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Early Pacific Environmetal History. Pacific Ocean. Pacific Ocean accounts for one-third of the earths surface Half the worlds ocean area 25,000 islands New Zealand broke away from Gondwanaland 80 million years ago and was a sanctuary for many species
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Pacific Ocean • Pacific Ocean accounts for one-third of the earths surface • Half the worlds ocean area • 25,000 islands • New Zealand broke away from Gondwanaland 80 million years ago and was a sanctuary for many species • Life arrived on most islands by accident or drift
Pacific ecosystems evolved in relative isolation • Birds and reptiles dominated in early phases • The lack of grazing mammals resulted in plants that did not develop any protective defenses; spines, poisonous alkaloids or bitterness
On very remote islands endemism (species only exist in that location) was common • In Hawaii 99% of the species were endemic which led to biological vulnerability • In addition island plants were not adapted to fires • Island plants and animals were vulnerable to continental predators and human practices
Polynesian voyagers introduce new animals, plants and practices which alter the ecosystem.
Pacific 1760-1880s • The Pacific island native populations and ecosystems experienced many of the same issues discussed in 15th century Americas 1520-1760 Spanish, Dutch, French and British traded around the Pacific rim After 1668 the Spanish colonize Guam establishing a Jesuit mission. Disease and violence reduced the population by 90%
The Spanish spent several months on the Solomon and Marquesas islands but filed to establish a permanent presence • Cooks use of the chronometer turned exploration into a science and changed the nature of European advances into the Pacific islands • Disease claims the lives of large populations and many are enslaved to work on ships or taken to work in mines • In 1850 4000 Hawaiians worked on ships • 3500 Rapanuis were enslaved to work in Peruvian sugar plantations
Grazing Animals • Goats, Cattle and Pigs rapid impact on ecosystem • Galapagos islands: 1959 3 goats by 1971 that number grew to 20,000 • Whalers often left goats on remote islands to ensure a ready food supply in times of need • Cattle introduced into Hawaii in 1793 which devastated many native plants
Between Cooks arrival and 1838 at least 111 new plant species were introduced • Today there are over 5000 plants that have been introduced and many native plants are extinct • Hawaii acquired the mosquito in 1826 which assisted in the transmission of new tropical diseases • Rats are considered to be the storm troopers of ecological imperialism and changed the species composition of Hawaiian forests who feasted on seeds and bird eggs
Animals introduced to control or eliminate the rat populations have additional environmental impacts; • New Zealand introduction of sloats, cats, weasels and ferrets led to further decimation of birds as did the mongoose in Fiji
Crops in Hawaii • Between 1821-1846 in Ohau (Anahulu) watermelon, corn, tobacco, cabbage, beans, oranges, limes, guava, cucumber, squash, red peppers, coffee and rice. • Many of these spread replacing native plants in the gashes left behind by human depopulation as devastating diseases spread through the areas.
Triangular Trade • In 1784 Britain reduced its tea duty from 119% to 12% making it available to the masses which expanded the trade with China. • This launched the pillaging of the Pacific for sandlewood, seacucumber and sealskins was done for the Chinese market • These products were traded for silk and tea • This trade linked Europe, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific
In New Zealand, Chathams, Macquarie, Auckland, Campbell and the Juan Fernandez islands off the coast of Chile were full of seal hunters. • The Juan Fernandez Islands accounted for 3 million seal skins shipped into China in only seven years. By 1824 they were believed to be extinct. • In two generations the seals in the Pacific were near extinct
Pacific Whaling • Late 1780s East India Company began • 1820s Americans dominated trade • Whales sought for blubber used as lubricant and oil in lamps, bone used as the plastic of the 19th century in corsets and umbrellas and Sperm whales with ulcers provided ambergris a rare spice/aphrodisiac used in China worth hundreds of dollars per ounce
Sperm whales are found within 30 degrees of the equator and by the 1840s 5-700 ships were hunting them in the Pacific. • The other target was the humpback whales which crossed the tropics on annual migrations. • Tropical whaling flourished between 1835 and 1860. • The north pacific was worked from Honolulu which first developed as a whaling port
The south pacific ports were Hobart in Tasmania and Russell in New Zealand. • The whale trade also had an impact on tropical forests since whale blubber had to be reduced to oil which required the use of firewood. • Hawaii at one point produced 500,000 barrels of whale oil per year.
Seacucumber and sea slugs were harvested than dried which required burning fires day and night. • Fiji produced 500,000 tons of sea slugs annually which required 1 million cubic feet of fuel for drying depleting coastal vegetation
Sandlewood and aromatic tree was common in the Pacific • The Chinese used it for furniture and its fragrant oil was used in incense, perfumes and medicines. • Traders trying to reap profits from trade with China move into Fiji (1804-16), Marquesas (1815-20) Hawaii (1811-31) and Melanesia (1841-65)
In Hawaii several thousand work cutting sandlewood. • They burned dry forests to make the precious timber easy to find by scent. Only the heartwood was valuable so charred trunks were fine. • At the height of the Hawaiian trade 2 million kilograms of heartwood went to China each year. Over 90% of the trees were cut
In Hawaii Koa was next harvested and used to make railroad ties shipped all over the world. • In New Zealand the Kauri wood was harvested to use for shipbuilding by the Britain Royal Navy. The trees are depleted between 1790-1860.
Smaller trades flourished between the Society Islands and China ; • Tortoiseshell , pearls, pearl shell, coral moss, birds nest, Mother-of-pearl oyster. • Used for buttons about 150,000 tons of Mother-of-pearl oyster were extracted from the oyster beds of the Society Islands. Today the natural stocks have been depleted and only aquaculture is used for this industry.
New commerce had dramatic effects of Pacific Island populations • Political disruption followed new forms and sources of wealth and new technologies of destruction. • Islanders were linked to long-distance trade networks that they could not control • New ideologies (Christianity) introduced had no restrictions on resource depletion
Island cultural constraints against resource depletion began to disintegrate with the cultural transformations of the 19th century as many chiefs and other royalty converted to Christianity.
Ecological factors; plants, animals, humans • Economic Factors; whaling, sandlewood. Sea slugs and others • Ideology and cultural changes all transformed the Pacific Islands between Cook and the 1850s • By 1850 things changed when opium is introduced and unlocks the China trade
British East Indian Company transforms Bengal into an opium manufacturing sector and the Pacific lapsed into insignificance for triangular trade
