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The si tuation is very different today. Recent decades have seen a drastic revalt.ration
of land resources as a resull, first, of the inlroduction of new crops (or the elevatiorr to
posit.ions of prorninence of formerly minor crops); second, of Lhe change frorn production for
own consurr!f,tion to pnoduction for the market; and following Lhis, third, a change in fhe
criteria for accessibility. There is now much greater variation in the value of one location
against another. Assessing this value, size of island, and distance from new corntnercial nodes
are increasingly importanl.
Joseph Banks's well-known descriplion of the beneficence of the breadfruit in Tahiti is
Lypical of the early assessnents by Europeans of the agricultural resoufces of the Sou[h
Pacific lslands:
"....These happy people whose bread depends not on an annual but on a
Perennial plant have but to climb up and gaLher it ready for baking from a iree
which deep rooted in Lhe Earth seorning equaly the influence of summer heats or
winter nains never fails to produce plenty..." Q9632 J30)
It was this image that was remembered, rather than lhe fact that when Banks made a
circuit of TahiLi, breadfruit was in short zupply and he necorded that he had "not seen ten
ripe mes hanging on the Trees the whole way" (1951: )07). The misconception that lush
vegetation indicated fertile soils suitable for permanent cultivalion, lasted a long time. ln
1875 de Ricci described the "mass of luxuriant tropical foliage" (1875: l) on Kadavu and
claimed ihat "the soil is very fertile, being capable of producing everything that requires a
tropieal climate" (1875: 5). The image was sustained by tracts which sought to a[tract
settlers and, indeed, initial yields of many crops of ten promised more than subsequent
harvests produced. But this view overlooked the fact that swidden cultivation and fire had
removed Lhe forest from large areas in the drier panLs of Fiji, New Caledonia and a number
of lhe Polynesian high islands. The early clearing caused considerable erosion. The fact that
at the time of contact much of this type of land zupported few people - an indicalor of poor
soils - was often overlooked by Europeans who believed grass covered hills betokened good
grazing.
Experience gradually taught European settlers what Lhe islanders already knew - lhe
only soils of the larger, high islands which would sJpport nearly continuous cropping were the
riverside alluvials (where floods and their silt were vital to fertility maintenance, but meant
a high risk of damage), the colluvial soils at lhe base of slopes, cerLain volcanic soils, or lhe
man-made soils of irrigated terraces or raised swamp beds. The "luxuriant tropical foliage"
was a veneer which, if stripped off, laid the soils beneath open to napid degradation. ln
recent decades soil surveys heve revealed and quantified the limited potential of the lands of
Melanesia. AlrnosL 40 per cent of Fiji's land is "considered quite unsuilable for agricultural
development m present knowledgerr (Twyford and Wright, 19652 2L9) - only 19 per cent is
first class arable land. Only 12 percent of the Solomon Islands has "above-average
agricultural poten[iall'(Hansell and Wall, L976t I35). In New Caledonia only 2 per cent of the
area is ttgcod agricultural landr' and I] per cent "good grazing land'r. Fifty per cenI is
t'nediocre A tres mediocre" or suitable only for conservation in a natural state (Latham,
f98f). The hiqh volcanic islands of Polynesia do not have significanLly betLer prospects.
Fifty-me percent of Western Sarnoa is low-to-very-low natural fertility and a further f5
pereenl is too stony for mechanized agriculture (Wright, 196l: 88-89). Only 22 per cent of
RaroLonga and 8 per cent of Mangaia have been clessed es "cJitable for annual and tree
cropsrr with a furlher 9 and 4I per cent r€spectively having potential for tree crops alone
(Grange and Fox, 195]: I0).
The atolls, a narrow strip of sand m a coral platform, rarely rise more than two or
three metres above see level, and generally have no surface water. Plants, and people,
depend m the fresh water which floats in a fragile lens above the salt water permeating the
underlying coral. Drought is a constant risk in those-atolls nearer the equator and many sre
uninhabited because of this. Therefore, Kiribati (now that the Banaba phosphate has been
completely mined), Tuvalu, the Northern Cooks, the Tokelaus, and the Tuamotus - all atoll
regions - have a very impoverished land nesource. On the other hand extensive lagoons and
the reefs are produetive. The atolls often arpport relatively high densities of population
dependent almost entirely on a few crops, artisanel fishing, and now remittances and overseas
aid. The Gilbert Group (with 80 percent of Kiribati's population) had a crude population
denaity of I95 per square kilometre in 1978; Tuvalu 288 in 1980. It ie very doubtful whether
population denailies of this level can be sustained by the agricultural or marine resources of
the atolls et the levels of welfare which their people have come to expect.