Tropical Homegardens - library.uniteddiversity.coop

26 R.R. THAMAN T
ET AL.
cultures, and isolation from major markets forced island communities to develop
sustainable land use systems such as agroforestry and freshwater and marine fishery
production systems. Today, however, the small island states of the Pacific Ocean are
rapidly urbanizing and increasingly large populations no longer have access to
traditional agricultural and wildland holdings. Moreover, trees are disappearing from
both rural and urban areas, a process referred to as “agrodeforestation” (Thaman,
1992). Studies in the Ha’ppai Islands of Tonga, for example, showed that about 100
traditionally important trees or shrubs, all integral components of the traditional
Tongan bush-fallow agroforestry, were reported to be endangered or in short supply.
These included 28 large wild trees, 32 large cultivated trees, 19 wild small trees or
shrubs, and 24 planted small trees and shrubs (Thaman et al., 2001). Species most
commonly mentioned were multipurpose trees valued for medicine, fruit, firewood,
construction purposes, and fragrant plants used for body ornamentation and
perfume. Foremost among the reasons for the loss of tree cover was the failure to
plant or replant trees in general, as well as changing land-management practices that
included indiscriminate felling, clearing and burning, and the increasing use of the
plow. These practices have caused a gradual shift away from the traditional mixed
agroforestry systems in which fruit trees and other culturally useful trees, such as
coconut (Cocos nucifera), breadfruit (Artocarpus ( altilis),
traditional banana and
plantain clones (Musa spp.), citrus (Citruss spp.), Malay apple ( Syzygium malaccense)
and Polynesian vi-apple (Spondias dulcis) were dominant, to monocultural
production of commodities. Spread of tall grass species such as guinea grass
(Panicum maximum) and the impact of grazing animals and other domesticated
livestock made regeneration of trees particularly difficult (Thaman et al., 2001).
Today, most Pacific island countries are increasingly dependent on imported
food, fossil fuels, medicines, and other industrial products to satisfy the basic needs,
with the result that they experience negative balance of payment situations. Food
security has become a major concern in all of the independent island states 1 .
Disappearance of forests and agroforests, which traditionally provided these
products and services, may partially explain this increasing dependence on imported
foods and fuels (Thaman, 1988). The people of the Pacific islands also have high
rates of nutrition-related, non-communicable diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular
disease, hypertension, hyperuricemia and gout, obesity, iron deficiency
anemia, and dental diseases (Parkinson, 1982; Thaman, 1982; Coyne, 2000)—with
rates of obesity as high as 75% reported in Nauru, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tonga,
and French Polynesia. The main factor for most of these diseases has been the shift
in the food habits from traditional “healthy” foods to processed, imported “unhealthy”
foods (Curtis, 2004).
Experience from the region as well as elsewhere suggests that the promotion of
urban and homegarden agroforestry may provide culturally appropriate and costeffective
means of addressing both urban agrodeforestation, and many of the economic,
cultural, nutritional and environmental problems arising out of urbanization and
globalization (Thaman and Clarke, 1993; Thaman, 2002; Lamanda et al., 2006). It
can also help to address indirectly many emerging environmental problems, such as
climate change and associated sea-level rise, coastal erosion, pollution, and loss of