Jean-Pascal Wahe’s scientific contributions

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Publications (7)


Message plants of Southern Vanuatu
  • Article

December 2024

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14 Reads

Sociolinguistic Studies

Gregory M. Plunkett

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Presley Dovo

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People in the southern Vanuatu islands of Aneityum and Tanna use plants as communication devices, a function which we call ‘message plants’. Certain species of plants are held, worn, or placed in specific locations with the intention of delivering messages with varied semantic content. In the cultural context of southern Vanuatu, message plants serve as an important parallel channel of communication, alongside spoken languages, and in some cases are considered more appropriate or effective means of conveying a message.


High resilience of Pacific Island forests to a category- 5 cyclone

February 2024

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48 Reads

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4 Citations

The Science of The Total Environment

Assessing how forests respond to, and recuperate from, cyclones is critical to understanding forest dynamics and planning for the impacts of climate change. Projected increases in the intensity and frequency of severe cyclones can threaten both forests and forest-dependent communities. The Pacific Islands are subject to frequent lowintensity cyclones, but there is little information on the effects of high intensity cyclones, or on how forest stewardship practices may affect outcomes. We assess the resistance and resilience of forests in three communitystewarded sites on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu, to the wind-related effects of 2015 Category-5 Cyclone Pam, one of the most intense cyclones to make landfall globally. Drawing on transect data established pre-and postcyclone, we (1) test whether windspeed and tree structural traits predict survival and damage intensity, and whether this varies across sites; (2) assess post-cyclone regeneration of canopy, ground cover, seedlings, and saplings, and how community composition shifts over time and across sites. In sites that sustained a direct hit, 88 % of trees were defoliated, 34 % sustained severe damage, and immediate mortality was 13 %. Initial mortality, but not severe damage, was lower in areas that received an indirect hit and had lower windspeed. Larger trees and those with lighter wood had a higher probability of uprooting and snapping, respectively. Canopy and ground cover regenerated within three years and seedling and sapling regeneration was widespread across life histories, from pioneer to mature forest species. Three species of non-native vines recruited post-cyclone but within 5 years had largely declined or disappeared with canopy closure. Tanna’s historical cyclone frequency, combined with customary stewardship practices that actively maintain a diversity of species and multiplicity of regeneration pathways, are likely responsible for the island’s resistance and resilience to an intense tropical cyclone.


Balick_2022_WeatherMagicSouthVanuatu_Tables.pdf
  • Data
  • File available

July 2023

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19 Reads

Download


Calendar Plants in Southern Vanuatu

May 2023

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104 Reads

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2 Citations

Economic Botany

Pacific peoples maintain strong traditional ties to their local environments. One noteworthy example of these is the use of “ecological calendars,” in which natural cycles are observed as guides in time-reckoning. In southern Vanuatu, what we here call “calendar plants” represent the majority of signals used in these systems. We recorded 111 distinct scientific species of calendar plants, which correspond to 159 folk species drawn from eight linguistically and culturally distinct communities in the area (on Aneityum, Futuna, and Tanna, the three southernmost islands of Tafea, the southernmost province of Vanuatu). These plants are indicators for various temporal events, including when to harvest certain sea creatures, the best time to plant various crops, and when to conduct garden rituals. By describing, comparing, and contrasting calendar plants among these different cultures, we suggest that these systems are fine-tuned to particular ecological, cultural, and personal contexts. Rather than being rigid, formalized calendars, ecological calendars are flexible frameworks for a particular kind of time-reckoning. This quality allows them to be adaptable to changes to the local climate or biota. There is evidence that knowledge of traditional calendars is eroding. Because of their role in supporting resilience among diverse populations (e.g., in maintaining productive gardens and anticipating cyclones), it is critical that they are recorded, and revitalized, before Indigenous knowledge systems are lost across the world.


Weather Magic as Environmental Knowledge in Southern Vanuatu

December 2022

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95 Reads

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5 Citations

Journal of Ethnobiology

This paper presents weather magic practices from the islands of Tanna and Aneityum, in southern Vanuatu, and highlights how this phenomenon is a critical domain of Indigenous environmental knowledge, particularly knowledge involving plants. Recent literature suggests that diverse cultural systems, such as music, can be viewed as domains of environmental knowledge, and we propose that magical systems should be afforded the same recognition. Although anthropological work in Melanesia has historically featured various magical practices, relatively little has been said about how these have been used to influence or understand the weather, and even less has been presented directly by Indigenous weather magic practitioners, who are co-authors on this paper. In this contribution, we intersperse anthropological and ethnobotanical commentary with verbatim narratives provided by three local experts in weather magic from southern Vanuatu, including oral histories, contemporary narratives, and the results of ethnobotanical surveys. The detailed knowledge that weather magic practitioners on these islands hold regarding their local environment represents an important means of transmitting not only cultural heritage, but also botanical knowledge, the maintenance of which may be critical for current and future conservation efforts. This research documents rich cultural traditions of local and global significance which are worthy of the attention and preservation afforded to other forms of Indigenous environmental knowledge. The goals of magic and those of science are not necessarily inherently opposed, and we show that magical practice can indeed involve and even preserve a detailed and powerful mode of knowing the environment.


Ethnobotany and Vernacular Names of the Lycophytes and Ferns of Tafea Province, Vanuatu

August 2022

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258 Reads

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3 Citations

American Fern Journal

We conducted extensive fieldwork in the Tafea Province of Vanuatu from 2014 to 2021 as part of a long-term floristic study of plants and fungi as well as analyses of changes in forest structure and plant diversity in response to the category 5 cyclone Pam. As part of this work, we documented the vernacular names and/or uses of 10 species of lycophytes and 88 species of ferns. Vernacular plant names were documented in the languages endemic to the islands of Aneityum, Futuna, and Tanna, including Anejom, Futuna-Aniwa, Kwamara, Nafe, Naka, Netwar, Nahuai, and Whitesands. The uses reported by indigenous, Ni-Vanuatu, experts included: body decoration, cultural/spiritual, ornamental, clothing, food/food preparation, handicrafts, medicine, and fiber/construction.

Citations (4)


... Yet, resprouting and seeding are adaptive to other disturbances in addition to fire, and it is challenging to confidently identify historical sources of selection pressure (Keeley et al., 2011). For example, many woody plants resprout following major storms, and the seeding strategy via high seedling recruitment has been detected in island plants following a category-5 cyclone on Tanna, Vanuatu (Ticktin et al., 2024). Thus, even if resprouting and seeding in island plants are exaptations to fire that evolved in response to other historical disturbances (e.g., storms, drought, herbivory), they are potentially adaptive under today's novel fire regimes (Figure 1, H3). ...

Reference:

Island plant fire tolerance: Functional traits associated with novel disturbance regimes
High resilience of Pacific Island forests to a category- 5 cyclone
  • Citing Article
  • February 2024

The Science of The Total Environment

... These entanglements are in fact even stronger. Seasonal time is reckoned not only by the Sun, but also by the Moon, winds, plants, and animals in a holistic system used to maintain human and ecosystem health [35,36]. Many "calendar plants" are now only remembered by the oldest generations, but those that guide the agricultural cycle-among the most important activities on the island-are more widely known. ...

Calendar Plants in Southern Vanuatu

Economic Botany

... Many of the stories are carried by the 'special workers' called tupunus in Netwar or variations in other Tanna languages (tupanas in Nafe~tɨpunɨs in Naka), who inherit powers to influence the Sun, weather, and specific crops (e.g., yams, Dioscorea spp., and taro, Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott) [7]. ...

Weather Magic as Environmental Knowledge in Southern Vanuatu

Journal of Ethnobiology

... The preparation methods, types of dishes, and consumption patterns can vary significantly from one community to another. For instance, Ranker et al. (2022) reported that the young fronds at the top of A. vieillardii are boiled in water for 5 minutes until they become soft and then consumed by some ethnic communities in Vanuatu. In the Ilam district of eastern Nepal, young fronds are cooked to make curry and consumed during excessive bleeding during menstruation (Bhattarai and Khadka, 2016). ...

Ethnobotany and Vernacular Names of the Lycophytes and Ferns of Tafea Province, Vanuatu
  • Citing Article
  • August 2022

American Fern Journal