Breadfruit trees vanishing from Pacific

By KATHY MARKS

SYDNEY - Experts warn that the Pacific breadfruit tree, which contributed to the mutiny on the Bounty and was once hailed as the solution to world hunger, is in serious decline.

The tree - part of the iconography of the South Pacific - is vanishing at an alarming rate, mainly because of global warming and a switch to Western-style diets. Some varieties have already been lost.

The tree's large, starchy fruits were once a staple food in the region, a source of complex carbohydrates as well as vitamins and minerals.

Their nutritional value was recognised by Joseph Banks, the botanist on Captain James Cook's ship, Endeavour, who noted that, in order to feed one generation and the next, all a man had to do was plant 10 breadfruit trees.

His remarks led British authorities to consider exporting breadfruit to the West Indies as a cheap food source for slave labour.

Captain William Bligh was duly dispatched to collect a cargo of saplings from Tahiti. But after leaving Tahiti, his sailors mutinied in 1789, enraged by - among other things - the use of scant drinking water to irrigate the plants. The saplings were tossed overboard and Bligh cast adrift.

A second voyage, also undertaken by Bligh, was more successful, and the tree is now ubiquitous in the Caribbean and all over the tropics.

But in the Pacific, where it originated, many people have forsaken its fruit in favour of processed foods such as tinned Spam.

As a result, the trees - cultivated by islanders for at least 3000 years - are being neglected, and ancient knowledge about fruit storage and preparation is being lost. The abandonment of the traditional diet is blamed for the region's high rates of diabetes, obesity and heart disease.

Climate change is another reason for the tree's plight. The shallow-rooted plant is vulnerable to rising sea levels and intrusion of saltwater into the soil and water table. It is also being damaged by cyclones and storm surges, which have increased in frequency. thanks to global warming. Kiribati and Micronesia have suffered particularly severe storm damage.

Traditionally, all parts of the breadfruit - an attractive tree growing up to 18m - were used: the timber for canoes, the bark for cloth, the dried flowers as a mosquito repellent and the latex as a medicine and adhesive.

Diane Ragone, director of the Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanic Garden in Hawaii, said a study carried out in Samoa had established that numbers had declined and many varieties, all of which had local names, had disappeared.

Ms Ragone said the narrowing of diversity had serious implications for countries still dependent on breadfruit as a staple crop, such as Tonga and Samoa. "The more diversity you have, the more chance you have of a stable food supply, as well as a more diverse nutritional portfolio."

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