Changing Forestry Regimes in Vanuatu: Is Sustainable Management Possible?

Abstract

We look at how Vanuatu’s forests have been used or “managed” over time. Traditional lore concerning resource use continues to meaningfully affect contemporary patterns of forest use, including the most dramatic use to date, large-scale logging. Aspects of traditional practices were generally sustainable, but current large-scale logging activities cannot be considered sustainable on social, ecological, or even timber-yield grounds. In light of this, several options and considerations for future sustainable forest management are presented, but the role of customary resource owners, and their traditional lore, is of primary importance in all of them.