Page updated:
Friday, 7 September 2007

PEOPLE making a difference - Gwendolyn Pitakaka...

The food forest of Sasamuqa

Gwendolyn in her agricultural forest

The track leads to a small valley. Forested hills rise on two sides and, ahead, a low ridge shuts off the valley from the steep hinterland.

In the open valley bottom the heat seems concentrated. The sea breeze that blow gently onto the shore do not penetrate here; it is still, humid and sweat pours freely. Ahead is a small cluster of traditional grass houses, one of which belongs to Gwendolyn Pitakaka, a mother of three.

"My brothers and their families live here too", Gwendolyn explains in a mix of Solomon Island Pijin and English. "This is my house".

It is a modest structure, small in size and and of the traditional style with sago palm leaf roof and woven pandanus leaf walls. Long, low eaves shelter the window openings - there is no glass - from the tropical downpours and the hot sun. Inside, it is cool and dark. Here, Gwendolyn has raised her three children.

A small building used for family meals and equipped with a table and a food cupboard stands a few metres away. Next to that is the kitchen, a larger leaf building. Here, Gwendolyn's mother busies herself over the open fire.

A vegetable garden near the house. The bush garden is on the slope behind the buildings. Beyond that is the forest planted to food, timber and useful materials.

Vegetables and kokorako

The conversation takes place in a simplified English blended with Pijin and soon moves to cooking and food. "We grow most of our food in the sup sup gardens", Gwendolyn explains, waving her arm towards the adjacent clearing. All except rice, that is. That comes from Australia's Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area from where it makes a long, slow journey to Choiseul, the north-easternmost island of the Solomons, .

Gwendolyn has planted three or four sup sup gardens near the house. Tomato, capsicum, shallots and slippery cabbage - the local green (Hibiscus manihot), are grown.

"Here is my kokorako house", she says, stopping by a bamboo structure with a sago leaf roof. "I have 26 kokorako but now they are laying all over the place". Like fish from the nearby sea, the chickens contribute protein to family diets.

"And here I have made a little agroforest".

This small copse of trees is the one that the track winds through. A mixed planting of fruits and nuts, a single kapok with its sparse foliage and varieties from the bush have been established behind the largest of the sup sup gardens. Nearby, a patch of the root crop taro grows where the soil is moister.

Into the hills

The track onto the ridge that forms the sides and headwall of this minor valley passes two more grass houses. One is the boy's house, occupied by the young men of the extended family. The other belongs to the family of one of the brothers.

The track becomes steeper where it enters the forest. Yesterday's rain has left it muddy and slippery and although the forest canopy casts a cooling shade it is humid. Even the most minor of exertions are accompanied by an outpouring of sweat.

"I have left most of the coconut because they are useful", Gwendolyn explains, indicating the canopy of coconut palms standing above the trees. "And here is a guava... over here a mango... and down there...", pointing to a thicket in a gully, " ...I have left trees of the bush". Nearby is a large, spreading tree indigenous to the forest. Known as 'sandpaper' it has edible leaves and fruit.

What looks like a hillside of natural forest is anything but. Gwendolyn is converting the slopes, areas of which have been cleared over the years for bush gardens, into an what she calls an agroforest. She has planted trees and shrubs that yield fruit and nuts but has retained many of the trees of the forest. It looks like natural forest but its composition is being changed to produce products of more direct use to people.

Illustrating her enthusiasm is a botanical collection of varieties of the edible cut nut tree from different provinces. The indigenous, slender, straight-growing trunk produces clusters of nuts among tufts of foliage.

The view from the top of the ridge reveals the sea in one direction and the interior in the other. This is hilly, forested, undulating land below a canopy of coconut palm. On top of the ridge stands a partially finished house that Gwendolyn has been building intermittently these past years. "I will finish it one day", she says.

"I have left this tree", she explains, stopping by a squat tree with long, broad leaves adjacent to the house's unfinished framework. "It grows in the forest. I have kept it because it has big leaves. They make mulch".

About a hundred meters along the ridge an old bush garden clearing is being reclaimed by the forest. Helping it along is a planting of young teak trees made by one of the young men of the extended family. Established only two years ago, the teak has already reached three metres in height. In future years it will be sold - teak is a high value timber.

The return walk along the ridge leads into Gwendolyn's bush garden. Situated on the slope above her house, here she grows pineapple, cassava, sweet potato, pawpaw and banana. The bush garden, traditionally maintained through shifting cultivation, is where Solomon Islanders grow their staple root crops.

A simulated forest

What Gwendolyn is developing is a forest that simulates the natural bush and incorporates many species found within it. It is a forest that combines indigenous and introduced trees and shrubs but that continues to perform the functions of the natural forest such as filtering water and stabilising the soil.

Agroforestry is an idea that is slowly catching on. In the next village to the south, Panarui, Salathiel Sore has planted his own agroforest. Although it is far smaller than Gwendolyn's he plans to enlarge it over coming years.

None of this is really anything new. Multiple-use agroforests were once a traditional part of Pacific island life, places where edible and other species used for craft, construction and bush medicine were mixed. That a few farmers are rediscovering their usefulness indicates that innovation persists in these islands.

Asked about her motivation in taking on all this work, Gwendolyn replies: "I am doing it for my family and their future".