On September 3 Annette Hladik, an eco-anthropologist with France's Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, spoke at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Tupper Center. For Dr. Hladik it was a return visit to Panama --- she first came here to study on Barro Colorado Island in 1966, and, though she has done most of her work in Gabon, Cameroun and Sumatra, she has visited here several times since.

Hladik began by briefly outlining agroforestry as a field of academic inquiry. She traced its origins to the 1970s, when researchers from what in the developed countries are the distinct fields of agronomy and forestry began to recognize not only the complex relations among forest species, but also the biological, cultural and economic relations between farms and forests in traditional societies. From this intersection of agronomy and forestry arose books, newsletters, institutions and eventually university departments, to the point that agroforestry became an academic discipline of its own.

She disputed the notion that wilderness untouched by human activity is the forest norm. "All forests have been inhabited for many thousands of years," Hladik pointed out. "Everywhere, forests have been managed, even before indigenous people began agriculture." The anthropologist cited Amazonia as an example, noting that before outsiders came with their notions of conquest and their diseases against which the locals had no immunity, the human population was much larger than it is now. Today, she said, the world's remaining tropical forests are home to many millions of people.

In Java and Sumatra, Hladik pointed out, traditional agriculture has included the maintenance of forests near farms --- a management job generally carried out by women --- and the local economy depends on those forests being "species rich."

"Traditional agroforestry systems are generally complex," she said, including a mix of wild forest trees with planted crops in a "forest architecture." Those who maintain such ecosystems, Hladik argued, tend to have "the opposite of a conservative view," as they are generally eager to complement traditional knowledge with new ideas.

There followed a series of slides, aerial photos, maps and diagrams illustrating various agroforestry schemes from Africa and Sumatra, including some that compared the methods of different ethnic groups who live adjacent to one another in the same forests.

Agroforestry tends to have a natural progression, and that was shown by a progression from rice fields, which when exhausted were planted with rubber trees, and as the trees got taller and older, the land became host to a variety of shade-loving undergrowth. In such a system, the eco-anthropologist noted, light management, seed selection, the compatibility of different plant species and composting all become key considerations.

Reviewing a method for managing coconut groves, Hladik demonstrated how when the coconut trees are young and don't shade out the entire area, they can be interplanted with crops that like a lot of sun. Then, when the trees are between eight and twelve years old, interplanting isn't very productive. Once the trees get older and taller, then interplanting with plants that grow well in the shade becomes more sensible.

Sustainability in forest management is promoted with ecological and economic arguments, but when it becomes a reality it tends to have some serious social and political implications. When a forest is managed and profitable, the question of who owns the forest becomes very relevant. Typically, governments have been willing to recognize only usufructory rights for people who live amidst and depend upon forests, leaving title in the nation or in whatever person or group is rich and powerful enough to assert dominion. The destruction of forests for the profit of people who don't live there is one common result. However, when a forest is clearly maintained by specific people, families or communities, then ownership is more likely to be legally recognized. Thus, Hladik argued, sustainability is pro-stablity.

Those who know the north woods of Michigan, which were felled for lumber as the 19th century turned into the 20th, then replanted by Franklin D. Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, will know something of the animal equations of agroforestry. Those CCC plantings were flawed in many ways, creating vast stands with row upon row of white pine where once there had been rich mixes of evergreen and deciduous tree species. Among the benefits of those early experiments in massive forest managment, however, was the restoration of habitats in which deer and other wildlife thrive. Deer hunting season has become one of the major pillars of rural Michigan's tourism economy.

Likewise, in tropical forests management has implications for the fauna. Clearly, habitat for wild animals is affected for better or worse. The clear-cutting of forests to be replaced with cow pastures is a well known abuse, but Hladik noted that this is not the only model by which cattle can be raised in relation to forests. Whether the aim is to raise a few cattle at the edges of or in clearings within a managed forest or to attract wild animals, Hladik said that planting trees in straight lines is not a good idea and planting a limited number of exotic tree species whose fruits, nuts and seeds the local fauna won't eat is a very bad idea. We can see the results of this in practice in Panama, where the planting of teak groves provides wood and conserves soil and water resources, but attracts few birds or animals because our native wildlife doesn't use teak for food or habitat.

Hladik described an agroforestry project in Gabon, in which a selection of trees was made to include some that produce human food, some which feed animals, some for timber and some for firewood. Noting that most plants have some medicinal value or another, it was decided not to include species for medicinal purposes alone. These were planted in a planned but asymetrical way. The control plot includes a limited number of light-demanding trees, planted in rows. The experiment is ongoing.

Because trees take so long to grow, and forest ecosystems have progressions whether managed or not, the science of agroforestry is not yet old enough to know how sustainable various kinds of human-planted forests really are. However, Hladik's experiment and other long-term research that will take generations to complete hold the possibility of gradually solving these mysteries.

In conclusion, Hladik lamented the heavy concentration of exotic tree monocultures (row upon row of teak or African mahogany) that have so far dominated the Panamanian agroforestry scene, but hopefully noted a new movement to plant native trees in reforestation projects here.

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