he beaches will be damaged by this. The salinity of the land is a major problem for the people of the Pacific Islands. Salt is poison to most land plants, i.e. breadfruit and tarot, once the salinity becomes too high the plants die and the soil is useless. The people of the Pacific Islands rely on several different plants that are essential to their diets and need soil with low salinity levels in order to grow. The people of the islands are noticing that the ground is not as fertile as it once was forcing them to alter their diets. The problem of salinity levels in the soil only afflicts the lowest of areas at this point, in the future the agriculturally detrimental salt water will ascend further inland, further contracting the growing areas. Once again, this is serious because these people rely on the resources at hand to provide the staples of their diet, their methods of foraging and farming are inherent in their cultures. What would they do if the ground could no longer support tarot? Not only would their nutrition suffer, tarot is part of every day life. It is used in feasts not simply because it is food but also because of its symbolic and ceremonial significance. In the pictures we looked at on the second to last day of class many of them had the tarot plant present. This was striking to me because it seemed like the intrinsic value of the tarot is only half of its importance. The implications of crop destruction for the people of the Pacific Islands is not only of nutritional significance, the cultural aspect is equally weighed. Tawati Uati works for a community theater company in Kiribati, and is in charge of producing plays that address conservation issues. In regards to the increased salinity levels in the soil he said this, It does have an impact on breadfruit trees because they are easily affected by saltwater. Every time the breadfruit tree sucks that salty water, it just dies. One resident of Tuvalu said that she had reso...
