Transcript
Agricultural expert and author Semisi Pone says he has noticed various types of fruit trees dying off while he was living in Tonga.
"When I was young in primary school, there was always fruits all the time. There was mangoes, guava, there was oranges, mandarins, mountain apple. They were everywhere and there was always fruits all the time - pawpaw, bananas. But now, like I said, you go to the market and there's nothing there. I think it's shocking."
Mr Pone says over the years, locals have struggled to protect their trees from viruses and diseases. Citrus fruits such as sweet oranges and mandarins used to grow in abundance in Tonga until they were wiped out by the Tristeza Virus during the 1970s.
"So over the past 30 years, the oranges that we had in Tonga were known as 'Moli kai' or 'Moli Inu' but they're gone. And the mandarin was also a very good variety because they were very large fruits and very sweet. But they're all gone. The diseases just wiped them out."
Only few wild mandarins and lemons remain growing in some remote areas but the Forestry Department's senior advisor, Heimuli Likiafu, says they too will soon be gone.
"The citrus, most of our sources here in Tonga is from 'Eua Island and most of the trees are dying out."
Mr Likiafu confirmed local fruit produce has been on the decline for some time and now the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is having to rely on imports to make up for the lack of local produce.
"So what we are having now, we are importing a lot of fruits from New Zealand and Australia which is not like before. Before we hardly buy fruits from overseas. We mostly use our local fruits."
Mr Likiafu says a variety of factors have caused the trees to die off. He says poor management of fruit trees, changing weather patterns and the introduction of new viruses and diseases has wiped out produce.
"I think it's climate change so it's changing now, not like before. It was true that before there was a lot of abundance of fruits and very good fruits. I do believe that the climate is changing so a lot of insects and all those virus and all those stuff. Insects were here long time ago with our citrus and all the mango and all the stuff but we never bother to put any chemicals because we don't know."
Mr Pone, formerly the Tongan government's Plant Virologist, says there are new and innovative ways to help growers protect their trees from viruses and diseases. He is currently heading a project which aims to revive Tonga's citrus fruit industry.
"So the idea is to encourage people to take trees from New Zealand, Australia and the US, that would grow in Tonga, especially Orange, Mandarin and Lemon and give them as a gift for Christmas to their relatives there, instead of taking KFC, or McDonalds or food, they could give them a gift of a tree."
Tonga's Forestry Department is also pushing initiatives to help build fruit production which include importing grafted orange seedlings and other fruit varieties to plant in Tonga. MAFF is also running awareness programs and training workshops to help teach better fruit tree maintenance and protection. Mr Likiafu says they are especially targeting women to help revive fruit production.
"Womens are very active groups in Tongan communities. You know men, they are not really that active, they are too much drinking Kava. But women they are very very active here in Tonga so we sent out some of our officers to have meetings with women's groups in every community and talking with them about managing of fruit trees."
Mr Likiafu expects the grafted seedlings they are about to plant to bear fruit in about 6 years and should produce 20 tonnes of citrus per acre.
