Ngā Rauropi Whakaoranga

Cross-cultural plant exchanges in the Pacific began some three to four thousand years ago in the west Melanesian region with the advent of Austronesian colonists, identified archaeologically as the bearers of Lapita pottery. Their meeting with Papuasian agriculturalists produced an Oceanic subsistence system that was transported adaptively by the Lapita peoples to the far northern and eastern islands.....From the early 1500s, three centuries of European exploration and takeover of the spice trade began another era of plant exchange with New and Old World species, resulting in some enhancement of native agriculture. Subsequent foreign settlement continued this trend, but the introduction of cash cropping elements had its counterpart in the exchange of some crops for extra-Pacific plantation development. The dominantly expatriate large-scale mode of production for export underwent some "localization" in response to this century"s changing socio-political climate. Such conversions imply significant economic and environmental changes, in which the development of large-scale mining, forestry and fishing, despite cultural resistance, dwarfs the potentials for plant exchange. [from author's abstract]