Pacific Island agrobiodiversity and ethnobiodiversity: A foundation for sustainable Pacific I0sland life

• Published in: Biodiversity (Nepean) 2008-04, Vol.9 (1-2), p.102-110
• Main Author: Thaman, R. R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1488-8386; 2160-0651
• DOI: 10.1080/14888386.2008.9712895

The conservation and sustainable use of "agrobiodiversity" and associated "ethnobiodiversity" (the cultural link with biodiversity) constitute one of the most important preconditions for food and subsistence security and sustainable living in the island states of the tropical Pacific Ocean. This is particularly true for the smaller "biodiversity "cool spot" islands of the Pacific, such as atolls, which have some of the most limited and highly threatened terrestrial biodiversity inheritances on Earth and the fewest options for modern market-oriented development. Islands are like arks and most small island nations have an obligate dependence on their limited biodiversity inheritances for the peoples' livelihood and the nation's development. Prominent among this inheritance is agrobiodiversity, as many small islands have little or no remaining truly wild land and natural forest. Agrobiodiversity, in this context, includes all agroecosystems, including associated fallow sand protected areas, in both rural and urban areas; species and genetic diversity of both domestic and wild organisms within these ecosystems; and agricultural ethnobiodiversity - the knowledge, uses, beliefs, management systems, taxonomies and language that a given society, including western scientific society, has for agricultural biodiversity. Unfortunately, island agrobiodiversity inheritances, including associated ethnobiodiversity, are being rapidly eroded because of increasing monoculture, monetization and urbanization, and because mainstream biodiversity conservation initiatives concentrate on endemic or charismatic native organisms, intact terrestrial and marine ecosystems and "species survival". This is despite the fact that most culturally useful and highly threatened biodiversity is found within the fabric of permanent and shifting agricultural land use systems. The result of a failure to conserve, enrich and sustainably use island agrobiodiversity will be the abject poverty, food insecurity and nutritional and health deterioration that we associate with the world's most destitute societies, a trend already reaching serious proportions in many small island developing states.