Leaders in Biodiversity Conservation, Montréal 23-25 October 2014
David Strauch Roxanne M. Adams Department of Geography Buildings and Grounds Management University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
1 September 1940
http://huntbot.andrew.cmu.edu/hibd/Departments/Archives/Archives-HR/Rock.shtml A Century’s Assemblage of Plants
King Prajadhipok of Siam planted Botanists and horticulturalists added Chaulmoogra (Hydnocarpus plants collected on their work in the anthelmintica) in honor of Alice Ball Pacific and beyond; the golden variety of for her work on Hansenʻs Disease Delonix regia shown in the background using this this tree. was orinally collected at the Papeari Botanical Garden on Tahiti in 1975, by Horace Clay, whose name it now bears.
Visiting scholars who came to give lectures at UH, like Carl Sandberg, often planted a tree while they were here. Arrival of plants in Hawai‘i
1 billion BP 1 million BP 1 KYA 1788 1960 today
1010 109 108 107 106 105 104 103 102 10 1
Native plants
Cultural Heritage plants
Cosmopolitan plants
Native plants <—(x~10k) Cultural Heritage plants
Cosmopolitan plants
4000 3000 2000 1000 0 Native Species of the Hawaiian Islands
by wind, air flotation ocean drift (rafting) ocean drift wing, birds: sticky fruit/seeds birds: barbs/bristles birds: mud on feet & wave birds: internal Evolution of endemic species
Difficulty of reaching the islands + Highly diversified habitats —> High percentages of endemic taxa
Native Hawaiian Plant Species Indigenous 106 11% Endemic 851 89% Total 957
Species evolving in the absence of browsers and predators tended to lose natural defenses.
Māmaki (Pipturus alba), a relative of nettles — with no sting! Transported Landscapes
Hawaiian settlement brings about 25 plants and 5 vertebrate animals
Terrestrial mammals new to islands! — immediate impact on ecology
Landscapes restructured in places • Polynesian arboriculture • Cultivation of native grasses • Increase in wetlands http://herbkanehawaii.com/image-catalog/people-places/kaanapali-in-ancient-times-p27/ http://herbkanehawaii.com/image-catalog/people-places/kaanapali-in-ancient-times-p27/
Herb Kāne, Ka‘anapali in Ancient Times Energy remains a cycle within Flows of energy change Agroecology of pre-cosmopolitan Hawai‘i Landscape is relational Production of space: the system
Ahupua‘a poster, Kamehameha Schools http://deepnatureconnection.com/2012/01/08/ahupuaa-at-limahuli-botanical-garden/ Hawaiian Introduced “Canoe Plants”
Herbs/Shrubs Trees
ʻape" Alocasia macrorrhiza Cocos nucifera niu / coconut ʻohe / bamboo" Bambusa vulgaris Musa spp. maiʻa / banana ʻohe / bamboo" Schizostachyum glaucifolium Pandanus tectorius hala kalo / taro Colocasia esculenta kī / ti Cordyline fruticosa Aleurites moluccana kukui ʻolena / turmeric" Curcuma domestica Artocarpus altilis ʻulu / breadfruit" uhi Dioscorea alata Broussonetia papyrifera wauke ko or sugarcane Saccharum officinarum Calophyllum inophyllum kamani pia Tacca leontopetaloides Cordia subcordata kou ʻawapuhi" Zingiber zerumbet Hibiscus tiliaceus hau ʻuala / sweetpotato" Ipomoea batatas Morinda citrifolia noni ipu Lageneria siceraria Syzygium malaccense ʻōhiʻa ʻai" ‘awa Piper methysticum Thespesia populnea milo
About half of the canoe plants are trees (not counting bamboo) Colonial Misunderstanding of Tropical Trees
Polynesian arboriculture was often invisible to early European explorers, who saw mixed treescapes as “natural”
The Terrestrial Paradise
The Savage Wilds
Understanding the Temperate Context
Trees as ecological energy banks
High latitudes characterized by seasonal energy differentials — it gets cold!
Trees store energy, make it available in winter • build ecological capital in living wood • produce “interest” in fruits, nuts, & deadwood
• used by people for food, shelter & fuel http://www.mnforsustain.org/energy_ecology_economics_odum_ht_1973.htm Howard T. Odum (1974) Energy, Ecology, & Economics & Ecology, Energy, (1974) Odum T. Howard
European Expansion and the Liquidation of Ecological Capital http://www.online-literature.com/keats/3816/ John MacWhirter (1905) On the Edge of Sherwood Forest Forest Sherwood of Edge the On (1905) MacWhirter John
And if Robin should be cast Sudden from his turfed grave, And if Marian should have Shipbuilding mines arboreal energy
Once again her forest days, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Robin_Hood_Major_Oak.jpg She would weep, and he would craze: deforestation erodes rural livlihoods, He would swear, for all his oaks, drives peasants to become sailors Fall'n beneath the dockyard strokes, (called England’s “heart of oak”) Have rotted on the briny seas; She would weep that her wild bees Sang not to her — strange! that honey Process creates ecological debt... http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Cassell-TheBritishIsles/pages/v1s1-204-On-the-Edge-of-Sherwood-Forest/ Can't be got without hard money! to be paid by colonial appropriation John Keats (1818) Robin Hood: to a Friend puts new elites in debt... changes local structures of power Injection of concentrated energy Ships reproduce economic/ecological relationships Energy now leaves the system ...paid by forestsliquidating as it will in sugarcane,as it will etc. Landscape is extractive Production of space:
William Hodges (1776) Resolution and Adventure with fishing craft in Matavai Bay (detail) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hodges,_Resolution_and_Adventure_in_Matavai_Bay.jpghttps://sites.google.com/site/laurenbarina/thetraders Impacts of Cosmopolitan Macrofauna Devastate native plants & landscapes
Cows, goats, sheep, deer turned loose to graze (mining ecological capital!)
Leads to reforestation efforts, starting in Mānoa with the HSPA, connected to College of Hawai‘i noa Valley 1890s, courtesy Bishop Museum Museum Bishop courtesy 1890s, Valley noa ā M http://www.alohafrom808.com/2011/08/manoa-valley-step-falls-july-31-2011/ Impacts of Cosmopolitan Microfauna Erosion of Native Ecologies
Diseases devastate native birds in tandem with mosquitoes, pigs, & chickens — also imperilling co-evolved plants
Diseases devastate native Hawaiians • Horrible population collapse • Erodes social system which maintains landscape • Shifts land tenure to extractive ecologies
http://www.nwf.org/news-and-magazines/national-wildlife/birds/archives/2012/hawaiian-birds.aspx Impacts of Cosmopolitan Settlement Division of Landscapes
Landscapes of production “Rationalized” with reduced biodiversity
Landscapes of consumption Marked out of production by big trees & lawns made of surplus capital from sugar & pineapple
Both landscapes alienate labor i.e. are no longer made for the people they’re made by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liliuokalani_Park_and_Gardens http://hawaii-agriculture.com/hawaiis-last-sugar-plantation-to-be-biofuel-lab-businessweek/ Impacts of Cosmopolitan Settlement Landscape Values
Ordered by visual aesthetic
The “landscape subject” is the viewer possessing through penetrative gaze
Consistent with grazing http://www.kualoa.com/locations/ http://www.kualoa.com/locations/ Social Inheritance of Cosmopolitan Settlement Consequences for Landscape
Policymakers minimize resources available (budget) Treat maintenance of landscape as unskilled, i.e. No horticultural background for groundskeepers
Workers resist perceived exploitation Challenges for Conservation
Sensitive plants require more care than we are budgeted to give them
The “Big Trees and Lawn” campus paradigm consistent with the estate aesthetic
The fetishization of natives use of natives as mere decoration (“anti-conquest” )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes. Values associated with plant groups
Plants Landscape Ethic
Native plants biocentric moral
Cultural Heritage plants relational political
Cosmopolitan plants aesthetic universalist Native Species Conservation of ( Munroidendron racemosum Pokulakalaka Pokulakalaka )
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/carr/munroidendron.htm Conservation of Native Species Maintaining Genetic Diversity of Endemic Plants
http://kahuakukui2014.blogspot.com/2013/07/day-2_23.html Conservation of Cosmopolitan Species Maintaining Genetic Diversity of Imperilled Plants
Endangered in its native Madagascar, this unusual poinciana was propagated by Richard Hamilton from scion wood collected by Mariannas Islands extension agent Charles Frear, (then also a UH horticulture grad student); seedlings segregate to gold and orange forms, propagated here by Richard Criley. http://uhmlandscape.wordpress.com/2014/04/19/earth-month-plantings-at-uh-manoa-palms/ Conservation of Cosmopolitan Species volunteers, planting palms during Earth Month 2014 Grounds Supervisor Jameson Ramelb, groundskeeperswith and * endemic to Madagascar Beccariophoenix alfredii the black Philippine palm Dypsis cabadae Upolu Island, Western S Clinostigma samoense the Majestic Palm (Madagascar) Ravenea rivularis April 2014 accessions: Palm Collection Joseph F. Rock on IUCN Red List Adding to the
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ā moa Shifting the understanding of the landscape
Building constituency through education
Campus map shows > 5000 plants Allows multiple kinds of queries Gives scientific and cultural info Provides links to other databases
Also a useful tool for analysis
http://manoa.hawaii.edu/landscaping/plantmap.html Mahalo
1939
Today http://libweb.hawaii.edu/libdept/archives/univarch/centennial/50years.htm