Assessing the importance of local biodiversity to communities in Madang province, Papua New Guinea

The biodiversity of Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforests is utilised by local communities in diverse and often unrecognised ways. Aside from the high commercial value of some rainforest trees, forests provide a number of other goods and services to these communities that are more difficult to quantify; for example, construction, food, medicinal, spiritual, ornamental and recreational values. In addition to being of importance to livelihoods, the forests of Papua New Guinea are among the world’s most biodiverse; hence, their valuation, and recognition by local communities, may contribute to their preservation. Our research was carried out in two villages (Yagi and Ohu) in Madang province. The relative value of different components of biodiversity for villagers was estimated according to the pebble distribution method, based on village and gender. The focus groups attributed the highest value for wild plants, in comparison with cultivated plants, wild animals and domestic animals. Interestingly, Ohu focus groups valued wild plants from forests significantly higher than Yagi focus groups. However, there were no significant differences between the opinions of men’s and women’s focus groups from Ohu and Yagi. Yagi focus groups named 57 taxa as the most important, including Casuarius spp. and Licuala lauterbachii as those used most commonly. Out of 40 taxa identified by Ohu focus groups, three species (Pterocarpus indicus, Gnetum gnemon and Intsia bijuga) were considered the most valuable, and had a combined relative importance higher than 6%. Some species identified as valuable are common, while others are classified as threatened. Information on rare or threatened biodiversity should be communicated to villagers, coupled with the development of options for sustaining indigenous livelihoods that limit the exploitation of rare local biodiversity.