[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

FOREWORD

This ethnobotanical study is a systematic inventory of forest plants found in the Ankave
territory of the Suowi [Mbwei] Valley (Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea). It is a
complement to the collective report that concluded the research project ‘Fruit trees and
food imbalances in the South Pacific’ funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.!2

The result of a collaboration between the CNRS (GDR 116 “Identity and
transformations of Oceanian societies”), the ORSTOMS Centre in Port-Vila, Vanuatu,
and the Vanuatu Department of Agriculture under the scientific responsibility of A.
Walter (ORSTOM), this comparative project focuses on the traditional food uses of
tropical forest trees. Starting with an inventory of the trees used in the four regions
selected for the survey (Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu), this research aims
to document their modes of exploitation and food consumption, in order to consider their
transfer and exploitation to areas of the South Pacific where they are absent or under-
exploited. Particular attention was paid to the ways in which these trees are integrated
into local horticultural systems, to the types of fruit consumption and, more broadly, to
the knowledge and know-how involved.

In this context, Melanesia (Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu) presents itself as a
‘reservoir’ of plants and knowledge, whereas the archipelagos of Tonga and Samoa are
regions where these forest resources were abandoned when the market economy was
opened up in favour of new foods (rice and canned foods).

The Ankave-Anga, who are forest gardeners and pig farmers, illustrate the most
‘traditional’ situation, as many plants growing spontaneously in the forest are still part of
their daily diet, and the consumption of imported food is very rare. The floristic richness
of the rainforest, which represents 99% of their environment (see picture p. 18) and their
still intact knowledge of it, provide an opportunity to draw up a complete and detailed
ethnobotanical inventory of the region. À comparison with another Anga group affected
by ‘modernity” since the early 1960s (the Baruya of the Wonenara Valley) allows us to
specify the forms of the progressive substitution of food purchased in bush shops for local
products and to appreciate its consequences on diet, modes of exploitation of the
environment and naturalist knowledge.

The results of this comparative study were published in French in 1994 and in English
in 2002 (see note 1). The present work summarises the main forms of forest management
and exploitation developed by the Ankave and brings together, in the form of an
inventory, the ethnobotanical information that I have collected since 1987. It is not only
a census of the species used in one form or another by this population, but also a database
that will serve both for future work in the region and for various comparative research
projects that go beyond the ‘Food imbalances’ project and the anthropology of food. This
source of information is particularly welcome at a time when issues such as the future of



12 Walter, A., Bataille-Benguigui, M.-C., Bonnemère, P. et Tcherkézoff, S. Fruits d'Océanie, paris IRD
Editions, 1994. A translation in English was published in 2002 : Fruits of Oceania. Canberra : ACIAR

Monograph 85 (https://www.aciar.gov.au/publication/books-and-manuals/fruits-oceania).
13 The ORSTOM was renamed IRD (for Institut de Recherche pour le Développement) in November 1998.

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