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2 Present address: Department of Plant Sciences, Downing Street, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EA, UK; E-mail: sag32@cam.ac.uk Introduction Eleocharis dulcis (Burm. f.) Trin. ex Henschel., known as kuta or taria in vernacular Fijian, is a plant of cultural and economic importance in the western South Pacific. Harvested stems are dried, flattened and woven into fine mats. These are used as floor mats, infant cradles, blankets and ta’ovala, the traditional formal sash worn by Tongans. E. dulcis is a freshwater wetland species of the sedge family (Cyperaceae). It is widely distributed in warm tropical regions, being indigenous from tropical West Africa, through tropical Asia and Malesia, to northern Australia. In the Pacific Islands its range extends from Melanesia and Palau in the western Pacific to Tonga and Samoa in Polynesia. It is also cultivated in Hawaii (Smith 1979). In Fiji E. dulcis is regarded as native but because it is a species utilised by man, it may be an aboriginal introduction (Ash and Ash, 1984). It is one of three plant species in Fiji restricted to freshwater wetlands (Ash and Ash 1984). In the vanua of Buca, Vanua Levu, kuta has been used for a long time for the production of fine quality mats. In this district the women of two villages, Navakasobu and Korovuli, had been harvesting kuta plants from two or three shallow ponds in a nearby wetland, but in recent years forest clearing and the plantation of sugarcane and pine in an adjacent area had resulted in the establishment of weeds that degraded the wetland and thus the habitat for kuta. This degradation was so drastic that introduced weeds, in particular the pink water lily (Nymphaea capensis var. rosea), out-competed kuta and other native wetland species. As a result, kuta became extinct in these ponds. Over the last two years the Pacific People and Plants programme of the World Wide Fund for Nature have been involved in this area in a project to restore the kuta habitat. The project is carried out through the support and effort of the women of the two villages. The restoration is a success in as much as the plants can now again be harvested for use, but there are concerns that the ‘restored’ habitat is so fragile that without continuous and laborious management it will quickly revert to its ‘pre-restored’ state. Here I comment on the restoration of the kuta habitat in the wetland with reference to the guidelines on reintroduction and restoration of habitats provided by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (Akeroyd and Wyse Jackson 1995; Wyse Jackson and Akeroyd 1994; Maunder 1992), and report for the first time the morphology and septation of two stem types of Eleocharis dulcis (‘soft’ and ‘hard’ stems) present in the wetland ponds in Buca. The two stem types are important both ecologically and economically because they reflect the genetic variation of the kuta population in this wetland, and because only one of the two types is used for weaving mats.

south pacific journal of natural and applied sciences

Eleocharis dulcis (kuta), a plant of economic and cultural importance in the South West Pacific: habitat restoration efforts in the vanua of Buca, Vanua Levu, Fiji