The coconut odyssey - the bounteous possibilities of the ... - ACIAR

But let us start at the
beginning …
�e story of the coconut is part of
the saga of the great landmass of the
Southern Hemisphere, Gondwana,
which began to break up around 80
million years ago. Huge sections of
the earth’s crust—known as tectonic
plates—carried land surfaces that
now comprise Australia, some
islands to its north and north-east,
New Zealand, Madagascar, most
of Africa and South America, and
most of the landmass of India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh. �e now
Australasian sections of Gondwana
drifted generally northwards, lately
at a rate of 70–150 kilometres
every million years. �e Antarctic
continent, meanwhile, moved south
to become centred over the South
Pole. Africa began a little south of
where it is now, while the South
American landmass had drifted
westwards.
�e ancestral coconut palm grew on
the northern coasts of Gondwana
fragments. �e tree evolved into its
niche on the strand—the narrow
strip of land immediately above the
high-tide line—where it was lapped
by warm oceans. On these coasts,
the strand often includes a berm—a
flat sandy or gravelly strip formed by
the sea and associated with low sand
dunes raised by the wind.
�e coconut palm spawned a
buoyant seed, which could drift
back and forth among the shifting
lands and which was carried by the
seas to many shores of tropical Asia
and Oceania long before humans
intervened to disperse it further. �e
large, energy-filled seed provided
a nourishing welcome for the first
human inhabitants of these coasts.
Humans have probably been using
the coconut for around half a million
years, although it is very difficult to
establish an precise time for its first
use. �e sea level has fluctuated up
and down by one hundred metres
and more, many times during that
period, ‘drowning’ much evidence of
early relationships between humans
and the coconut.
In 1788 (the year of the first
European settlement in Australia)
and for 60 years afterwards, there
were no reports of coconut palms
on the thousands of kilometres
of Australia’s tropical shores. �is
curious absence was noted by
explorers as early as the 18th century.
Authorities later theorised that the
coconut had been transported to
far-flung islands and continents by
16
waves of mariners dating back at
least 4000 years to the time of the
first Polynesians. More recently,
it has been realised that the wild
coconut probably reached most of
the shores in South-East Asia and
the Pacific, where it is now found,
many millennia ago and through the
agency of its floating seeds. Different
forms of the coconut have since been
spread by the Polynesians and other
seafarers. �ere is an intriguing
story, told below, about this absence
from Australia.
�e story of the coconut and its
presence around the globe is one in
which evolution, immigration, trade,
other cultural practices and the forces
of nature all play a part. If the theories
of the palaeogeographers are correct,
the shores of northern Australia may
have been an important habitat in
which the ancient palm evolved over
geological time.