The project builds on a survey of over 800 individual agricultural locations on the island conducted by Matthew Spriggs in 1978-80 and also on an ongoing project of the Nasaukaea Council of Chiefs of Aneityum, funded from the USA, in teaching traditional sustainable agricultural techniques to a new generation of farmers for food security purposes. During this current project considerable damage to the agricultural infrastructure of the island over the last 36 years because of extreme weather events was identified.