Tropical Homegardens - library.uniteddiversity.coop

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many cultivate food crops on over 50% of the total area of their property. In Port
Moresby, for example, in Morata and Gerehu suburbs, recently settled in the mid-
1970s, an average of approximately 40% of 450 m 2 allotments were then under food
crops. Similarly, in some cases in Nuku‘alofa, up to 75% of 500 to 1000 m 2
allotments were under food cultivation, primarily root crops (such as yam, taro,
tannia, cassava, and sweet potato) and banana among scattered trees (Thaman,
1995). Trees gradually become dominant in long-settled areas as cash incomes increase,
and tree seedlings mature and increasingly shade garden areas. Nevertheless, in suburbs
such as Gerehu, where trees have matured, socioeconomic status has risen. Although
and the contribution to household economies that homegardens provide has
declined, gardening continues to be important (Levett, 1996).
Ornamentals are commonly planted closest to the home, often in front yards, as
well as in containers on front porches. Medicinal plants, sacred or fragrant plants,
and other culturally valuable, common multipurpose plants, are scattered amongst
the food plants and ornamentals. In gardens of the indigenous Nauruans (who as a
result of phosphate mining royalties, have historically had high per capita incomes),
ornamental, aromatic and medicinal plants dominate, along with the ubiquitous
coconut, edible pandanus, some bananas, and breadfruit. At the Location contract
worker settlement in Nauru, where people live in multistory tenements, and where
family gardening is limited to no more than 15 to 30 m 2 , most families have only a
few plants. The gardens of Tuvaluans and I-Kiribati who live as contract workers in
Nauru often consist of juvenile tree seedlings, staple root crops, or a single coconut
palm or stand of bananas. In the gardens of Chinese (mostly recruited from Hong
Kong) and Filipinos, the emphasis is on intensive vegetable gardening, often in
containers, reflecting a more intensive system than that was practiced by most
indigenous Pacific island peoples. In Kiribati and Tonga, however, recent emphasis
has been placed by the government and non-governmental organizations on more
intensive types of gardening: in Kiribati, using hydroponic and deep mulching
techniques because of the highly infertile calcareous and sandy soils there. In
Kiribati, where vitamin A deficiency-induced night blindness and xerophthalmia
have become problems, the planting and consumption of the vitamin-rich leaves of
two native tree species: noni (Morinda citrifolia) and Pisonia grandis, and more
recently chaya have been encouraged in urban areas (Thaman, 1995).
1.6. Trends toward agrodeforestation
R.R. THAMAN T
ET AL.
Despite the current importance of gardening on open urban and periurban land, these
areas have been severely affected by deforestation and agrodeforestation (Thaman,
1992). Increasing population, poverty, and need for firewood, expansion of squatter
settlements, lack of legislation controlling tree removal, increasing dependence on
root crops such as cassava and sweet potatoes, and the loss of knowledge on the
importance of trees in the context of a rapidly urbanizing Pacific have led to the
increasing elimination of trees from urban landscapes throughout the islands
(Thaman, 2002). In rural areas, promotion of a wide range of export cash crops (e.g.,
coconut, banana, cacao [Theobroma cacao], sugarcane, coffee [Coffea spp.], ginger
[Zingiber officinale], and butter pumpkin [Curcurbita maxima]) has led to the