The Pacific Basin Islands’ Conservation Partnership

Remarks by Lawrence E. Clark,
NRCS Deputy Chief for Science and Technology
at the
16th Annual Pacific Basin Association of Conservation Districts Conference, Guam, USA, August 1, 2002

It is a real pleasure to be here with you today. It’s invigorating for me to be with folks from local Conservation Districts and other conservationists who work with you. This is a unique part of the world and the natural resources conservation issues are unique as well. The volcanic and limestone origin of your land, the tropical climate and your unique cultural heritage make your work challenging and dramatic. It will also make my visit very interesting. Like other soil and water conservation districts, you play a key role in protecting your own natural resources and in keeping the attention of others focused on natural resource sustainability concerns.

Sustainability is an interesting concept here in the tropics—a place where almost any natural resource can become acutely scarce almost overnight—except for maybe the sun you have here and the salt water you are surrounded by. Soil and water is the basis for all life, and our human dependency on them is easy to see and feel here in the islands of the Pacific Basin. Here, if the land washes away you can’t just move west like the early settlers in North America did. This is a dramatic example of the need to sustain natural resources for future generations–and the difficulties in doing so.

When a farmer plants crops where some of the slopes can be as steep as 20 to 30 percent, they may get used to seeing the soil wash down each row every time big rains come. It is up to the soil conservation districts and their partners to demonstrate other ways to keep the shallow soils from washing away.

In NRCS, we use standard tools like the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation or RUSLE, to make some calculations, and recommend the best ways to reduce the length of a slope to improve conservation systems for better control of erosion. In many places around the world, we take for granted that we can help farmers install terraces, waterways, diversions, or adjust the crop rotation, so that soil-loss is within tolerable levels. But, here in the tropics, we need special adoptions of our tools and conservation technologies.

Right now you are probably thinking, “Larry Clark just doesn’t know what it’s like here!”

Well, maybe I don’t. I’ve never worked in the tropics or walked your fields as I did my family farm back in eastern North Carolina. That is why I know that the work of local conservation districts is so important to helping protect our private land. You are committed land owners and conservationists and you understand the issues, the opportunities, and the limitations facing managers of land. This is an awesome responsibility.

You are also the people out on the land who know what will work and what won’t. If conservation technology used other places does not work well here among the tropical islands, then maybe we need to import or develop a new technology that will work. In an effort to do this better here in the tropics, we have established two new positions, titled “Tropical Technology Specialist,” at the University of Puerto Rico and the University of Hawaii to help us adapt our technology to tropical conditions. We may not know your farming systems but we have listened to our people and we know that it is not the same as mainland agriculture. I hope that your involvement in the Tropical Technology Consortium will help bring attention the unique issues here. You know more about them than anyone.

In my travels around the world, I have observed that sometimes new technology is the result of old technology that we find among the people closest to the land. You see, I know that all wisdom and creativity does not come from Washington or New York. Social scientists call this unique insight that you have about your land and how to manage it sustainably–“endogenous knowledge.”

I understand that there is a farmer on the Island of Babelthaup, part of the Republic of Palau, who is successfully farming 20 acres of steep land using rotor tillers and hand tools. This farmer appreciates the importance of the soil, because if it washes down the hill, she and her workers carry it back up the hill. Can we help them do a better job of keeping the soil in place? I bet we can!

You use a farming term that they also use in Australia and South Africa—“piggeries.” I understand most people keep 1 or 2 sows to produce pigs for personal use and ceremonial purposes. But animal waste has become a big problem. I heard that several farmers in the Federated States of Micronesia have begun to use rain gutters to direct animal lot runoff directly to crops before it can enter the surface water and cause health and surface water problems.

In many parts of the United States, farmers are trying to manage the waste from confined animal feeding operations that house tens of thousands of sows. The practices that work there may not work here, but the concept is the same and the desired results are still the same.

One area of success here in the tropics is agroforestry. This works especially well where plants such as banana and casaba are incorporated into the native habitat. This doesn’t disturb the existing forest while they practice sustainable forestry. On the other hand, another farmer clears 20 to 30 percent slopes with bulldozers and plant corn. I can’t blame the farmer for making as much cash crop on the land as possible, especially when you can make three harvests in one growing season. But does the short-term gain outweigh the long term loss?

I’m not here to criticize farmers and farming practices. But, I think we need to better understand local knowledge and cultural values. The people whose families have lived here for generations may have traditions of land and water conservation that we need to understand and incorporate into our conservation assistance. The traditional community Chiefs should play a role in helping local farmers try new conservation measures. Conservation districts can host demonstrations of what works for farmers elsewhere. This will provide first hand understanding of how conservation works. Can demonstrations help here? If the local Chiefs understand and invoke their traditional influence over the local people and convince them to plant across the slope to conserve soil instead of up and down the hill to make the heavy rains runoff fast, will it make a difference?

I would like to offer something that would cure all of your conservation needs. Some new conservation practice or technology or a special program designed just for you, and the extra funds to implement it, but it doesn’t exist!

In the recently signed 2002 Farm Bill, there is a section on grants for innovative technology. You may want to study this to see if you can participate to study special conservation technologies in the tropics.

One of the things we are working very hard to do is get needed information to you and get it to you faster. The World Wide Web is one means of doing that. One initiative we have embarked upon is called SmarTech. The Electronic Field Office Technical Guide (e-FOTG) is the first phase of the SmarTech initiative sponsored by NRCS’ Science and Technology Consortium. It is a Web-based application that provides States and areas with a framework to establish an official, certified, electronic FOTG for field staffs and, in the near future, third-party vendors. It links to a Technology Web site on an intranet for all NRCS employees, called “my.NRCS.”

I understand that your technical leaders are populating these data bases now. This new Web-based tool will help organize and make available electronically the science and conservation technologies used by NRCS field staffs. By the end of August we expect to have the information available for Third Party Vendors, farmers, and others who use it. Phase II implementation, scheduled for November 2002, will provide NRCS field staff and third-party vendors the means to create Field Office Technical Guides—“Thunderbooks” of frequently used material—that can be downloaded to laptops and hand-held computing devices.

When travel from island to island is time consuming and expensive, the Electronic-Field Office Technical Guides will help field conservationists quickly access the information they need. It will be easier to maintain and update. I know that everyone does not have access to the World Wide Web yet where telephones cannot accommodate electronic transmissions. So we will still print some paper copies. And we will print some in languages other than English.

As we work with farmers to help them develop conservation plans, the client must be involved throughout the planning process and development of the plan. The farmer must make the final decisions, deciding how and when to implement the plan.

Conservation planning is the foundation for the conservation work of the agency and our Conservation Partnership. Our Conservation Partnership is a partnership among farm organizations, all levels of government, including the local conservation districts, and, of course, farmers and ranchers. It is not perfect, but it is a model of cooperation that is envied around the globe.

Before I overstay my welcome, let me leave you with a few challenges that you as conservation leaders must continue to assume:

• You must continue to create systems for conserving natural resources that are credible, viable, and accepted by everyone—especially farmers.

• You must continue to educate government and community leaders that an investment now in conservation of natural resources will payoff later; and it may payoff in ways that few of us living today can foresee. Some Native American tribes make some decisions seven generations ahead.

• You must continue enhancing your system of tapping into the knowledge of farmers, agribusiness, and local people. And starting with that knowledge as a base, you identify conservation needs for each community and for each individual. We have a term for this—locally led conservation—and it is not new. It is how you do business. Then you can ask organizations, government and others to help.

Conservation Districts are as important now as they were more than 60 years ago when the first ones started.

You are the Key!

As in every community, your challenges are many. But it is the determination, commitment, and self-sacrifice of your people who will make conservation work for you and sustainability of your natural resources a reality!

Future generations, yet unborn are counting on you.

Thank you very much.