ABSTRACT
Most Papua New Guineans are rural villagers who grow most of their own food, maintain domestic pig herds, and build their own dwellings. The environmental range in which they live and practice their agriculture is large, covering altitudes between sea level and 2,800 m above sea level (asl), mean annual rainfalls between 1,000 and 8,000 mm, and a wide range of landforms and soil types. The staple foods are sweet potato, sago, bananas, Colocasia and Xanthosoma taro, yams, and cassava. Soil fertility, in the case of swiddens, is usually maintained by fallowing. However, intensity of land use ranges from very low (r = 5) to semipermanent (r = 33 to 66) and permanent (r = 67 to 100). 1 Population is increasing at a rate of 2.7% per annum, and is doubling about every 30 years. Firewood is the main fuel for cooking and heating. The value of firewood used by all households in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been estimated at US$105 million by the World Bank Poverty Assessment (Gibson and Rozelle 1998).
