Qualities and Contributions of Agroforestry Practices and Novel Forests in Pre-European Polynesia and the Polynesian Outliers

Quintus, Seth; Huebert, Jennifer; Kirch, Patrick V.; Lincoln, Noa Kekuewa; Maxwell, Justin J.

doi:10.1007/s10745-019-00110-x

Cited by 26 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Instead, it is a Western construct that is an umbrella term for a variety of place-based practices that integrate trees and other plants in various arrangements and intensities. For example, in Hawai'i forms of agroforestry may be called pākukui (Lincoln, 2020), kalu'ulu (Menzies, 1920;Kelly, 1983;Quintus et al, 2019), or ka malu 'ulu o lele. One practitioner explained how using the term agroforestry can therefore exclude the participation of Indigenous people who are familiar with integrated forest-agriculture practices, but not the term agroforestry.…”

Section: Indigenous and Local Knowledge Is Not Adequately Valuedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Gets to Adopt? Contested Values Constrain Just Transitions to Agroforestry

Hastings

Wong

Ticktin

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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Agroforestry is often promoted as a multi-benefit solution to increasing the resilience of agricultural landscapes. Yet, there are many obstacles to transitioning agricultural production systems to agroforestry. Research on agroforestry transitions often focuses on why farmers and land managers chose to adopt this type of stewardship, with less focus on the political context of practitioner decisions. We use the case study of agroforestry in Hawai‘i to explore how agroforestry transitions occur with particular attention to politics and power dynamics. Specifically, we ask, what factors drive and/or restrain transitions to agroforestry and who is able to participate. We interviewed 38 agroforestry practitioners in Hawai‘i and analyzed the data using constructivist grounded theory. We then held a focus group discussion with interview participants to share results and discuss solutions. Practitioners primarily chose agroforestry intentionally for non-economic and values-based reasons, rather than as a means to production or economic goals. Agroforestry practitioners face a similar suite of structural obstacles as other agricultural producers, including access to land, labor, and capital and ecological obstacles like invasive species and climate change. However, the conflict in values between practitioners and dominant institutions manifests as four additional dimensions of obstacles constraining agroforestry transitions: systems for accessing land, capital, and markets favor short-term production and economic value; Indigenous and local knowledge is not adequately valued; regulatory, funding, and other support institutions are siloed; and not enough appropriate information is accessible. Who is able to practice despite these obstacles is tightly linked with people's ability to access off-site resources that are inequitably distributed. Our case study highlights three key points with important implications for realizing just agroforestry transitions: (1) practitioners transition to agroforestry to restore ecosystems and reclaim sovereignty, not just for the direct benefits; (2) a major constraint to agroforestry transitions is that the term agroforestry is both unifying and exclusionary; (3) structural change is needed for agroforestry transitions to be just. We discuss potential solutions in the context of Hawai‘i and provide transferrable principles and actionable strategies for achieving equity in agroforestry transitions. We also demonstrate a transferrable approach for action-oriented, interdisciplinary research in support of just agroforestry transitions.

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Section: Indigenous and Local Knowledge Is Not Adequately Valuedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Gets to Adopt? Contested Values Constrain Just Transitions to Agroforestry

Hastings

Wong

Ticktin

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

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show abstract

“…Thus, the loss of the palm forest seems to have had no substantial economic impact on the human population's ability to support itself. It is also worth noting that agroforestry practices were widespread throughout Polynesia (e.g., [119,120])-surely if palm trees were a critical resource, then Rapa Nui people could have managed these arboricultural resources.…”

Section: Human-environment Interactions On Rapa Nuimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While human populations did cause profound changes to the island's environment, these human impacts were accompanied by land-use practices that ultimately improved the island's productivity and helped ensure the long-term sustainability of Rapa Nui communities. This pattern of anthropogenic ecological transformation of island environments into landscapes that sustainably supported human communities is widespread across the Pacific (e.g., [7,113,119,120,[182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189]). While the social and environmental configurations that comprise these transformations greatly vary by island location, due to historical contingencies and island-specific resource constraints (e.g., [132,158,190,191]), a common outcome is how these practices increased the natural productivity of these environments.…”

Section: Conclusion: the Triumph Of The Commonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Triumph of the Commons: Sustainable Community Practices on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

2021

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The history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) has long been framed as a parable for how societies can fail catastrophically due to the selfish actions of individuals and a failure to wisely manage common-pool resources. While originating in the interpretations made by 18th-century visitors to the island, 20th-century scholars recast this narrative as a “tragedy of the commons,” assuming that past populations were unsustainable and selfishly overexploited the limited resources on the island. This narrative, however, is now at odds with a range of archaeological, ethnohistoric, and environmental evidence. Here, we argue that while Rapa Nui did experience large-scale deforestation and ecological changes, these must be contextualized given past land-use practices on the island. We provide a synthesis of this evidence, showing that Rapa Nui populations were sustainable and avoided a tragedy of the commons through a variety of community practices. We discuss this evidence in the context of Elinor Ostrom’s “core design principles” for sustainable communities and argue that Rapa Nui provides a model for long-term sustainability.

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“…The breadfruit tree is a signature, multi-purpose-tree of the complex perennial agro-ecosystems systems in Oceania (Quintus et al 2019 ) with several hundred documented cultivars (Ragone and Wiseman 2007 ). Breadfruit agriculture is found in various forms in Hawaiʻi, including as food forests (Lincoln 2020 ), as intensively managed diversified orchards (Lincoln and Ladefoged 2014 ), and as individual trees in home gardens (Meilleur et al 2004 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilience of breadfruit agro-ecosystems in Hawaiʻi during the COVID-19 pandemic

et al. 2022

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Background The COVID-19 pandemic is interrupting domestic and global food supply chains resulting in reduced access to healthy diverse diets. Hawaiʻi has been described as a model social-ecological system and it has been suggested that indigenous agro-ecosystems have the potential to be highly productive and resilient under changing land-use and climate change disturbance. However, little research has yet been conducted exploring the disruption and resilience of agro-ecosystems in Hawaiʻi caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The breadfruit tree (Artocarpus altilis; Moraceae) is a signature, multi-purpose-tree of the complex perennial agro-ecosystems systems in Oceania. Methods This case study explores the ways in which the breadfruit agro-ecosystems of Hawaiʻi have shown resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Our study suggests that breadfruit has increased its value as a subsistence crop during the COVID-19 pandemic, even in a developed economy like Hawaiʻi, and that resilience of Hawaiian breadfruit agroe-cosystems during a crisis can be supported through cooperatives and food-hubs.

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Qualities and Contributions of Agroforestry Practices and Novel Forests in Pre-European Polynesia and the Polynesian Outliers

Cited by 26 publications

References 67 publications

Who Gets to Adopt? Contested Values Constrain Just Transitions to Agroforestry

Who Gets to Adopt? Contested Values Constrain Just Transitions to Agroforestry

Triumph of the Commons: Sustainable Community Practices on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Resilience of breadfruit agro-ecosystems in Hawaiʻi during the COVID-19 pandemic

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