| Fast Facts |
location
Western Pacific; 10-hour flight from Honolulu
ecoregion
Micronesia
project size
133 square miles
public lands
Pohnpei Watershed Forest Reserve
partners
Conservation Society of Pohnpei, municipal and state governments, traditional Pohnpeian leaders
conservancy initiatives
Freshwater
natural events
huge spawning aggregations of grouper, February–April | |
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Flush with plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth, this Pacific island paradise is an incubator of community-based conservation techniques that could be applied throughout Oceania. |
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Sunset near Sokehs Rock.
© Nik Wheeler/Corbis |
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With the largest intact upland rain forest in all of Micro-nesia, the island of Pohnpei is one of the greenest, wettest places in the world. The native forest overflows with species of plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. The forest is also vital to the island’s water quality, a growing tourism industry and the cultural and spiritual lives of Pohnpeians.
But over the past three decades, Pohnpei’s native forest has been dramatically reduced from 42 percent to 15 percent of the island’s area. The culprit: the clearing of forest to grow sakau, or kava, a plant that produces an earthy, mildly intoxicating beverage. |
Ginger blooms,
Kepirohi Falls.
© Tom Till |
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Sakau has been the elixer of choice for islanders for generations. In Nan Madol, Pohnpei’s 700-year-old basalt-block fortress, a stone worn smooth by centuries of pounding sakau reveals its deep cultural roots. Yet today, with sakau the premier cash crop and a major source of employment on Pohnpei, the volume of its cultivation has degraded the forests and other ecosystems. Planting this shallow-rooted crop on steep slopes leads to soil erosion, which smothers mangroves, lagoons and the coral reefs that ring the island. | |
Since 1990 The Nature Conservancy has helped craft a watershed management strategy that recognizes the authority of local villagers and traditional leaders to manage their own forest and marine resources a first for the island nation. As a result, they created a new forest reserve and placed a ban on crop cultivation and settlement in the upland forest. The reserve encompasses nearly a third of the island. Our work in Pohnpei has fostered local participation in watershed management and created a new spirit of cooperation among government and community leaders, producing results that can be exported and implemented across other islands of Micronesia and the Pacific.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in the Federated States of Micronesia. |
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| Conservation Profile |
targets
upland rain forest, coral reefs, mangroves, fish like Pohnpei greater white-eye, Pohnpei mountain starling, short-eared owl
stresses
destruction of native forest for agriculture, sedimentation and runoff, incompatible development, unsustainable fishing practices
strategies
promote ecologically compatible land-use practices, promote ecologically sound public policies, engage community in natural resource management, designate marine protected areas, launch local partner organizations
results
Pohnpei Watershed Forest Reserve created; watershed strategy gives management authority to local people | | | | |
