An Old Path ToThe Future

Conservationists examining useful plants along the reopened Tamilyog Trail. Photo: Scott Radway

The Pacific Islands have held many ribbon cuttings in front of newly paved roads. The paved road here is a symbol of progress, of modern development and a better life to come. But in Yap, a grassroots group has just cut a coconut-frond ribbon in front of ancient road, a dirt and stone footpath built perhaps thousands of years ago. The ambition though is the same: A better life for Yapese.

"With the advent of cars and highways, this trail fell into disuse and people began to be separated from the plants and animals about them," says Chief Charles Chieng as the group prepares to reopen the Tamilyog Trail that once connected Yap Proper villages in the west to villages in the east.

Yap is the most traditional state in the Federated States of Micronesia. But westernization is bringing changes here just the same, albeit more slowly. And those changes, Chieng says, mean Yapese today are growing up without knowing many of the names of the plants and animals that supported generations before them, plants that were used for medicine, food and construction, and animals found only in Yap.

"Once the names of our native plants and animals disappear from our minds, they are in danger of disappearing from our landscape. We tend not to care about what we do not value," says Chieng, who heads the non-profit Yap Community Action Program. "We need to teach the next generation the names and uses of Yap's plants. Because it's hard to preach conservation if people don't know what you are talking about."

With the help of international funding, and village communities, including many students, Chieng and a handful of conservationists rebuilt that ancient path, renovating hand-quarried stone sections that were laid hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. Today, it is known as the trail that will "connect Yap's past with a sustainable future."

The trail begins at a traditional meeting house where everything from turmeric to betel nut are planted. It then leads into secondary forest and turns uphill to savannah where the complex Yapese ditch-bed farming systems once grew crops despite relatively poor soil. From there it leads to a complex stone irrigation system that funnels water through taro patches.

"I have never seen anything as complex as a Yapese agricultural system," says Margie Falanruw, director of the Yap Institute of Natural Science and a key figure in the trail's rebirth. "They were the only ones in Micronesia to have plumbing."

Along that walk, Falanruw and others point out countless plants. For fun, there are plants that when mashed, create a liquid that can be blown into bubbles. There are ready-made medicinal ones such as a plant whose tiny fruit acts like eye-drops when squeezed. Then there are medications for childbirth tucked inside a bright-orange vine found atop some trees. There are plants that can be woven then soaked in saltwater and used as screening for traditional structures. There are countless plants to eat.

"It looks like a forest, but it is a hardware store, supermarket and a pharmacy," Falanruw says.

This small fruit of a plant the Yapese call thoeth acts like eye drops when squeezed. The plant's scientific name is Scaevola taccada. Photo: Scott Radway

The ultimate goal for the trail is to create much more than a memory lane. First, the trail was designed to be a living classroom for children, to teach them about the names of the plants and animals, and about the value of healthy forests for the overall health of island ecosystems. Children will later be trained as tour guides.

Second, the trail is a proposed site for projects that promote, test and develop sustainable agricultural practices and reforestation. Falanruw says islands have fragile ecosystems and farming practices such as western row crops have proven detrimental. But over thousands of years, Yapese developed farming practices that were often high-yield and sustainable. To ensure sustainability and self-reliance today, she says, Yap should revive those traditional practices, and possibly enhance them with modern technology.

Finally, the aim is to make the trail a tourist attraction. Yap has built a small-scale tourism industry around scuba diving, but has yet to fully tap into the cultural tourism market, Chieng says. Money from a small fee for use will be available to maintain the trail and foreigners can learn about Yapese culture. Falanruw says Yap has tremendous richness to share. While archeologists are sifting dirt in some areas of the world to understand traditional farming, in Yap, the elders still know how to do it and some still are.

"I think of it as the University of the Trail," Falanruw says.