Social-ecological resilience of agroforests in Fiji

Abstract

Global change, including climate and socioeconomic change, has major impacts on linked human and environmental health. In food systems, this precipitated the rise of industrialized agriculture and related increases in nutrition-related non-communicable diseases. Agroforestry has the potential to serve as a food production system that addresses issues of environmental degradation, food security, and nutrition. In Fiji, agroforests are a part of a larger social-ecological system that has also enabled Pacific Island people to be resilient to disasters and disturbances for centuries. However, knowledge about how these systems are adapting to global change and their capacity is for resilience in this changing context, remains incomplete. I address this knowledge gap by exploring the dynamics of agroforests and their capacity for resilience after a catastrophic Category 5 cyclone. Specifically, I used a combination of farmer interviews, agroforest vegetation surveys, and nutritional analyses in 50 agroforests across five districts in Fiji, pre-cyclone Winston, and 1 and 3 years post-cyclone to address: How did Cyclone Winston affect agroforest starch crop and cultivar richness? How did Cyclone Winton affect agroforest trees, and what traits and management practices increase resistance to damage? Does the diversity of ecological functional traits in agroforests predict their nutritional diversity? Starch crop richness was highly dynamic and largely resilient to the cyclone, but cultivar richness declined. Post cyclone tree survival was high across all agroforests (87.8%). Bigger trees experienced more damage than smaller trees, and survival increased as a function of increasing wood density. In addition, the purposeful management of trees in agroforests likely buffered them against damage and mortality. A novel application of functional diversity metrics showed that nutritional functional diversity increased as a function of ecological functional diversity, indicating that agroforests are able to provide important levels of ecological and nutritional functions in the same space. This interdisciplinary research outlines the importance of agroforests in Fiji and their contributions to food system resilience and nutritional security. Understanding how agroforests in social-ecological systems are adapting to current changes is critical to inform the global community on resilience to future disturbances.