ABSTRACT
This chapter relies mainly on the "ethnographic present" as a means of introducing some basic features of everyday life in Marovo Lagoon villages, but also sketches certain aspects of the long-term history of relationships between people and land. It then introduces the land and sea environments of Marovo and provides an overview of the local uses made of the forest. The ecological diversity of the Marovo environment makes possible a varied household diet based on shifting agriculture and fishing. The strong emphasis on local autonomy also in matters of territorial control and resource management has through the 1970s and 1980s repeatedly prevented outsiders from exploiting Marovo's land and sea resources. In general, however, the vegetation classifications of the Western scientists seem to depend on very much the same common-sense criteria as those used in Marovo – primary/secondary status, ridgetop/ slope/valley bottom habitat.
