ABSTRACT
The long-term history of agriculture in the highlands of New Guinea, which spans the Holocene, is a dynamic history. Contemporary agricultural practices in the highlands – as well as for New Guinea as a whole – clearly exhibit the dynamism. The cumulative effects of agricultural practices in the highlands are not environmentally neutral, either in terms of environmental degradation or in terms of the continued sustainability and viability of certain types of cultivation. The long-term resilience of agricultural practices in the highlands has been a product of human practices spanning millennia. Arising from a consideration of the long-term reduction in biodiversity is a cognate concern with a reduction in crop diversity with a view to crop improvement and food security. If people's social identities are so closely entwined with vegetative planting cycles or specific plants, any transformations to agricultural practice would only have been adopted if they made 'social sense'.
