The Art Whistler Memorial Garden, Samoa’s new home to endangered plant species, was opened on Thursday in remembrance of world famous botanist and his passion for conserving Samoa - and the world's - rarest plants. 

The garden is a project conducted by the Samoa Conservation Society (S.C.S) and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (M.N.R.E) in partnership with Botanical Garden Conservation International (B.G.C.I).

Dr. Art Whistler - also known as “Tupu o le vao” which translates to “King of the forest” - spent most of his life studying and documenting Samoa’s plant species.

Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa gave her thanks to the late Dr. Whistler in her keynote address on Thursday.

“We thank Art Whistler for his service to Samoa and the region and for leaving behind such a rich legacy of knowledge on Samoa’s plants and their uses,” Fiame said.

“We hope that the garden will be a place of meditation as well as quiet reflection and that the garden will enhance the recreational, educational, and tourism value, which are part and parcel of the crucial environmental services that the Mt. Vaea reserve and Vailima botanical garden provide for all of us.

“This garden is important not only as a legacy for Art but also as an important contribution to Samoa’s efforts to conserve and display its native biodiversity in the face of threats from many sources including invasive species, deforestation, overharvesting, and pollution and increasingly from climate change.”

Fiame - the party's spokeswoman on the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (M.N.R.E.) - said rising temperatures and the accompanying changing rainfall and weather patterns that Samoa is already experiencing and expected to undergo more of, will have unpredictable impacts on our native biodiversity in the wild.  

“We therefore need to be prudent and do our utmost to grow our native species in places such as this where they will be safeguarded for future generations,” she said.

“Conserving these species is a way of also safeguarding our culture as it is hard to imagine a Samoan culture without our native Samoan plants that are used for medicine, food, construction, and handicrafts.  Equally important, our native plants clothe and protect our land from coastal and soil erosion, floods and also moderate our weather.

“Efforts to develop the garden epitomize the power of voluntary effort and also the power of partnerships between Government and civil society, in this case between the M.N.R.E. and the Samoa Conservation Society.   Funding for this garden has come from private donations with some grant funds from the UK’s Botanic Gardens Conservation International.”

Metal manumea Birds were given to some of the guests. The tokens are part of the Government’s ongoing recovery effort to save the national bird. Fiame has announced funding support of $NZD99,000 from New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to be managed by the New Zealand Department of Conservation to support Samoa's conservation efforts.

The President of the S.C.S., James Atherton, said that Dr. Whistler had a great love for plants.

“Art spent much of his 50 years of ethnobotanical research in Samoa and built up an incredible knowledge of Samoa’s flora, and the threats to it,” Mr. Atherton said on Thursday.

“This garden is an attempt to honour Art’s legacy and in particular to be a place where we collect, propagate, and display the most threatened of Samoa’s seven hundred and seventy native species of flowering plants and ferns. Incidentally, we have more native fern species than NZ which is around 90 times bigger than Samoa and around one-third of our native plants are only found here. 108 of our native plants have been identified by Art as at risk and these are the key targets for our conservation effort.

“We have already collected some of these target rare plants and they are growing here in front of us, including Niu Vao- a bush palm from the centre of Upolu and Pau, a favourite tree for handicrafts at Falealupo. More rare plants will be planted here as we collect them and learn how to propagate them successfully.”

Mr. Atherton had given his thanks to everyone involved in making the Dr. Art Whistler Memorial Garden a reality.

“Let me finish by quoting Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived near here and once owned this land. [He] said: ‘Do not judge each day by the harvest you reap, but rather by the seeds that you plant’. I hope you agree that this is an apt message not only for growing a garden, but for life in general,” Mr. Atherton said.

Dr. Whistler’s partner, Alice Campbell, stated in her address that the late ethnobotanist spent years of his life documenting the local flora.

“Dr. Art Whistler spent five decades documenting the flora of his world – this sea of islands in the South Pacific. Furthermore, he sought to protect it. Again and again, he asked for plans to put his research into action in order to preserve the rich biodiversity of these islands. A decade ago he asked for such a rare plant garden to be established in the Vailima Botanical Garden,” she said.

According to Ms. Campbell, Dr. Whistler had provided a “roadmap" for conservation in the country. 

“He has done the research and given a course to follow to reach the goal of protection and conservation of Samoa’s rich biodiversity. It is hoped that the new government of Samoa, in particular M.N.R.E, will take on an active role in following Art Whistler’s road map for protection of Samoa’s rich flora, and hence also its cultural heritage,” she said.

“In closing, I would like to quote from Roger Cornforth, who recalled an expedition when he, Art Whistler and Steve Brown were brought by helicopter to do research high on Mount Silisili.

“Once, on the Mount Silisili expedition, I recall joining Art after the sun came up and he had a beatific smile on his face. When asked what he was thinking, he said: ‘You know, half of the plants you can see right now are only found in Samoa, and half of those are only found right here’.”