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    Climate Change

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    Freyja
    This document discusses the environmental and social impacts of climate change and overpopulation on the Trobriand Islands. The author observed over multiple field trips from 1982 to 2012 that the climate is changing, with heavier rains destroying gardens and a rising sea level. The population has also exploded from 239 to over 600 people in one village. This has led to deforestation as the limited land is continuously cultivated with shorter fallow periods, reducing soil quality and harvests. Yam production, which was central to the culture and exchange systems, has been threatened by food insecurity issues. These changes are undermining traditional social practices and cultural importance placed on yam exchanges.

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    Climate Change

    Uploaded by

    Freyja
    55 views47 pages
    This document discusses the environmental and social impacts of climate change and overpopulation on the Trobriand Islands. The author observed over multiple field trips from 1982 to 2012 that the climate is changing, with heavier rains destroying gardens and a rising sea level. The population has also exploded from 239 to over 600 people in one village. This has led to deforestation as the limited land is continuously cultivated with shorter fallow periods, reducing soil quality and harvests. Yam production, which was central to the culture and exchange systems, has been threatened by food insecurity issues. These changes are undermining traditional social practices and cultural importance placed on yam exchanges.

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    Climate Change

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    This document discusses the environmental and social impacts of climate change and overpopulation on the Trobriand Islands. The author observed over multiple field trips from 1982 to 2012 that the climate is changing, with heavier rains destroying gardens and a rising sea level. The population has also exploded from 239 to over 600 people in one village. This has led to deforestation as the limited land is continuously cultivated with shorter fallow periods, reducing soil quality and harvests. Yam production, which was central to the culture and exchange systems, has been threatened by food insecurity issues. These changes are undermining traditional social practices and cultural importance placed on yam exchanges.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    55 views47 pages

    Climate Change

    Uploaded by

    Freyja
    This document discusses the environmental and social impacts of climate change and overpopulation on the Trobriand Islands. The author observed over multiple field trips from 1982 to 2012 that the climate is changing, with heavier rains destroying gardens and a rising sea level. The population has also exploded from 239 to over 600 people in one village. This has led to deforestation as the limited land is continuously cultivated with shorter fallow periods, reducing soil quality and harvests. Yam production, which was central to the culture and exchange systems, has been threatened by food insecurity issues. These changes are undermining traditional social practices and cultural importance placed on yam exchanges.

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    You are on page 1of 47

    The Coral Gardens are losing their Magic:

    The social impact of climate change and


    overpopulation for the Trobriand Islanders

    Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics


    Gunter.Senft@mpi.nl
    This talk deals with dramatic environmental and social changes
    on the Trobriand Islands in Papua New Guinea (PNG)
    –
    which I experienced during 16 long- and short-term fieldtrips
    from 1982 to 2012.

    • I first report about the climate change I experienced there


    over the years,

    • then I provide a survey about the demographic changes on


    the Trobriands – highlighting the situation in Tauwema, my
    village of residence on Kaile’una Island, and

    • finally I report on the social impact these dramatic changes


    have for the Trobriand Islanders and their culture.
    Thanks to Barbara Senft for drawing this and the next map.
    The Trobriand Islands, Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea.
    Trobriand Islanders and their language:

    North-Massim; gardeners, slash and burn cultivation; excellent


    carvers, canoe builders and navigators; matrilineal, but virilocal;

    Language: Kilivila: Austronesian, West-Melanesian Oceanic


    Papuan Tip Cluster
    Tauwema
    When I first set foot on the
    Trobs in 1982 I had the
    quite romantic feeling that
    I was stepping right into the
    picture so vividly presented
    in Malinowski‘s ethnographic
    masterpieces.

    And having arrived in Tauwema


    village on Kaile‘una Island I
    thought I had entered more of
    a kind of South-Seas cliché
    than actual reality.
    And I started to understand what Robert Louis Stevenson may
    have meant when he wrote:

    The first experience can never be repeated. The first


    love, the first sunrise, the first South Sea Island are
    memories apart and touched by a virginity of sense.

    (Stevenson 1896: 6)
    Field trips:
    1982 (5 months) 1992 (3 months)
    1983 (10 months) 1993 (2 months)
    1989 (4 months) 1994 (2 months)
    1995 (2 months)
    3 (19 months) 1996 (2 months)
    1997 (2 months)
    1998 (2 months)

    2001 (2 months) 7 (15 months)


    2003 (1 month)
    2004 (2 months)
    2006 (1 month)
    2008 (2 months)
    2012 (2 months)
    5
    (10 months) 1
    My first two field trips to the Trobs:

    Juli – December 1982


    6 weeks break
    January – November 1983

    During these two long-term field trips we experienced life on a


    South Sea island – with its dry and rainy season.

    In the rainy season it really rained cats and dogs and the
    humidity was paramount.

    The dry season was often quite hot, but with the trade winds
    blowing, life was quite convenient.
    Thus, there was a clear division between

    the dry season and the rainy season


    However, this changed dramatically in the first decade of this
    century (a change already foreshadowed in the mid 1990s…):

    Heavy rains in June 2012


    This was a challenge to my equipment –
    like, e.g., my solar cells,
    or to the sun which could no longer bleach coral stone walls any
    more and which are now full of moss, lichen and other plants,
    but it was a DISASTER
    for the Trobriand gardens:

    because yams and taro plants,


    especially seedlings
    rot away
    in a soil much too wet
    and now often even swampy.
    Harvests like this one in 1982 are now

    just sweet memories of the past…


    However, there is yet another heavy blow on
    FOOD SECURITY
    on the Trobriands, a security already
    ENDANGERED
    because of another reason …
    namely: OVERPOPULATION
    Population explosion in Tauwema:

    1982: 239 inhabitants

    1989: 277 inhabitants

    2004: 550 inhabitants

    2012: ≈ 620 inhabitants

    = 258 %
    Tauwema 1982
    Tauwema 1998
    Data for all Trobriand Islands:

    2008 officially
    announced:

    28,784 people
    on 321 ha land

    unofficial estimate
    based on the 2010
    census:

    ≈ 40,000 people

    (Jarillo de la Torre 2013: 18)


    This population explosion is not just a local,
    but a nationwide phenomenon:

    1st official PNG census:


    1970:
    2,2 million people

    4. 04. 2012:
    PNG Post Courier
    headline:

    “Population of PNG is more than 7 million“

    ≈ threefold increase in 40 years!


    (see Kenneth 2012; Jarillo de la Torre 2013: 186)
    But back to the Trobriands
    and to reasons for the overpopulation there:

    • decline in infant mortality,


    • abandonment of sexual abstinence for mothers until their
    children can walk and
    • no traditional forms of family planning used anymore –

    due to the fact that the local Trobriand missionaries


    finally won their fight against the “tomegwa“ – the magicians
    who knew the recipe for making a contraception from a
    mixture of herbs (for details see Senft 2011: 33f.).

    The magicians – losing their influence and status in the


    Trobriand society – did not find apprentices anymore and their
    maternal relatives were no longer interested in inheriting their
    skills. Thus, their knowledge got lost.
    The impact of the climate change and overpopulation:

    Trivial insights with severe consequences:

    • The Trobriand archipelago consists of islands.

    • The Trobrianders are gardeners.

    • The land mass available for gardens is finite.

    • The more people living on the Trobs the less land is available
    for gardening.
    Consequence: The bush is cultivated more often than before:

    the fallow period in the slash-and-burn


    cultivation dropped from 6+ years
    to 3 or even 2 years

    with the results of:

    - impoverished soil fertility


    => poorer harvests

    and …

    (see also: Jarillo de la Torre 2013; MacCarthy 2012; O‘Sullivan 2008, 2010; Risimeri 2000)
    - DEFORESTATION
    Gardens

    <= in the 1980s

    and in the recent past =>


    Gardens

    <= in the 1980s

    and in the recent past =>


    Gardens

    <= in the 1980s

    and in the recent past =>


    The deforestation will result in shortage of wood –
    an essential resource for the Trobrianders!

    … as firewood
    and building material
    for houses, canoes, etc..
    Another obvious change is the RISE OF SEA-LEVEL

    (note how far towards the village canoes have to be pulled to make sure that
    the high tide won‘t wash them away; the canoe on the right photo which is
    half on the beach has just arrived and isn‘t stored away properly yet)
    and heavier breakers at high tide which washed away parts of the
    sandy beach of Tauwema …
    What about the social and cultural impact of these changes?

    The role of yams for the Trobriand Islanders:

    Taytu, the staple food, is to the natives kaulo, vegetable food par
    excellence, and it comes into prominence at harvest and after.
    This is the sheet-anchor of prosperity, the symbol of plenty, malia,
    and the main source for native wealth.
    (Malinowski 1935: 81)

    … the production of yams is firmly grounded in the male domain


    The small taytu yam is both the basic subsistence food and the
    principal object of exchange. Yams in the latter category open the
    way to all other avenues of resource control. Kiriwina informants
    say, “If a man has yams, he can find anything else needed“.
    (Weiner 1976: 137)
    Michelle MacCarthy – based
    on O‘Sullivan (2008: 51 & 55)
    points out:

    “On Kiriwina, the proportion of yams


    used for gifts or communal meals
    (feasts) is estimated from survey
    data at 60-80 percent, with relatively
    little retained for personal use…
    When necessity demands it,
    however, it can also be treated as a
    commodity… On average about
    5-10 percent of an annual harvest
    will be sold“ (MacCarthy 2012: 137).

    MacCarthy did18 months of fieldwork


    on Kiriwina in Yalumgwa, 2009-2010.
    And another young colleague, Sergio Jarillo de la Torre, who
    recently (December 2008-June 2010) did field-research on
    Kiriwina (also in Yalumgwa) points out:

    As is well known, yams in the Trobriand


    Islands are not only food. They are mostly
    items of wealth and power (Weiner 1988:
    95-96) laden with symbolism (Mosko 2009),
    associated to magic (Malinowski 1935: 153-
    154) and instrumental in underlining the
    social hierarchies and the value of
    individuals, clans and villages (Malinowski
    1929: 442-443).

    (Jarillo de la Torre 2013: 159)


    The actual fabric of the Trobriand Islanders‘ social construction of
    reality was YAMS.

    It played the most prominent role in food exchange rituals, e.g., in


    mourning rituals or in communal meals initiated by chiefs or other
    men of rank as gifts for their fellow villagers as a payment for their
    support, e.g., in the construction of a new kula canoe.

    These yams exchanges had an important bonding function not


    only for kinspeople, but also for fellow-villagers who were
    members of other clans.

    Yams was the Trobriand valuta –

    even the paramount chief had to pay with it for everything he


    wanted – like, e.g., a new yamshouse, a canoe, or a new
    village playground…
    Communal meal after a mourning ritual (sagali)
    With the present food security problems – that lead to a
    severe food shortage in 2008 which made Trobrianders eat up
    many of their yams seedlings which in turn resulted in an even
    worse food shortage problem in 2009 – yams has lost this
    importance (see MacCarthy 2012: 141f.).
    According to MacCarthy (2012), Jarillo de la Torre (2013: 17-
    23) and O‘Sullivan (2008) the fact that yams on the Trobriands
    has been losing its cultural impact in the last years already had –
    and continues to have – severe consequences for the Trobriand
    Islanders´ social construction of reality – at least on Kirwina
    Island:

    • traditional ceremonies lose their importance,

    • people steal yams, taro and other crops from the gardens –
    thus breaking a very severe taboo of old,

    • people lose their interest in, and their feelings of responsibility


    for, their community,
    • people rely more and more on their churches for things that the
    government and the chiefs of their villages cannot provide any
    more – they participate more in church activities – which
    unfortunately also keep them away from their gardens,

    • the chiefs lose influence and power – having lost their yams
    valuta,

    • people lose their interest in their gardens and in gardening


    because of lack of available garden land and seeds as well as
    because of lack of trust in the government and in the chiefs,

    • there is a growing reliance on food – especially on rice – that


    can be bought in the stores on the Trobriands, and

    • the Trobrianders experience a dramatic and fatal loss of pride,


    self-respect and respect in their culture and tradition.
    In 2012 I could not observe such
    food shortage problems and its
    consequences on Kaile‘una
    Island, at least not in the villages
    Tauwema, Koma, Giwa and
    Kaduwaga. But according to
    Jarillo de la Torre (2013: 156)
    the death of a villager in Kaisiga
    is “followed by only one-off
    distribution of food“ instead
    by many mortuary rites
    with many ceremonial food
    distributions. For Jarillo de la
    Torre this is the result of food
    shortage problems in the two
    villages in the south of
    Kaile‘una, Kaisiga and Bulakwa.
    I am sure that these food problems will sooner or later reach
    all the other islands of the Trobriand archipelago – with all the
    dramatic consequences for the Trobrianders´ custom and culture

    (as reported for Kiriwina Island by Michelle MacCarthy, Sergio Jarillo de la


    Torre and Jane Nancy O‘Sullivan).

    The evidence of the environmental and climate change I have


    presented here confirms this pessimism.
    It seems that soon a full yams house will be a rather rare and
    quite amazing sight on the Trobriands …
    and MacCarthy‘s (2012:146) prediction that “the empty yam house“ will be a
    common feature of the Trobriand landscape will come true…
    Thank you!
    References:

    Jarillo de la Torre, Sergio. 2013. Carving the Spirits of the Wood. An Enquiry into Trobriand
    Materialisations. PhD thesis. University of Cambridge: Social Anthropology Section.
    Kenneth, Gorethy. 2012. Popilation of PNG is more than 7 million. Post Courier, 04.04.2012.
    MacCarthy, Michelle. 2012. Playing politics with yams: Food security in the Trobriand Islands of
    Papua New Guinea. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 34: 136-147.
    Malinowski, Bronislaw, 1929. The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia. London:
    Routledge.
    Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1935. Coral Gardens and their Magic. Vol. I. The description of
    gardening. London: George Allen & Unwin.
    Mosko, Mark. 2009. The fractal yam: Botanical imagery and human agency in the Trobriands.
    The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15: 679-700.
    O‘Sullivan, Jane Nancy. 2008. Yam Nutrition and Soil Fertility Management in the Pacific.
    Canberra: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
    O‘Sullivan, Jane Nancy. 2010. Yam Nutrition: Nutrient Disorders and Soil Fertility Management.
    Canberra: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
    Risimeri, J. B. 2000. Yams and food security in the lowlands of PNG. In: Bourke, R. M., M. Allen
    and J. Salisbury (eds.), Food Security for Papua New Guinea. Proceedings of teh Papua
    New Guinea Food and Nutrition 2000 Conference, PNG University of Technology, Lae, 26-
    30 June 2000, 768-774. Canberra: Australian Centre ofr International Cultural Research
    Proceedings No. 99.
    Senft, Gunter. The Tuma Underworld of Love. Erotic and other narrative songs of the Trobriand
    Islanders and their spirits of the dead. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
    Stevenson, Robert Louis. 1896. In the South Seas. New Introduction by Jeremy Treglown. 1987
    edition. London: Hogarth Press Chatto & Windus.
    Weiner Annette B. 1976. Women of Value, Men of Renown. New Perspectives in Trobriand
    Exchange. Austin: University of Texas Press.
    Weiner, Annette B. 1988. The Trobnriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea. New York: Holt,
    Rinehart & Winston.

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