostoma. There are lots of Meliaceae, with Dysoxylum gillespianum, a timber tree planted in straight lines in the old loggings. Two huge families are Myrtaceae (notably with Syzygium, Decapspermum and Cleistocalyx); and Caesalpiniaceae with Bauhinia and Cassia species, mainly outside the forest. There are Sterculiaceae with bright flowers and open pods, an abundance of fan-leaved Araliaceae, including Schefflera. There is the Moraceae, with the glossy green bread fruit tree, (Artocarpus) on the forest edge. Of the early angiosperm families, there are Piperaceae (Piper and Peperomia); Annonaceae (custard apples and sour-sop, and Lauraceae with Cinnamomum and Litsea.) At shrub level, Rubiaceae abound as in New Zealand; but with attractive scented flowers — Dolicholobium, Canthium, and Ixora and fragrant white Gardenia. A curiosity of this family is the swollen based ant-plant Hydnophytom. The tree ferns are Dicksonia and Cyathea like ours. But in Fiji they are overshadowed by palms: Veitchia and Balaka. There are as well pandans and Cordyline, big gingers with windmill sails like Alpinia, and handsome banana palms. Vines and climbers A host of families produce vines and tendril climbers. The milky Apocynaceae have climbing Alstonia and Carruthersia recalling Parsonsia in New Zealand. There are climbing yellow Dillenia, Smilax climbers like our own supple-jack, and Freycenetia which are tough, scrambling pandans. There are climbing aroids Epipremnum; wild yams, Dioscorea, and thongleafed Flagellaria. The Verbenaceae have a shrub Feredaya climbing over the highest forest. The Asclepiadaceae provide wild Hoya, common down to the mangrove swamps. Blanketting a whole canopy to the tree tops is often the white-flowered convolvulus Merremia peltata. New Zealanders will recognise lots of Lygodium and filmy ferns; the two fern allies: Lycopodium and big Selaginella; and — for good measure — two Psilotum species.

The Korombamba climb has two botanic prizes. The offbeat gymnosperm Gnetum gnemon (‘sikau’) with its glossy oval leaves and red ‘berries’ and a magnolia ally, Degeneria vitiensis (‘masiratu’) unique to Fiji and discovered only in 1934. Saula at the herbarium generously pressed on me its spirit-preserved flowers and bean-like pods: a precious treasure I didn’t think I should lightly carry away. Instead, I sketched them and brought back a sliver of wood to make histology slides. At the top of Korombamba, the gymnosperms break through, and finally dominate. There is their hard-timbered ‘yaka’, (Dacrydium nidulum) up to 30m tall, but more like a spreading beech than our own rimu. ‘Dakua salusalu’ (Decussocarpus vitiensi) has glossy green pinnate leaves; and in ‘gaugali’ or ‘baukiwaga’ Podocarpus nereifolius, the leaflets are quite big and lanceolate. Onto the Cooks 2,000 km. further east, with far fewer species than Fiji, the Cook Islands are nonetheless botanically exciting. Rarotonga is still as captivating as Cheeseman found it on his visit around 1900. Half a century earlier missionary John Williams, wrote of a coastal stretch which was intensively gardened to feed 30,000 inhabitants. ‘The whole island was in a high state of cultivation and I do not recollect having witnessed anything more beautiful than the scene presented to me, when standing on the side of one of the hills, and looking towards the sea shore’. Between rows of superb ‘chestnut’ trees (Inocarpus) stretching from the mountain base to the sea, were bright green irrigated taro beds. The gardens lie between Rarotonga’s two circular roads, the modern Ara Metua to seaward, and inland — still amost complete — the thousand-year-old Ara Tapu. With the years of decline, in copra, banana and now citrus exports, much of the garden area is wild and reverted: a haven of fertile and picturesque neglect. Today's food crops are chiefly cassava (Maniota), and the several sorts of taro, still to be seen laid out in neat rows. Round the villages, guava and bright Hibiscus and ill-scented Lantana are taking over. Back up the valleys are banana plantains gone wild. There are scrambling vines of passion fruit, and Ipomea, and the little bright orange gourd, Momordica. There is a host of reverted economic species: paw paw, mango, alligator pear, custard apple, orange, lime, guava,

granadilla, coffee, manioc, bombax. Rarotonga’s glory But the glory of Rarotonga is in its central crown of forest, with the panorama to be scanned in the half-day’s cross-island walk. A million years ago, Rarotonga’s high cone of basalt collapsed at the middle, to leave a central caldera, with a jagged rim around which other vents were to erupt. One of these, after erosion, has left its dense crater plug, as the tall-standing Needle (‘Te Rua Manga’). I first made the climb to the base of the Needle, then down to the opposite coast, with my old friend and student, Gerald McCormack. For the Education Department of Tonga, he is researching and interpreting the reef and plant biology of the Cooks.

Cool enough at most times of year, the climb up to the crown, starts from Avarua town centre, following the clear stream up the Avatiu valley to the power station. Right to the Needle, progress is easy by grasping the root plexus of the lovely, complete canopy of /nocarpus chestnut trees. The beach hibiscus (‘au’) remains a common tree right to the top. The lower canopy has its own tree diversity: Homalium, Macaranga, Bischofia, Cecropia, and of course a host of rubiaceans: scented white Gardenia, and Morinda vine, and — in drier places — Mussaenda. There are genera familiar from New Zealand, but never with the bewildering species wealth of Fiji. Thus Rarotonga has its one only, Myrsine and Pittosporum, and — at upper levels — its own Weinmannia. There are lots of shrubby Piper and perching Peperomia. A Meryta species, — smaller than our own — is agreeably common. Reaching down the high ridges into the shaded gulleys, is a novel tree of Rarotonga’s own, discovered by Cheeseman and

named by him Fitchia speciosa. It is a fast growing composite, with big, glossy leaves and large pendent heads, like orangetipped globe artichokes. At the high levels and on craggy places, is Rarotonga’s pohutukawa, a form of the Pacific-wide Metrosideros collina. Already in August, crimson tufts were showing. With its delicate pink leaf buds, this makes a charming tub-plant at Auckland sealevel. Through all the Cook Islands, bird species are few. Round the villages, the ‘government bird’ mynah is as common as a sparrow. The forests have a Rarotongan fruit dove, a starling and a rare flycatcher Gerald McCormack is studying. Our own long-tailed cuckoo is there as well. Right up to the Needle come also birds from the sea: Ivory white and the most ethereal of all sea-birds, is the white tern

or ‘pirako’. High overhead are white, tropic birds ‘rakoa’ with forked tails like a slender marlin spike. Tourism: the island way The Cook Islands have dollar parity with New Zealand and Rarotonga enjoys a direct flight to Auckland. It is coming up to the tourist pretensions of Fiji. With sand, sunshine and blue water — swimming pools, duty free shopping, golf and riding, ethnic cuisine (and Rotary meetings at the ‘Rarotongan’ resort), tourism is flourishing. Development money is being actively enticed. A 250-bed resort is being envisaged at Amuri village on the incomparable Aitutaki Atoll. The carrying capacity (ecological, psychological, social and, most practical, sewage disposal), will break under such strain.

Heritage still intact In the Cook Islands it is not too late to discover the old heritage, of which big pieces are still intact. Even in Fiji, there are a few places where forests have not been tim-ber-ravaged; where mangroves have not been cut for firewood, or torn out for marinas; and reefs that haven’t been ransacked for commercial dealers. For Rarotonga, as it still authentically is, there could be increasing earnings from discerning tourism. There are people today in the Cooks who realise this well. One could be the Rarotongan Wickham Exham, whose half-day tour of the island shouldn't be missed. A home-educated resource economist, he drives his tour minibus like a modern-day William Cobbett. His ‘rural ride’ tells us about history and customs, horticulture and economy. At $15 a head, the package tour ends with a superb traditional meal served by his wife Maria, in their garden with bird of paradise plants, starfruit, Spathodea, Bombax, cotton and lychee trees. To grasp the truth about the Cook Islands will need just this kind of interpretation and revelation. The best sort of aid New Zealand might give could be a biology or ecology-based ‘green corps’. This could carry forward the work and spirit of the old peace corps. It would need good insight, and capable writing: different and indigenous for each of the Pacific nations. Even for their separate islands, as Gerald McCormack is today doing on Rarotonga. Complex tropical forests Rain forests left intact could one day bring the same incitement to tourism as the reefs and snorkelling grounds. Complexly layered and stratified into their profusion of habitat space, reefs and tropical forests are the most complex communities on the planet: every fragment of them living, or the product of life. But visitors should want to know the names and lives of their inhabitants. An uninstructed snorkel dive, a glass-bot-tomed boat cruise, or a forest walk without names is a voyeurist experience soon forgotten. If we are to understand these places fully, we must be wrestling with Tane and Tangaroa, to seek the names of their children of the forest and sea, just as Jacob wrestled with Israel’s God until daybreak to find out his supreme Name. As any tourist can realise on a Sunday morning, Cook Islanders have been deeply Christian people, with a spiritual base of awareness that in our developed world seems superseded and lost. As big a question as any that faces these new nations, must be whether their island Christianity can teach the lesson not of exploitative development but of the Franciscan understanding that gives to the natural order its mystical and ethical due. These people could be like Naboth of Jazreel who owned a vineyard (I King, 21, 1-5). King Ahab pressed him: ‘Give me your vineyard to add to my vegetable garden. I will give you a better vineyard for it, or if you prefer, I will give you its worth in money’. But Ahab answered him: ‘God forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my ancestors’.