Environmental Implications of Livestock Production in Papua New Guinea.

Abstract

Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a 5000 year history of the integration of livestock into subsistence food crop farming systems The potential for significant environmental impacts only appeared with plantation agriculture and cattle ranching some 110 years ago. Even then, the impacts have been minimal but have been increasing over the last 30 years or so due to population pressures on agricultural land use. Global concerns over the sustainability of mixed crop-livestock systems are of relevance in PNG due to intensification of land use and reduction in the capacity of traditional responses to cope The effective integration of livestock into cropping systems has been and will increasingly be one of the more important coping strategies. Mixed farming allows for the recycling of nutrients and the effective utilization of waste products from all sectors of the system. The likely future scenario is for increasing intensification together with increasing demand for livestock products. Options to meet these demands include more effective use of underutilized animal feed resources, including crop by-products, pasture improvement on existing grazing land, more effective use of fallows and multipurpose tree species, and the efficient recycling of animal manures.