Domestication of Trees or Forests: Development Pathways for Fruit Tree Production in South-east Asia - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 76

Box 4.1. Co-domestication of trees and forests: the example of Durio
zibethinus .
Durian ( Durio zibethinus Murray) is a popular fruit in South-east Asia. Wild durian are
found in Borneo and Sumatra, but as a cultivated species the tree has spread over a
much larger area, ranging from Sri Lanka and South India to New Guinea. The tree is
not only popular because of the fruit's unique taste, well liked by South-east-Asian
people, but also because of its good production capacity. A major tree can produce
200-800 fruits a year and maintain such production over several generations. Fruits
may be sold with common prices ranging from US$0.25 to US$4, making it one of the
most profitable fruit trees in the region for local households (Goloubinoff and Hoshi,
2004). It has even been reported that the fruit is liked so much that rice harvesting
suffers when it coincides with the durian harvest (Subhadrabandhu et al ., 1991). In its
area of origin the fruit is still collected from the wild, and its cultivation mostly takes place
in mixed cultivation systems such as forest and homegardens or on field boundaries of
agricultural fields. It is only in Thailand that the tree is predominantly cultivated in
orchards. Propagation is still mostly by seeds, but in Thailand clonal propagation
methods are common (Subhadrabandhu et al ., 1991).
Because of its local popularity, durian has undergone a long process of
domestication by local people, and only relatively recently has it been possible to state
that '(professional) standardization of husbandry techniques is being achieved in durian
orchards in Thailand' (Subhadrabandhu et al ., 1991). The process of domestication of
durian by local people clearly reflects the notion of domestication as a coevolutionary
process between trees and forests. On the one hand, trees were selected on the basis
of their taste, resulting in the development of several local varieties. On the other hand,
the extraction of fruits from wild plants was gradually replaced by cultivation in forest and
homegardens. Within Indonesia, the various phases in this process of domestication are
still represented:
1. The first step in the domestication of durian consists of the development of social
measures for control over valuable tree species in the form of local rights of use of wild
durian trees. Such tree tenure rights may relate either to individual trees or fruit tree
groves; often they are maintained for several generations. The tenure rights are often
complex (Peluso, 1996); they do not only pertain to rights to collect durian trees, but also
to compensation for damaging trees, e.g. as a result of timber exploitation.
2. The next step in the process of domestication consists of the development of
technical measures to stimulate in situ production (e.g. by removing competing
vegetation) and natural regeneration (e.g. by protecting or transplanting wildlings or
through seeding). These measures result in gradual enrichment of natural forests with
durian trees and development of forest gardens; in such gardens other local fruit species
are also maintained. As a result of the popularity of the durian, the species is not only
maintained in forest gardens in its area of origin in Kalimantan and Sumatra (e.g.
Aumeeruddy and Sansonnens, 1994; Salafsky, 1995; Marjokorpi and Ruokolainen,
2003), but has also been incorporated in forest gardens on other islands such as
Sulawesi (Brodbeck et al. , 2003) and Maluku (Kaya et al ., 2002).
3. Further intensification in the process of domestication entails the incorporation in
home gardening systems such as on the island of Java (e.g. Dury et al ., 1996). In rural
areas such homegardens often consist of a mixture of trees, vegetables and other useful