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OCEANIA AND ANTARCTICA

Chapter 8

Objectives

This chapter should enable you to:

Appreciate the economic prominence of larger, Europeanized Australia and New Zealand in a vast sea of small, mainly indigenous political units struggling to make a living

Recognize the associations between the physical geographies of islands, their typical social and political organizations, and their economic characteristics

Objectives (cont’d.)

Understand how minority control of most of the wealth generated by mineral and other resources has led to discontent and rebellion among majorities

Hear the concern expressed by low-lying island countries about the production of greenhouse gases in faraway industrialized nations

Understand the obstacles faced by indigenous people in winning legal recognition of ancestral claims

Objectives (cont’d.)

Appreciate the process by which Australia and New Zealand are loosening ties with their ancestral European homeland and strengthening their regional orientation

Learn about “unclaimed claims” to the continent of Antarctica

Area and Population

Oceania includes:

Australia

New Zealand

Islands of the southern and western Pacific

Antarctica

Australia, New Zealand have strong political and economic interests, but uniquely European

Major Divisions of the Region

Pacific Island Regions

Melanesia

Micronesia

Polynesia

Typical traits for a Pacific island country

Population of 100,000 to 150,000

Area of 250 to 1,000 square miles

Made up of a number of islands

Heavily dependent on foreign economic aid

Political Geography

Figure 8.2 Political geography of Oceania

The People and Where They Live

Regional population 38 million

Australia 23 million

Papua New Guinea 7 million

Tuvalu 10,000

Population growth rates vary widely

0.7% Australia and New Zealand

2.9% in Nauru

People overpopulation

Have significant Emigration

Climates and Biomes

Most of the region is tropical

New Zealand and the populous southeastern coast of Australia have oceanic climate

Coastal southern Australia has some Mediterranean

Coastal northern Australia has tropical savanna

Interior of Australia has desert climate and vegetation

Climates and Biomes

Figure 8.5 (a) Climates and (b) biomes of Oceania.

Island Types

Continental islands

Islands on the continental shelves or were attached to continents before sea level rise and tectonic activities isolated them

Examples: Australia, New Guinea, New Britain, New Zealand

High islands

Often the result of volcanic eruptions

Examples: Hawaii, Samoa, Society Islands

Zealandia

Figure 8.6 Zealandia, a continental fragment that is mostly submerged. Only New Zealand and New Caledonia rise above the waves. The ridges to the north are not part of Zealandia.

Island Types (cont’d.)

Low islands

Made of coral

Most take the shape of an irregular ring surrounding a lagoon (called an atoll)

Lack resources to support dense populations

Examples: Kiribati, Caroline and Marshall Islands

Island Types (cont’d.)

Land use

Evenly divided between rural and urban

Main cities and seaports on volcanic high islands

Support a diversity of crops

Coconut civilization

Reliance on coconut as crop

Land Use

Figure 8.8 Land use in Oceania.

Why Are Oceania’s Ecosystems So Vulnerable?

Factors threatening endemic species

Human-induced extinctions

Volcanic eruptions

Typhoons (hurricanes)

Rises in sea level

Hawaii as “extinction capital of the world”

Commercial logging in New Guinea

Home of 22,000 plant species, of which 90% are endemic

Cultural and Historical Geographies

Australia and New Zealand

Mainly European in culture and ethnicity

Fiji, New Caledonia, and Guam

Half indigenous, half foreign

The Indigenous Peoples of Oceania

Settlement began in Pacific region 50,000 years ago

Settlers came across land bridge that linked New Guinea and Australia (Torres Strait Islanders)

Ancestors of today’s Aborigines

Languages

Linguistic legacy

Aboriginal, Austronesian, and Papuan

The Indigenous Peoples of Oceania

Linguistic complexity

Papua New Guinea is home to 850 languages; mainly Papuan but also Austronesian

Vanuatu has fewer than 200,000 people and 105 identified languages

Lingua Franca

English and French reflect colonial past

Pidgin is official language of Papua New Guinea

Europeans in Oceania

First Europeans in region were voyagers

European legacy

Established trade

Introduced Christianity

Created new settlement patterns

Disrupted old political systems

Rearranged demographic and natural landscapes

Introduction of exotic crops

Making a Living in Oceania

Seven major economic enterprises

Exports of plantation crops

Exports of fish

Exports of minerals

Services for Western military interests

Information technology

Textile production

Tourism

Geopolitical Issues

Oceania was once entirely colonial

The U.S., Britain, Australia, and New Zealand have abandoned most of their colonies

Only France has held on to all of its colonies

Why are Foreign Powers Interested in the Pacific?

Importance of islands

Military advantages

Economic advantages

French Polynesia used for atomic testing

Guam and American Samoa useful for U.S. military purposes

Australia New Zealand United States (ANZUS) security alliance

Oceania’s Environmental Future

Rise in sea level due to global warming

Kiribati, Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu could be completely submerged, while other island nations would lose territory

Alliance of small island states

Politicked unsuccessfully at 1997 Kyoto Conference for lowering of global greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below their 1990 levels by 2005

Took legal recourse against U.S. and Australia for failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol

Australia and New Zealand

Similar in population, cultural heritage, political problems and orientation, type of economy, and location

Products of British colonization and reflect British heritage

Prosperous countries

Relatively few people among whom to spread wealth

Both owe their prosperity to wholesale transplantation of business culture and technology from the UK

Australia and New Zealand (cont’d.)

Despite their independence, remain loyal to Britain

Belong to the British Commonwealth of Nations

Political orientation

Since WWII, these two countries have sought closer relations with the U.S., and British influence has waned

Seeking stronger roles in the Pacific Basin’s economy

Australia’s Original Inhabitants Reclaim Rights to the Land

Aborigines

Population

An estimated 300,000 to 1 million Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders inhabited Australia when Europeans arrived in the 17th century

Colonizing whites slaughtered many and drove the rest into marginal areas of the continent

Today, there are an estimated 600,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, living mainly in the tropical north of the country

Australia’s Original Inhabitants Reclaim Rights to the Land (cont’d.)

Aborigines suffer from:

High infant mortality rate

High unemployment

Low life expectancy

Contention between Aborigines and white majority over land rights

Aborigines increasingly enlisting aid of geographers and other social scientists to document, measure, and analyze traditional land claims

Exotic Species on the Island Continent

Exotic species – non-native plants and animals introduced into an ecosystem

Impact often catastrophic to native species

Islands sensitive to ecological disruption

Exotic species that have caused problems in Australia include:

Rabbits, foxes, mice, water buffalo, cane toads, prickly pear cactus, sheep, cattle, dromedary camels

Antarctica: The White Continent

World’s fifth largest continent

5.5 million square miles

Human drama in exploration, bravery, and foolhardiness

Climate

Summers include “whiteouts” caused by light refraction on snow and ice covering about 95% of the continent

Winters are mainly dark, with average temperatures the coldest in the world

Antarctica: The White Continent (cont’d.)

“Ozone Hole” concentrated seasonally over Antarctica

Important locale for scientific research

Virtually no human settlement

Public, economic, and geopolitical interests are increasing

Several countries claim areas of the continent

1961 Antarctic Treaty

Forbids any exploitation of Antarctica’s natural resources until 2048

Antarctica

Figure 8.27 Antarctica.