As said previously, there are no existing forest regulations, and thus no protected area on the Territory of Wallis and Futuna. In the past a traditional practice of protection used to exist: the "tapu" (which can mean sacred or forbidden) which was decreed by customary chiefs. It was forbidden to cut trees and to clear forests protected by a "tapu". This concerned principally humid dense forests bordering water resources e.g. around the crater lakes on Wallis, and the river banks of Futuna. With the increase in population and growing need to cultivate land, combined with a relative loss of control by customary chiefs, the practise of "tapu" is today hardly carried out. It exists only for some protected areas above some irrigated taro farms on Futuna.
Natural forests, above all humid dense forests, have retreated enormously during the last years. Without being able to judge which tree species are the most particularly threatened, it can be simply noted that those species found either only in the humid dense forests, or only in the coastal forests, are threatened due to the fact of clearance and settlement. The following are among the seventeen tree species considered most important: Calophyllum inophyllum, Flueggea flexuosa, Neonauclea fosteri, Planchonella linggensis, Pometia pinnata, Syzygium clusiaefolium, Syzygium inophylloides and Syzygium sp. Except for Pomentia pinnata which is used for its wood and fruits, all these trees are used for wood alone. Planchonella linggensis would be the tree species that is most threatened, for it has been observed only on Wallis and Futuna islands where the humid dense forests are the most reduced, and not on Alofi, where humid dense forests still cover an important area.
