Indigenous Knowledge and Long-term Ecological Change: Detection, Interpretation, and Responses to Changing Ecological Conditions in Pacific Island Communities

When local resource users detect, understand, and respond to environmental change they can more effectively manage environmental resources. This article assesses these abilities among artisanal fishers in Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands. In a comparison of two villages, it documents local resource users’ abilities to monitor long-term ecological change occurring to seagrass meadows near their communities, their understandings of the drivers of change, and their conceptualizations of seagrass ecology. Local observations of ecological change are compared with historical aerial photography and IKONOS satellite images that show 56 years of actual changes in seagrass meadows from 1947 to 2003. Results suggest that villagers detect long-term changes in the spatial cover of rapidly expanding seagrass meadows. However, for seagrass meadows that showed no long-term expansion or contraction in spatial cover over one-third of respondents incorrectly assumed changes had occurred. Examples from a community-based management initiative designed around indigenous ecological knowledge and customary sea tenure governance show how local observations of ecological change shape marine resource use and practices which, in turn, can increase the management adaptability of indigenous or hybrid governance systems

Taro Growing on Yap

The documentation of traditional methods of growing taro is a major objective of the Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture Taro Project. On Yap, almost all taro is grown by low-input traditional methods without the use of chemical fertilizers or machinery. A number of these taro growing systems are described in the report which follows. The systems are arranged in a rough sequence from simple to more intensive methods

Population Status and Natural History of Pteropus mariannus on Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands

A census of fruit bats (Pteropus mariannus ulthiensis) was conducted on Ulithi Atoll, Caroline Islands, in March 1986. We observed 715 bats in 3.2 km2 of habitat on 14 of 43 islets, yielding a minimum average density of 210 bats/km2. The population of the entire atoll was estimated to be about 1200bats at an overall density of 280 bats /km2. During the day, most (89%) bats roosted in colonies of > 5 animals. Colonies, which were typically composed of harem groups and bachelor males, occurred most commonly in two species of trees, Pisonia grandis and Artocarpus altilis. We recorded nine species of plants eaten by bats , with the fruit of Pandanus tectorius and the fruit and leaf stems of Guettarda speciosa and A. altilis fed on most frequently