Pacific

Pacific Regional Activities
12 April 2004
Seed Savers Network supports a range of activities and initiatives throughout the Pacific region, especially in the Solomons, East Timor, and Papua.

Tony (left) adviser to Planting Material Network and Sam in Sam's taro garden on Choiseul Island, Solomons. Sam is a taro guardian.

Reference Links

Planting Material Network News

Taro Gene Field Bank Established

The south-western Pacific region is characterised by some of the most friendly, intelligent, and resourceful people in the world, as well as conditions of extreme poverty, isolation, and exploitation.

We have been welcomed into these communities and established learning relationships that are truly reciprocal. These people have as much to teach us as we have to share with them.

In particular, there is a great curiosity and interest in planting materials from other islands, or varieties that have been forgotten by the locals.

Planting Materials Network

In the Solomon Islands, Australian associate of Seed Savers, Tony Jansen, worked with local people to establish the PMN in 1995 within the Kastom Garden Project. Now operated entirely by local people, the Network is a model of self-reliance.

Choiseul Taro Collection

Over 100 varieties of taro were collected on the island of Choiseul in the west of The Solomon Islands and grown out with a grant from Seed Savers in 2002/03. The national Planting Material Network coordinated the collection and Sam Moroto grew it out in his garden.