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Opeskin, Brian; MacDermott, Therese --- "Resources, population and migration in the Pacific: Connecting islands and rim" [2009] UTSLRS 6; (2009) 50(3) Asia Pacific Viewpoint 353

Last Updated: 21 June 2017

Resources, Population and Migration in the Pacific:

Connecting Islands and Rim

Brian Opeskin

and

Therese MacDermott


Abstract

This article examines international migration in the Pacific and argues that there should be still greater opportunities for the people of Pacific countries to migrate between their home states and the developed states of the Pacific Rim. The case for borders that are more permeable to human migration is based in part on the common Pacific predicament of poor resource endowments, rapidly growing populations, depletion and degradation of existing resources, and threats posed by anthropogenic climate change. Coupled with this is a history of colonisation that has left some Pacific peoples with liberal access to economic opportunities in developed states by virtue of their citizenship or preferential visa status, while others have no such opportunities. Both New Zealand and the United States have been reasonably generous in facilitating migration from Polynesia and Micronesia. It is Australia that stands out as the Pacific neighbour with the greatest capacity to develop new migration streams. The seasonal worker scheme announced by the Australian Government in August 2008 takes a cautious but valuable step along this path, yet there is scope for further expanding Pacific access by broadening the geographical, temporal and material scope of existing migration arrangements.

Keywords: resources, population growth, climate change, migration, colonialism, citizenship, visas, seasonal workers.

Introduction

The history of the Pacific is a history of migration. Austronesian-speaking peoples are thought to have inhabited the western parts of Melanesia as long ago as 40,000BP, but the eastern Pacific was settled only in recent times as a result of great oceanic voyages from Asia. Polynesia was the last region of the world to be settled by humans, only 3,000 years ago (Gibbons, 2001).

The original settlement of these remote islands—‘earth’s empty quarter’ (Ward, 1989)—was the beginning of many Pacific migrations. Europeans came to the region as voluntary migrants in increasing numbers from the 18th Century, as missionaries, whalers and traders. There were further migrations into the region, such as the 60,000 indentured labourers brought from India to Fiji from 1879–1916 to work on colonial plantations (Lal, 2004). And there were simultaneous out-migrations of labour as Melanesians from New Caledonia, New Hebrides, New Guinea and Solomon Islands were forced or enticed by ‘blackbirders’ to work on plantations in Australia (MacClancy, 2002).

Pacific migration has remained a phenomenon of great importance to the demography of the region. Although the absolute number of migrants is small, proportionate to the size of their home populations, no other region in the world has experienced larger outflows of people (Voigt-Graf, 2007). Some of these migrants have resettled in other Pacific locations as economic opportunities have arisen, leaving a legacy of immigrant Pacific Island communities scattered across the Pacific (Lal, 1994). But by far the greater proportion has moved to developed states on the Pacific Rim, especially Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

This article examines the experience of international migration in the Pacific and argues that there should be still greater opportunities for the inhabitants of some Pacific Island countries to migrate between their home states and the developed states of the Pacific Rim.

The case for borders that are more permeable to human migration is based on seven linked propositions: (1) Natural resources are distributed very unevenly across the Pacific region, with some states being substantially under-endowed in terms of their capacity to carry their human populations. (2) Many Pacific populations continue to experience high rates of natural increase and high net population growth, except where the safety valve of immigration relieves the population pressure. (3) There has been significant depletion and degradation of natural resources in some Pacific countries due to population pressures and over-exploitation. (4) Climate change and rising sea levels threaten to cast some Pacific Island states as the first victims of a global problem that is not of their making. (5) The history of Pacific colonisation has been capricious and has left some Pacific Islanders with liberal access to economic opportunities in developed states through migration, while others have none. (6) Preferential visa quotas and seasonal worker schemes go some way towards satisfying the needs of Pacific Islanders but there is scope for expanding the channels of access to broaden the geographical, temporal and material scope of Pacific migration. (7) Finally, developed states should assist developing states of the Pacific by promoting controlled migration, not only because it is in their self interest to do so but because it is an effective means of giving development assistance and fostering stronger regional relations.

This article does not claim that migration is a panacea for all Pacific ills. Rather, it is one of a number of policy responses to the challenges facing the region, and it should be cultivated alongside other policies for sustainable development of small island states. Migration is gradually coming to be seen by neighbouring developed states as a key policy response to unique regional problems because of the benefits that derive from better access to the labour markets of developed economies. This understanding is demonstrated by the introduction of ‘Pacific Access Category’ visas and a ‘Recognised Seasonal Employer’ scheme in New Zealand, and by Australia’s acceptance, after much debate, of a pilot seasonal worker scheme in 2008. These are positive developments, but more needs to be done as part of a broad agenda to secure greater development opportunities for Pacific Islanders.

For the purposes of this article, the Pacific is taken to be the 22 states and territories (hereafter called ‘countries’) that comprise the Pacific Community. Many of these are independent sovereign states; others are external territories of developed states; while still others occupy a middle ground of enjoying independent legal status coupled with ‘free association’ with a developed state. The Pacific Community has been chosen because it has broad representation across the three subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia; it excludes the developed states of the Pacific Rim; and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community publishes a broad range of useful data for the group (Haberkorn and Jorari, 2007).

The Pacific Predicament
Resource Roulette

Natural resources are unevenly distributed across the globe. When geopolitical boundaries are superimposed on the underlying distribution of resources, the bounty available to individual countries is usually quite accidental (see Table 1).

Within the Pacific, the countries of Melanesia are relatively well-endowed in land mass and natural resources. The ‘Pacific ring of fire’, caused by the collision of the earth’s tectonic plates, has produced a wealth of minerals along the line of contact (Crocombe, 2008). For example, Papua New Guinea has copper and gold resources of world significance (in 2004 its mineral exports accounted for 21% of its GDP), while New Caledonia holds 25% of the world’s known nickel resources and is currently the fifth ranked world producer of mined nickel (United States Geological Survey, 2007). In addition, the climate and ecology in Melanesian countries have supported substantial forestry assets. These renewable and non-renewable resources are a major source of wealth and have the potential to provide a stream of income for future generations if appropriately managed.

The islands of Micronesia and Polynesia have generally been less fortunate. Apart from their small size—the land area of the seven Micronesian countries averages only 433 km2, compared with 108,472 km2 in Melanesian countries—some countries are comprised solely of low-lying coral atolls and reef islands, which support minimal vegetation. Although the islands are thought to have sustained low and stable populations before European contact (Caldwell et al, 2001), their capacity to support present and future populations is increasingly compromised.

The wide variety of Pacific geographies is illustrated in Figure 1, which plots population against land area for 22 countries on a logarithmic scale. The location of all Melanesian countries in the north-east quadrant of the graph affirms their status as large and populous countries, and contrasts markedly with the Polynesian micro-territories in the south-east quadrant. Figure 1 also identifies three iso-density lines, which show the combinations of population and land area that yield uniform population densities, respectively, of 10, 100 and 1000 persons per km2.

Insert Figure 1 (Land area, population
and densities) about here

The limited availability of natural resources in some Pacific Islands has long been a reason for trade and migration, especially between low-lying coral islands and high islands in their vicinity (D’Arcy, 2006). Oceanic voyages often resulted in temporary absences, but long term migrations occurred when natural disasters brought famine to low islands, which were especially susceptible to the disruptions of droughts and cyclones because of their small resource base. Long term migrations also took place when a population began to outstrip an island’s capacity to feed them, as occurred in Rotuma and Futuna (D’Arcy, 2006).

One natural resource that all Pacific states share is the sea. This has been so throughout their history, but a new era for marine resources was ushered in by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which entered into force in 1994. The Convention gave coastal states greater control over coastal (inshore) fisheries by extending sovereignty over the territorial sea out to 12 nautical miles (22 km) from baselines. In addition, vast maritime areas that were previously part of the high seas, and thus subject to exploitation by any state, became part of a coastal state’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). To a distance of 200 nautical miles (370 km) from baselines, Pacific states could now exercise ‘sovereign rights’ to explore and exploit the natural resources of the zone, including fisheries. Many Pacific states were initially cautious about binding themselves to the Convention (Wolfers, 1995) but all have now done so, other than the territories under United States jurisdiction (American Samoa, Guam and Northern Mariana Islands).

The impact on the marine resources potentially available to Pacific countries can be seen in charts that show barely a slither of high seas remaining in the immense maritime estate that extends from Indonesia in the west to Pitcairn Islands in the east. Table 1 shows the size of each country’s EEZ in comparison with its land mass. The smallest EEZ in the region (100,290 km2) belongs to Samoa, which is hemmed in by the opposing zones of other states. The largest zone is in French Polynesia, whose EEZ is 50 times greater than Samoa’s. Together, the countries of the Pacific region account for 28% of the world’s EEZ.

The fishery resources of the Pacific can be broadly divided into two categories: coastal resources and oceanic resources (Gillett, 2005). Coastal resources include a wide range of finfish and invertebrate species, and form the basis of both subsistence fisheries and small-scale commercial fisheries. Subsistence fisheries account for around 70% of coastal harvest and are vital for nutrition and food security in developing Pacific countries. The small-scale commercial fisheries are predominantly directed towards export markets rather than domestic consumption, and include trochus, sea cucumber, reef fish, lobsters, and aquarium fish.

These coastal resources are dwarfed in size and value by oceanic resources, which are highly prized by industrial fisheries. Tuna alone accounts for around ten times the volume and seven times the value of all the other fisheries of the region combined, representing a landed value of US$1,900 million in 1998, or around 50% of the global tuna catch (Gillett, 2005; Langley et al, 2009). For the most part, industrial tuna fishing is carried out by distant water fishing nations, including China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Philippines and the United States. This is so because the Convention on the Law of the Sea obliges coastal states to make the surplus allowable catch of their EEZ available to other states on a negotiated basis so as to promote the ‘optimum utilisation’ of the living resources of the zone. Some states, such as Kiribati and Tuvalu, have embraced this with enthusiasm and derive considerable income from access fees paid by distant water fishing nations.

Yet the overall contribution of fisheries to the economies of Pacific countries is generally not large. In 2002 it was estimated that the contribution of fishing to the GDP of 14 Pacific countries ranged from a modest 1.4% in Papua New Guinea to an atypically large 21.5% in Kiribati (Gillett and Lightfoot, 2002). Others have claimed that island nations receive only about 5% of the market value of the reported catch under these licence agreements, but that Pacific governments cannot press too hard for increased fees because the distant fleets ‘operate from countries that are also significant aid donors’ (D’Arcy, 2006: 168).

The importance of the sea as a potential regional resource should not be underestimated. The President of Kiribati, Anote Tong, has remarked that tuna is the last natural resource that country possesses (Wilson, 2008: 45). Yet the size of marine estates varies widely across the Pacific, as does the capacity of countries to capture the benefits of their marine resources. Moreover, the distribution of the most valuable fishing stocks is quite uneven. Pacific tuna are found predominantly in the Western Pacific Warm Pool, which contains the warmest surface areas of the world’s oceans (Gillett, 2005). While the boundaries of the Warm Pool vary with La Niña and El Niño events, the states most favoured are those lying close to the Equator between 140oE and 180oE Longitude, namely, Papua New Guinea, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru and Kiribati.

Insert Table 1 (Resources, population densities,
and urbanisation of Pacific countries) about here

Dictates of Demography

Added to the problems of a poor endowment of resources, the populations of many Pacific countries are growing rapidly, with high rates of natural increase that are tempered only by emigration, where this is possible. The demographic characteristics of each country are shown in Table 2.

A country’s population growth in any period reflects the balance between births (fertility) and deaths (mortality), if there is zero net migration. Demographers have long postulated the existence of a modernising process—the ‘demographic transition’—in which countries progress from a situation of high fertility and high mortality to one of low fertility and low mortality (Notestein, 1945; Davis, 1945). In pre-transition and post-transition societies, population growth is relatively low and stable, but during the transition the population grows quickly because mortality declines earlier and faster than fertility.

Although all Pacific populations have begun the demographic transition, the process is far from complete. In contrast with the high mortality and low life expectancy (20–40 years) that characterises pre-transition societies (Omran, 1971; Riley, 2005), mortality of Pacific populations has fallen significantly in the past 50 years due to better sanitation, hygiene and medical treatment. Life expectancy at birth is now reasonably high in many Pacific countries, with only Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Solomon Islands having a life expectancy for females that is more than 10% below the global average of 70 years (Table 2; Population Reference Bureau, 2007).

It is fertility rather than mortality that is the most important determinant of long term population change in societies that have commenced the demographic transition. In the 1950s and 1960s, a total fertility rate (TFR) of six to eight births per woman was common in Polynesia and parts of Micronesia (Pirie, 2000). Fertility has since declined, and today the highest fertility rate in the Pacific is 4.8 births per woman in Solomon Islands. Nonetheless, nearly half the countries of the Pacific Community have a total fertility rate of 4.0 births per woman, or more. This is high by international standards—the global average is 2.7—and it far exceeds replacement level fertility of 2.1 births per woman (Population Reference Bureau, 2007). The marked variations in fertility between Pacific subregions are not fully understood (South Pacific Commission, 1998).

The demographic consequences of continuing high fertility are significant when set against a background of relatively low mortality. If Pacific societies were closed, with no net migration, annual rates of population growth would be equivalent to the annual rates of natural increase. Only four Pacific countries have a rate of natural increase that is below the global average of 1.2%, and some have rates that are among the highest in the world outside Africa (Population Reference Bureau, 2007). If these rates of natural increase were sustained over the long term, the populations of Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands and Vanuatu would double in about 27 years, placing a substantial burden on each country’s resources and social infrastructure.

Insert Table 2 (Demographic characteristics
of Pacific countries) about here

Of course, Pacific countries are not closed societies, and international migration has had a substantial impact on the net population growth of many countries (Connell, 1987). Figure 2 contrasts the rates of population growth that would prevail if Pacific countries were closed to migration (namely, the crude rate of natural increase—CRNI) with the crude rate of net migration (CRNM) that is actually experienced in those countries. Leaving aside a few special cases, one can generalise by saying that in Polynesia emigration has been a major check on population growth, resulting in only modest annual growth despite relatively high total fertility rates; in Melanesia there is effectively zero net migration from the three countries that together account for 75% of Pacific peoples (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu); while in Micronesia the situation is mixed, with several countries (Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Marshall Islands) sharing the high net emigration experience of many Polynesian countries.

Insert Figure 2 (Annual percentage natural
increase and net migration, 2008) about here

Depletion and Degradation

Pacific states face many common environmental challenges with respect to their limited land and marine resources. Two main concerns are the depletion of natural resources and their degradation due to population pressures and over-exploitation.

Nauru is a telling example of the over-exploitation of a mineral resource. As one of the richest phosphate islands in the Pacific, it attracted the attention of developed states because phosphate is a prized ingredient in commercial fertiliser. From 1907, Nauru’s phosphate deposits were exploited by German, British, Australian and New Zealand interests, and then by a newly independent Nauru from 1968. By about 2000 the primary deposits were substantially exhausted and mining ceased. The problems in Nauru extended well beyond the depletion of phosphate rock. The mining left a majority of the land wholly unusable for any other purpose, resulting in ‘near complete environmental devastation’ (Gowdy and McDaniel, 1999: 333). Nauruans once enjoyed the highest per capita income on the planet, but exhaustion of its most significant natural resource, coupled with gross mismanagement of the income derived from that resource, has left Nauru with an uncertain economic future (Connell, 2006).

The problems of resource depletion in Pacific countries are not confined to mineral resources. Over-exploitation of inshore marine resources has caused declines in coastal fish stocks of rock cod, mullet, scad and mackerel, especially when combined with damaging fishing practices such as dynamiting (Cordonnery, 2003). Offshore waters may also be suffering from stock depletion because the developing states of the Pacific have wholly inadequate resources for surveillance of the licensed or illegal fishing operations conducted by foreign states in their maritime zones (Hanich et al, 2007).

Depletion of natural resources has been coupled with the degradation of land and sea resources, which is most pronounced where there are growing numbers of people (Boer, 1995). Sustained population growth has resulted in population densities of more than 300 persons per km2 in many microstates (Table 1). These average densities understate the real pressure on the environment in urban areas, where rural-urban drift has combined with high rates of natural increase to create extreme densities, as in Majuro in the Marshall Islands, Betio in Kiribati, and Funafuti in Tuvalu (Zurick, 1995; Connell 2003a). Urban concentrations bring concomitant problems of waste disposal, pollution of lagoons and coastal waters with organic and industrial effluents, land clearing, soil erosion and sedimentation. A particular problem is that the freshwater lens of coral islands, which floats on top of denser saltwater beneath the island, is easily despoiled by the disposal of human and animal effluent and the leaching of agricultural chemicals (van der Velde et al, 2007).

There are valid concerns that population growth is outstripping the capacity of fragile island ecosystems to carry mounting populations, at least in those Pacific countries that lack the opportunity of international migration (McMurray, 2006). These concerns recall the population theory of Thomas Malthus (1830) and his supposition that population growth will inevitably outstrip the growth of available resources, leading to dire population ‘checks’, at least in a closed system with no migration.

The link between international migration and the depletion or degradation of resources is not new to the Pacific. Before Nauru gained independence in 1968, Australia offered the Trust Territory the option of relocating its entire population to an island under Australian sovereignty, in recognition of the fact that phosphate mining had left Nauru mostly uninhabitable (Connell, 2006). The offer was declined because Nauruans wanted independence after six decades of foreign administration and exploitation. Today Nauruans enjoy no special immigration status in any of its former administering powers, leading to the question whether a Malthusian calamity awaits a closed population with small and finite resources.

In other depleted phosphate islands in the Pacific, migration alone has averted such a calamity. The people of Banaba (Ocean Island) in Kiribati resettled on Rabi Island in Fiji in 1945; the people of Angaur in Palau moved to the capital in 1955, and the people of Makatea in French Polynesia moved to Papeete in 1966 (Lal, 1994; Crocombe, 2008). The depletion and degradation of natural resources has brought about the relocation of populations in the Pacific in the past and is likely to cause similar perturbations in the future.

Climate Change

There is an emerging consensus among scientists that the world’s climate system is warming, as evidenced by increases in average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising average sea levels (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007). Although past climate change has been a fact of human and ecological history, there is a widely held concern that most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities such as deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.

Pacific countries are in the unenviable position of not having experienced the industrialisation that is the principal cause of greenhouse gas emissions, while being ‘among the most vulnerable likely victims of global warming due to their particular geographies and fragile economies’ (Leane, 2005: 161). The principal international instrument regulating climate change—the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992—expressly recognises that ‘low-lying and other small island countries ... are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change’. These effects include climate processes (e.g. rising sea levels, coastal erosion, salination of agricultural land) and climate events (e.g. increased incidence of extreme weather such as tropical cyclones and tidal surges) (Zurick, 1995; Moore and Smith, 1995; Brown, 2008).

Rising and falling sea levels can have momentous effects on the migration of populations. There are periods in Pacific history when falling sea levels brought about internal migration and changes in the settlement patterns of Pacific communities (Nunn et al, 2007). Rising sea levels can have a more dramatic impact. A poignant example is the low-lying Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, whose inhabitants have begun to resettle on the high island of Bougainville, some 200 km away (Connell, 1990; Campbell et al, 2005). The need for internal migration has been driven by tidal surges, flooding and coastal erosion, which has brought an increased incidence of disease and the need to find alternative sources of food (Saul and McAdam, 2009).

People relocated in similar circumstances have been described as ‘environmental refugees’—although this appellation has not always been welcomed by those affected. By 2050, it is expected that between 150 and 200 million people will be displaced from their homes by global warming due to disruption to rainfall, drought, rising sea-level and coastal flooding (Myers and Kent, 1995; Stern, 2006). This prediction is tentative but daunting: it represents a ten-fold increase in today’s entire population of refugees and internally displaced persons (Brown, 2008).

The Carteret Islanders are perhaps fortunate to be able to move higher ground on a ‘neighbouring’ island. But when an entire country is only a few metres above sea level the opportunities for internal migration are necessarily limited. Climate models suggest that global mean sea level will rise by 18–59cm by 2099 (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007: 45). Atoll states such as Tokelau and Tuvalu will have the distinction of being the first Pacific Island countries to be totally inundated by a sea level rise. A one metre rise in sea level will submerge 80% of the Majuro atoll in the Marshall Islands and 12.5% of the landmass in Kiribati (Burns, 2000). Beyond the physical inundation of land, rising sea levels are likely to have a major impact on the viability of coastal populations because key economic sectors—fishing, tourism and agriculture—will all be affected (Leane, 2005). By 2050, periodic storm surges in South Tarawa, the most densely populated area in Kiribati, are predicted to cost the country 10–30% of annual GDP (Dupont and Pearman, 2006).

The submergence of rocks and islets will also exacerbate the shortage of natural resources identified earlier in this article. Under international law, these geographic formations generate an EEZ for coastal states only if they are above sea level at low tide and capable of sustaining human habitation or an economic life of their own. For some Pacific countries, the maritime territory acquired in the 1990s, and the preferential rights to fisheries resources, will be expunged by the same climatic processes that will erode their land territory (Edwards, 1999).

These potential consequences have led to questions about whether Pacific Rim countries will accept entire populations as environmental refugees when low lying island states are no longer habitable. The question has ethical dimensions: where does moral responsibility lie for accepting persons displaced by anthropogenic climate change? Industrialised and industrialising states are the principle emitters of greenhouse gases, while Pacific Islanders make only a tiny contribution to the global warming that may make their relocation a practical necessity. In 2002 Tuvalu sought to convert moral responsibility into a legal one by investigating the possibility of suing the worst national emitters of greenhouse gases, but this came to nothing (Connell, 2003a).

It has been widely reported that the government of Tuvalu has asked New Zealand to accept its entire population of around 10,000 people if climate change renders Tuvalu unfit for habitation (Brown, 2008). The New Zealand Government has expressly disavowed this possibility (NZMFAT, 2008). Since 2002, New Zealand has accepted only 75 Tuvaluans each year as part of its Pacific Access Category of visas, and entry is not granted on the basis of environmental necessity. While developed states sometimes give special immigration status to people displaced by catastrophic events, as an act of humanitarian assistance, no government has yet expressed its willingness to accept large flows of persons displaced by long term climate processes (Brown, 2008). Perhaps this is because the local impact of climate change lies mostly in the future, and that future has not yet arrived other than in the ‘imaginations, dreams [and] fears’ of Islanders (Connell, 2003a: 104).

Channels of Migration

Previous sections identified the needs of Pacific Islanders based on their variable resource endowments, growing populations, degraded environments, and prospective challenges from anthropogenic climate change. This section examines the current ability of Pacific Islanders to migrate between their island homes and developed states of the Pacific Rim.

The ability of individuals and families to migrate to another country depends, among other things, on the willingness of that country to take them. It is a noteworthy feature of the region that many Pacific Islanders have special opportunities to migrate to developed states based on (a) shared citizenship; (b) preferential access to residence visas; or (c) access through temporary worker schemes. These streams are additional to the regular immigration processes through which applicants are chosen in accordance with selection criteria that have no regard to their Pacific origins.

These special opportunities do not cause migration, which is still driven predominantly by the economic motives identified in Ravenstein’s seminal work (1889: 286), namely, ‘the desire inherent in most men to “better” themselves in material respects’. Nevertheless, they remove an ‘intervening obstacle’ to migration and thus open up channels of movement that would not otherwise exist (Lee, 1966).

Colonialism and Citizenship

Colonialism has left a complex legacy of legal and political associations in the Pacific. Most of the territorial acquisitions in the Pacific took place in the latter half of the 19th Century in pursuit of trade and strategic interests. At different times the colonising powers included Spain, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, France, United States, Australia and New Zealand (see Table 3). The division of the Pacific Islands into spheres of influence changed dramatically over time. Spanish interests dissipated after Spain was defeated in the Spanish-American war in 1898. German interests in the Pacific came to an end with the First World War, when its overseas possessions became League of Nations mandates, and later United Nations trust territories, administered by the victorious powers. Japan’s interests—either as mandate administrator or wartime occupier—ended with its defeat in the Second World War. Thus, by 1946, colonial administration in the Pacific was largely confined to five countries: two European powers (United Kingdom and France), two neighbouring Pacific powers that were themselves former British colonies (Australia and New Zealand), and the United States (see Table 3).

As the era of decolonisation unfolded, Australia and the United Kingdom steadily divested themselves of their Pacific possessions. For Australia, that process was completed with the independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975. For the United Kingdom, the process was substantially completed with the independence of Vanuatu in 1980. Pitcairn Islands remains the only British overseas territory in the Pacific but, with a population of only 66, it is not of major significance.

By contrast, New Zealand, the United States and France preserved formal linkages with Pacific lands. New Zealand has maintained strong links with Polynesia: Tokelau remains a territory of New Zealand, while the Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing states that have chosen to remain in ‘free association’ with New Zealand. The six Pacific possessions of the United States (all but one in Micronesia) went in slightly different directions. Two (Guam and American Samoa) remain territories of the United States; three (Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau) are independent states that have entered into compacts of free association with the United States; and one (Northern Mariana Islands) has a unique status as a locally autonomous Commonwealth in political union with the United States. France has maintained robust interests in Polynesia (Wallis and Futuna, French Polynesia) and Melanesia (New Caledonia), although it agreed to end the Anglo-French condominium in Vanuatu in 1980. Its three remaining possessions have the status of French territories or collectivities with substantial local autonomy, but there is an ongoing dialogue about decolonisation of the French Pacific, especially New Caledonia (Chappell, 1999; Connell, 2003b; Rumley, 2006).

What did this colonising history mean for the freedom of movement of Pacific Islanders? The partitioning of the Pacific between colonial powers created large administrative units from what had been, for the most part, small tribal groupings. The new territorial boundaries were seen as a European artefact, much as they were in Africa (Naidu, 2003). The Tongan anthropologist, Epeli Hau‘ofa, for example, decried the borders that crisscross the Pacific Ocean in the following terms (1994: 155).

‘Nineteenth-century imperialism erected boundaries that led to the contraction of Oceania, transforming a once boundless world into the Pacific states and territories that we know today. People were confined to their tiny spaces, isolated from each other. No longer could they travel freely to do what they had done for centuries. They were cut off from their relatives abroad, from their far-flung sources of wealth and cultural enrichment.’

Colonisation undoubtedly placed significant restrictions on the movement of people between the islands of the Pacific. The same may be said of decolonisation, which thrust the notion of the modern state, conceived as a territorially-bounded entity, upon the newly independent states of the Pacific (Kratochwil, 1986).

Yet in many cases colonialism was accompanied by new rights of citizenship, and these selectively expanded, rather than diminished, the prospects of Pacific migration. The experience of Pacific Islands has not been uniform in this respect and the position in New Zealand, the United States and France must again be contrasted with that of Australia and the United Kingdom.

New Zealand fostered special relationships with Polynesia. Tokelauans, Cook Islanders and Niueans were granted New Zealand citizenship in what has been described as ‘possibly one of the most generous post-colonial arrangements in modern history’ (Krishnan et al, 1994). Under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, citizenship confers a right to enter and move freely within New Zealand, and thus to access the labour market, education and other governmental services. The impact has been dramatic. At the time of the 2006 census there were 265,974 people of Pacific ethnicity living in New Zealand—6.4% of the New Zealand population (Statistics New Zealand, 2008). Not all of them are immigrants: indeed six out of ten were born in New Zealand. Nevertheless, the impact of a liberal citizenship regime is revealed by the fact that there are 14 times as many Niueans, six times as many Tokelauans, and three times as many Cook Islanders in New Zealand than in their home islands (Table 4). Australia has been indirectly affected by these policies because New Zealand citizens also have a right of access to Australia under longstanding Trans-Tasman travel arrangements, thus facilitating step-wise migration.

The United States has also facilitated migration between its affiliated Pacific Islands and the mainland. Residents of the two unincorporated territories (Guam and American Samoa) are United States citizens whose freedom of movement within the United States is constitutionally protected. Likewise, residents of Northern Mariana Islands are United States citizens under the Covenant of political union. Table 4 shows the sizeable populations of Guamese and American Samoans in the United States at the last census (2000), both in absolute numbers and relative to the island populations.

France too adopted a generous attitude towards the citizenship of indigenous people of the Pacific. Under the 1946 Constitution of the French Republic, all inhabitants of French overseas territories were granted French citizenship, with the concomitant right to move freely among the territories, and between the territories and metropolitan France (de Deckker, 1994). In practice there has been very little migration from French Pacific territories to France. On the contrary, there has been significant net migration to New Caledonia (see Figure 2)—including both ‘Métros’ from France and Polynesians from Wallis and Futuna, who have largely outgrown the islands’ limited resources (Crocombe, 2008).

The approach of New Zealand, the United States and France stands in contrast to the United Kingdom and Australia, which gave no automatic citizenship or rights of migration to Pacific populations over which they had exercised colonial authority. For the United Kingdom, citizenship was a political impossibility: not only were its Pacific possessions numerous (including Fiji, Kiribati, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu), but its situation was replicated in colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent. These pragmatic concerns were also true of Australia’s relations with Papua New Guinea, which was both proximate and highly populous: at independence in 1975, Papua New Guinea’s population was 2.9 million, Australia’s 13.6 million.

Insert Table 3 (Political and constitutional
features of Pacific countries) about here

Pacific Preference

Many countries have immigration policies that are non-discriminatory in respect of the country of origin. Although these policies routinely discriminate on other grounds—such as age, health status, language ability, education and job skills—they neither erect barriers nor give preference to potential immigrants based on their country of origin.

Australia has applied such a policy since the mid 1970s, when the ‘White Australia Policy’ was finally dismantled (Hawkins, 1991). Australia now prides itself on immigration that is ‘selective, skilled and tightly managed’, and designed for nation-building rather than alleviating temporary shortages (Millbank, 2006). However, an exception has been made for New Zealanders, who enjoy special rights to enter and work in Australia under the 1973 Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangements. Pacific Islanders are thus entitled to migrate to Australia only because they satisfy standard immigration criteria or because they are New Zealanders who enjoy the Trans-Tasman concessions. This position has not gone untested. Over the past 20 years a range of public inquiries in Australia has recommended special migration status for Pacific Islanders for a variety of reasons, including enhancing the effectiveness of overseas aid, safeguarding national security, and improving regional foreign relations (Millbank, 2006). So far these recommendations have not been adopted. Indeed, in 2001 Australia sought to discourage third country migration to Australia, using New Zealand as a stepping-stone, by restricting New Zealanders’ access to Australian social security benefits if the immigrants would not otherwise qualify for permanent residence in Australia (Birrell and Rapson, 2001). Even the Australian Prime Minister’s Port Moresby Declaration, in March 2008, proclaiming ‘a new era of cooperation with the island nations of the Pacific’ is notably silent on the migration question. Rather, it seeks to help island nations meet their Millennium Development Goals through a range of other policy instruments, including new international development partnerships.

New Zealand has taken a very different approach based on a self-acknowledged ‘special relationship’ with Pacific Island states, especially in Polynesia (Bedford et al, 2007). One aspect of this special relationship is the grant of New Zealand citizenship to residents of Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau, discussed above. However, New Zealand has gone further and established preferential visa status for a number of other Pacific Island countries.

The first of these followed in the spirit of the Treaty of Friendship that accompanied the independence of Western Samoa from New Zealand in 1962. The treaty recognised the ‘specially intimate relationship’ between the two countries and the need for ‘fuller opportunities for social progress’ of its peoples. The Samoan quota was thus established in the 1960s (Ongley and Pearson, 1995) and currently allows up to 1,100 Samoan citizens to be granted residence in New Zealand each year. The cumulative effect of this immigration is reflected in the fact that there are over 131,000 ethnic Samoans in New Zealand, representing 49% of all New Zealanders who claim Pacific Island ethnicity (Statistics New Zealand, 2008). In 2002 New Zealand established a new visa class—the Pacific Access Category—for other Pacific countries with which New Zealand had close cultural and historic ties. The annual quota of 400 places is currently allocated between Tonga (250), Tuvalu (75) and Kiribati (75). As a result of these quotas, in combination with immigration under previous work permit schemes, there are also large numbers of Tongans and Tuvaluans living in New Zealand, relative to their island populations (Table 4). From 2003 Fiji was also included in the scheme with an annual allocation of 250 places, but Fijian participation was suspended following the 2006 Fiji coup.

In Micronesia, the United States has been arguably even more generous to the three states that are in compacts of free association with it, although generosity comes at the price of ongoing United States influence and control. As discussed above, the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau are treated as foreign countries for the purpose of nationality, and their residents are not automatically entitled to United States citizenship. However, the compacts grant the citizens of each of those countries the right to travel to the United States, to establish residence there as ‘non-immigrants’ without a visa, and to ‘lawfully engage in occupations’. Unlike the New Zealand arrangements, there is no country quota, nor is residency abroad contingent on obtaining a valid offer of employment. At the last census there were 5,479 Marshallese, 2,228 Palauans and 1,246 Micronesians in the United States (Table 4).

Insert Table 4 (Pacific populations resident
at home and abroad) about here

Seasonal Solutions

The Pacific has a long history of migration of unskilled labourers to fill the needs of neighbouring countries in industries such as agriculture and mining. The early history, during the mid-19th Century, was blighted by the forcible removal of Pacific Islanders to work on plantations in Australia and elsewhere, but it was followed by the more orderly recruitment of labourers who changed the face of island colonies in the Pacific (Naidu, 2003). The many examples include both labour migrations between Pacific Islands (for example, i-Kiribati to the phosphate mines of Nauru) and labour migrations between the Islands and the Pacific Rim (for example, Melanesians to the sugar cane farms in northern Australia).

Systematic labour migration re-emerged in the Pacific in the 1970s when the New Zealand government introduced work permit schemes to allow low-skilled workers from Samoa, Tonga and Fiji to work on a temporary basis in rural agriculture and forestry development (Appleyard and Stahl, 1995; Bedford et al, 2007).

The most recent incarnation is the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme, which commenced in April 2007 and replaced the country-specific work permit arrangements. The RSE scheme allows up to 5,000 overseas workers to be given limited purpose visas each year to work in New Zealand’s horticulture and viticulture industries for up to nine months (Immigration New Zealand, 2008). The scheme is designed as a solution to seasonal labour shortages since overseas recruitment is permitted only if an employer is unable to recruit New Zealanders to plant, maintain, harvest or pack crops in the chosen industries.

The impetus for the scheme has come from local labour shortages, but the scheme must also be seen as an additional means of providing development assistance to the Pacific region, for otherwise the Pacific preference is difficult to explain. Currently, employers are permitted to recruit from 11 nominated Pacific countries, and can look elsewhere only if they have pre-existing relationships with workers of other nationalities or if they are unsuccessful in recruiting from the Pacific. The approved recruiting grounds include the countries with which New Zealand has existing ties through preferential residence visas (Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati). In 2007 the scheme was expanded to include Nauru, the three compact states of Micronesia (Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and Marshall Islands), and three populous countries of Melanesia (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu). By August 2008, 118 New Zealand employers had obtained RSE status; 4,638 individuals had travelled to New Zealand for seasonal work; and 78% of these had come from the Pacific—predominantly from Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa (New Zealand Department of Labour, 2008).

Although it is just a little over one year since the RSE scheme was introduced, the scheme is said to be ‘on track’ to achieve its domestic aims in so far as seasonal labour needs are being met and employers are benefiting from a predictable supply of workers. In relation to the RSE’s development impact, potential benefits for Pacific Islanders include acquisition of skills, facilitating remittances, maintaining strong ties with their home country, and the possibility of repeat employment. Research on the selection of workers from Tonga, for example, indicates that the program is targeting unskilled workers with restricted incomes and schooling, thereby opening up opportunities that would not otherwise exist for poor rural households (Gibson, McKenzie and Rohorua, 2008).

Yet there have also been initial difficulties. These include the need for greater engagement with unions, the community and Pacific Diaspora communities; better welfare services and pastoral care; and a range of industrial issues relating to worker training, the sufficiency of working hours, and transparency of pay calculations and deductions (Maclellan, 2008). These matters need to be addressed if the scheme is to secure the ‘elusive triple win’ for migrants, countries of origin, and countries of destination (Ramasamy et al, 2008).

Seasonal worker schemes with a Pacific focus have also been mooted in Australia. They have long had the support of the agricultural sector, which regularly suffers critical shortages of unskilled labour, like its New Zealand counterpart. It has been suggested that the sector requires up to 100,000 additional workers but that existing migration streams are inadequate to alleviate labour shortages, especially in horticulture (National Farmers’ Federation, 2008). However, labour unions have historically been outspoken opponents because of their concerns that a scheme will take the jobs of Australians and that seasonal workers will not be given the panoply of protections afforded to Australian workers. These concerns, coupled with Australia’s sorry history of ‘blackbirding’, encouraged successive governments to be circumspect about a modern-day guest worker scheme.

In August 2008 the Australian government changed course with the announcement of a pilot seasonal worker scheme. The change is the result of the alignment of a number of factors: an evolving foreign policy that has sought greater engagement with the Pacific (AusAID, 2005); an accumulation of reports that have endorsed a change of policy (Klapdor, 2008; McDonald and Withers, 2008); the perceived early success of the New Zealand RSE scheme; a softening of opposition from some labour unions (Klapdor, 2008); and requests from Pacific Island governments themselves, especially in Melanesia.

The proposal is to allow up to 2,500 seasonal workers into Australia over a three year period to work for up to seven months each year in the horticulture industry. The pilot scheme initially targets workers from four Pacific countries. To facilitate the scheme, Australia entered into memoranda of understanding with Vanuatu, Tonga and Kiribati in November 2008, and negotiations with Papua New Guinea are still in progress. The MOUs state that a key objective is ‘demonstrably boosting the development of Pacific island communities through new employment opportunities, increased remittance incomes, and options of upskilling of Pacific island seasonal workers’ (Australian Government, 2009). To date the scheme has made only a modest start, but this is an unsurprising consequence of establishing a new visa scheme with its concomitant regulatory arrangements. The first phase of the pilot was to recruit up to 100 seasonal workers, and so far 50 Tongans and six ni-Vanuatu have arrived in Australia to work in the fruit-growing areas around the New South Wales—Victorian border. The second phase is to recruit the remaining 2,400 workers. The scheme will be reviewed after 18 months and 30 months of operation.

Towards More Permeable Borders

Countries of the Pacific Rim should do more to facilitate the migration of Pacific peoples, bearing in mind their background circumstances of limited resources, rapidly growing populations, and threatened relocation due to anthropogenic climate change.

While access to channels of migration is not an unqualified good, it appears to accord with the wishes of many Pacific Islanders: it is sympathetic to their cultural history as voyaging peoples (Hau‘ofa, 1994); it meets the powerful incentive to grasp opportunities for wage employment in the advanced economies of neighbouring states (Connell and Brown, 2005); and it addresses the aspirations for modern lifestyles, which have grown with increasing exposure to Western media and culture (Ward, 1989; McMurray, 2004). A recent report of the United Nations Development Programme documents substantial evidence that human mobility is strongly linked to, and has the potential to significantly reduce, spatial and national differences in well-being. Conversely, restrictions on human movement appear to be strongly related to disparities in human development (UNDP 2009: 7). The gains from migration come not only in the form of higher incomes but in better health, education and empowerment, and are greatest for those who move from poorest to wealthiest countries. It is for these reasons that migration from Pacific Islands to the Pacific Rim can be a powerful tool for promoting human development in the Pacific region.

On what basis should developed states of the Pacific Rim accept the notion that responsibility for further migration is theirs, given the sizeable international community that now numbers more than 190 states? First, there are circumstances in which states owe obligations to correct injustices that arise from past or present wrongs. Colonial exploitation (phosphate mining, forced labour) and environmentally degrading practices (nuclear testing, excessive greenhouse gas emissions) are pertinent Pacific examples.

Second, obligations of humanity and distributive justice provide an ethical foundation for giving international development assistance to alleviate human suffering and poverty (Opeskin, 1996). The United States, New Zealand, Australia and France fall far short of meeting the United Nations target of giving 0.7% of annual national income in official foreign aid (their contributions in 2006 were 0.18%, 0.27%, 0.30% and 0.47% respectively) (OECD, 2007). Yet labour migration can provide an effective alternative means of assisting Pacific peoples to develop sustainable livelihoods. As Satish Chand has remarked, ‘for the smallest and remotest of the island communities, access to industrial-country labour markets is perhaps the only viable option’ to integrate more deeply with the global economy (2006: 129). The most significant gains from emigration come from the remittances that are sent by emigrants to their home country in the form of money or goods. Gross private transfer receipts have grown substantially in many Pacific countries in the past decade and often represent a substantial proportion of the national income of Pacific microstates—30-40% in some cases (Rallu, 1996; Connell and Brown, 2005). These financial flows contribute substantially to the welfare of the smallest and poorest states.

A third consideration underpinning the desirability of greater Pacific labour mobility is the self-interest of developed states. Demographic data support the view that migration has provided a safety valve for ‘social and economic discontents’ in some Pacific microstates (Ware, 2005: 451). This has reduced the potential for internal conflict in Polynesia, where persistent high rates of natural population increase would otherwise have resulted in a ‘youth bulge’, with few economic prospects, competing for limited resources. But the emigration safety valve has not been available uniformly across the Pacific. In Melanesia, where there are very limited rights of access to neighbouring developed states, political instability has been common, giving rise to the region’s soubriquet as the ‘arc of instability’ (Rumley et al, 2006). In a similar vein it has been suggested that it would be in Australia’s national interest to develop cooperative plans to deal with the environmental contingencies of climate change because of the future security threat posed by destabilising and unregulated population movements in Asia and the Pacific (Dupont and Pearman, 2006).

The arguments for more permeable borders do not affect all Pacific countries equally. The greatest priority should be to enhance labour mobility for countries facing a combination of ills that makes their circumstances especially challenging—degraded resources, high rates of natural population increase, low-lying geographies, and limited extant opportunities for international movement through shared citizenship or preferred visa status. By these criteria, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Nauru have a particular need for a migration safety value. Melanesian countries are also deserving of heightened opportunities: their resource limitations are less severe but they have large populations with very high rates of population growth and a near-complete absence of other migration channels.

Nor do the arguments for more permeable borders affect all Pacific Rim countries equally. The greatest obligations should fall on those countries that have contributed to historic injustices, and on those that currently do least to redistribute their resources to alleviate disadvantage in the region. Both New Zealand and the United States have been reasonably generous in granting citizenship or preferential visa status to countries within Polynesia and Micronesia, respectively. More can still be done to extend the geographical reach and material scope of their Pacific migration policies. New Zealand has commenced this process by including many Micronesian and Melanesian countries in its seasonal employment scheme. It is Australia that stands out as the Pacific neighbour with the greatest capacity to develop new migration streams that recognise Australia’s history as a colonising power, its self-interest in promoting regional security, and the special needs of some Pacific Island countries. The seasonal worker scheme announced in 2008 takes a small but valuable step along this path.

Finally, it would be naïve to suggest that all problems faced by Pacific countries can be addressed by opening the borders of neighbouring states to greater migration. Migration is one avenue for improving the position of Pacific Islanders, but other policies must be superadded. Policies should be formulated to ensure that greater benefits are derived from the limited resources available to island communities. This point has been made in relation to EEZ fisheries, where even the most fortunate Pacific countries have been hampered by serious shortfalls in fisheries management, making them vulnerable to corruption in the fisheries sector and unable to reap the full benefits of their ocean resources (Hanich et al, 2007; Hanich and Tsamenyi, 2009). The mineral resources of the deep sea bed provide another avenue for advancement, in partnership with developed states that possess the technologies needed to exploit this new resource. Population policies are required to address the high rates of natural increase common to many Pacific countries. There has been a reluctance to embrace such policies in the past because the right to bear large families has been considered an intrinsic part of Pacific cultures, and family planning has not found favour in these conservative Christian communities (McMurray, 2006). And small island states must also develop practical strategies to address problems of environmental degradation. Climate change is sometimes touted as the cause of any negative environmental incident, but explanations can often be found closer to home (Connell, 2003a). The adverse effects of human development should also be averted or remediated with appropriately tailored environmental polices.

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Table 1: Resources, population densities, and urbanisation of Pacific countries

Region/
State or territory
Land Area
(km2)
EEZ
(km2)
Ratio of Sea to Land
Population
2008 estimate
Density
(people/km2)
Urban population (%)
Principal natural resources
Melanesia
542,358
6,036,784
11
8,310,329
15


Fiji Islands
18,272
1,034,700
57
839,324
46
51
timber, fish, gold, copper, offshore oil potential, hydropower
New Caledonia
22,405
1,230,891
55
246,614
13
63
nickel, chrome, iron, cobalt, manganese, silver, gold, lead, copper
Papua New Guinea
462,243
1,695,200
4
6,473,910
14
13
gold, copper, silver, natural gas, timber, oil, fisheries
Solomon Islands
27,556
1,340,100
49
517,455
18
16
fish, forests, gold, bauxite, phosphates, lead, zinc, nickel
Vanuatu
11,882
735,893
62
233,026
19
21
manganese, hardwood forests, fish
Micronesia
3,036
9,857,719
3247
533,300
169


Fed. States Micronesia
700
2,915,400
4165
110,443
158
22
forests, marine products, deep-seabed minerals, phosphate
Guam
541
218,000
403
178,980
331
93
aquatic wildlife, fishing
Kiribati
690
3,181,158
4610
97,231
120
44
phosphate (discontinued 1979)
Marshall Islands
112
1,906,380
17021
53,236
294
68
coconut products, marine products, deep seabed minerals
Nauru
21
291,129
13863
10,163
484
100
phosphate, fish
Northern Marianas
478
752,922
1575
62,969
138
90
fish, arable land
Palau
494
592,730
1200
20,279
46
64
forests, gold, marine products, deep-seabed minerals
Polynesia
8,147
10,516,856
1291
655,266
82


American Samoa
197
426,405
2164
66,107
332
50
pumice, pumicite
Cook Islands
240
1,916,200
7984
15,537
66
72
‘negligible’
French Polynesia
3,521
5,030,000
1429
263,267
75
53
timber, fish, cobalt, hydropower
Niue
259
293,953
1135
1,549
6
36
fish, arable land
Pitcairn Islands
5
800,000
160000
66
15
miro trees, fish, offshore minerals
Samoa
2,935
100,290
34
179,645
61
21
hardwood forests, fish, hydropower
Tokelau
10
309,748
30975
1,170
98
0
‘negligible’
Tonga
699
640,050
916
102,724
158
23
fish, fertile soil
Tuvalu
26
700,210
26931
9,729
374
47
fish
Wallis and Futuna
255
300,000
1176
15,472
109
0
‘negligible’
TOTAL
553,541
26,411,359
48
9,498,895
17


Source: Central Intelligence Agency (2008); Secretariat of the Pacific Community (2008); Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Coastal Fisheries Programme (2008).

Table 2: Demographic characteristics of Pacific countries

Region/
Country or territory/
Year of last census
Population 2008 estimate
Total fertility rate (births per woman)
Crude birth rate (CBR) (/1000)
Life expectancy at birth–females (years)
Crude death rate (CDR) (/1000)
Crude rate of natural increase (CRNI) (/1000)
Implied doubling time (no migration) (years)
Crude rate of net migration (CRNM) (/1000)
Annual growth rate (%)
Population 2030 estimate
Melanesia
8,310,329

30.6

9.1
21.5
32.6
–0.9
2.1
12,628,947
Fiji Islands 2007
839,324
2.6
23.1
67.6
7.0
16.1
43.5
–10.1
0.6
1,020,989
New Caledonia 2004
246,614
2.2
17.3
78.6
5.4
11.9
58.8
4.6
1.7
320,412
Papua New Guinea 2000
6,473,910
4.6
31.8
54.8
9.8
22
31.8
0.0
2.2
10,042,911
Solomon Islands 1999
517,455
4.8
34.0
61.6
7.5
26.5
26.4
0.0
2.7
856,554
Vanuatu 1999
233,026
4.4
31.1
69.0
5.5
25.6
27.3
0.0
2.6
388,081
Micronesia
533,300

23.2

5.9
17.3
40.5
–4.2
1.3
672,891
Federated States of Micronesia 2000
110,443
4.0
25.5
68.0
5.5
20
35.0
–16.0
0.4
119,827
Guam 2000
178,980
2.7
19.5
76.1
5.4
14.1
49.6
13.7
2.8
241,569
Kiribati 2005
97,231
3.4
27.5
63.1
8.3
19.2
36.5
–1.0
1.8
138,267
Marshall Islands 1999
53,236
4.4
32.4
67.4
6.3
26.1
26.8
–16.0
1.0
67,421
Nauru 2006
10,163
4.0
32.2
58.2
9.0
23.2
30.2
0.0
2.3
15,164
Northern Mariana Islands 2000
62,969
1.6
17.3
77.1
2.8
14.5
48.3
–31.5
–1.7
68,006
Palau 2005
20,279
2.0
13.5
72.1
7.8
5.7
122.8
0.0
0.6
22,636
Polynesia
655,266

22.3

5.3
17
41.2
–9.2
0.8
770,917
American Samoa 2000
66,107
4.0
26.3
75.9
4.5
21.8
32.1
–5.4
1.6
91,320
Cook Islands 2006
15,537
2.8
19.0
74.3
7.1
11.9
58.8
–7.7
0.4
16,173
French Polynesia 2007
263,267
2.2
17.3
76.7
5.1
12.2
57.4
0.0
1.2
321,166
Niue 2006
1,549
2.6
15.6
76.0
9.2
6.4
109.4
–30.6
–2.4
1,077
Pitcairn Islands 2007
66
-
-


Samoa 2006
179,645
4.6
25.5
75.5
4.8
20.7
33.8
–19.8
0.1
196,425
Tokelau 2006
1,170
4.5
23.9
70.4
7.3
16.6
42.2
–16.7
0.0
1,230
Tonga 2006
102,724
4.2
28.5
73.0
6.8
21.7
32.3
–17.2
0.4
115,389
Tuvalu 2002
9,729
3.7
21.8
65.1
9.5
12.3
56.9
–9.4
0.3
10,659
Wallis and Futuna 2003
15,472
2.6
18.0
76.5
5.3
12.7
55.1
–6.0
0.7
17,478
TOTAL
9,498,895

29.6

8.7
20.9
33.5
–1.6
1.9
14,072,755

Source: Secretariat of the Pacific Community (2008).

Table 3: Political and constitutional features of Pacific countries

Region/
Country or territory
Colonising Powers & year
Former Legal Status
Former name
Self-Government
Current Legal status
UN membership
Special arrangements
Melanesia
Fiji Islands
UK (1874)
colony
Fiji

Independent
1970
1970

New Caledonia
France (1853)
Annexed by France
1998 ‘irreversible devolution’
French overseas collectivity
n.a.
1998 Noumea Accord with France
Papua New Guinea
Germany & UK (1884-85); Australia (1902-05)–1975
Colony; LN Mandate; UN trust territory
Papua and German New Guinea
1973
Independent
1975
1975

Solomon Islands
UK (1893)
Protectorate
British Solomon Islands Protectorate
1976
Independent
1978
1978

Vanuatu
UK and France (1888)
Joint Naval Commission; Anglo-French Condominium (1906)
New Hebrides
1975 representative assembly
Independent
1980
1981

Micronesia
Federated States of Micronesia
Spain (1885-99); Germany (1899-1914); Japan (1914-45); US (1947-86)
Colony; LN mandate; UN trust territory
Independent
1986
1991
Free association with US
Guam
Spain (1565); US (1899); Japanese occupation (1941-45); US (1950)
Colony; Japanese occupied territory; US territory
US territory
n.a.

Kiribati
UK (1892)
Protectorate; 1915 annexed by UK to form Gilbert &Ellice Islands Colony
Gilbert Islands
1971
Independent
1979
1999

Marshall Islands
Germany (1886-1914); Japan (1914-45); US (1945-86)
Protectorate, LN mandate, UN trust territory.

1979 (partial)
Independent
1986
1991
Free association with US
Nauru
German (1888- 1914); Australia, UK & NZ (1914-42); Japan (1942-45); Australia, UK, & NZ (1946-68)
Protectorate; LN mandate; Japanese occupied territory; UN Trust territory


Independent
1968
1999

Northern Mariana Islands
Spain (1565); Germany (1898-1914); Japan (1914-44); US (1944-86)
Colony; LN mandate; UN trust territory

1978 (partial) 1986
Commonwealth, within the US
n.a.
Political union with US
Palau
Spain (1886); German (1899-1914); Japan (1914-45); US (1945-95)
Annexed by Spain; sold to Germany; LN mandate; UN trust territory
Caroline Islands
1978
Independent
1994
1994
Free association with US
Polynesia
American Samoa
US (1900)
Administered by US Navy 1900-1951

US territory
n.a.

Cook Islands
UK (1888); NZ (1901)
UK protectorate; annexed by NZ
1965
Self governing state
no
Free association with NZ
French Polynesia
France (1843)
French protectorate over part.; reconstituted 1957
Tahiti
1984 (local autonomy)
French overseas collectivity

Niue
UK (1900); NZ (1901)
British protectorate, annexed by NZ as part of Cook Islands

1974
Self governing state
no
Free association with NZ
Pitcairn Islands
UK (1838)
Colony

UK territory
n.a.
Administered by UK from NZ
Samoa
Germany (1899); NZ (1914-62)
Annexed by Germany; LN mandate; UN Trust Territory
Western Samoa

Independent
1962
1976

Tokelau
UK (1889); NZ (1948)
Protectorate, included in Gilbert & Ellice Island colony; administered by NZ for UK; incorporated into NZ
Union Islands British Protectorate
NZ territory
n.a.
Referendum on free association failed in 2007
Tonga
UK (1900)
Protectorate
Friendly Islands

Independent
1970
1999

Tuvalu
UK (1892)
Gilbert & Ellice Island Protectorate, later colony; formed separate colony (1975)
Ellice islands

Independent
1978
2000

Wallis and Futuna
France (1887)
Protectorate; colony (1913); overseas territory (1961)
French overseas collectivity
n.a.

Abbreviations: LN: League of Nations; NZ: New Zealand; UK: United Kingdom; UN: United Nations; US: United States

Source: Central Intelligence Agency (2008); Chappell (1999); Corrin and Paterson (2007); Crocombe (2008); Secretariat of the Pacific Community (2008); Powles and Pulea (1988); United Nations (2008).

Table 4: Pacific populations resident at home and abroad

Pacific state or territory
(year of last census)
Island population resident at home
Island population resident abroad
Island population resident abroad as % of population at home
In New Zealand (2006)
Niue (2006)
1,625
22,476
1,383%
Tokelau (2006)
1,151
6,822
593%
Cook Islands (2006)
19,569
58,011
296%
Samoa (2006)
179,186
131,103
73%
Tonga (2006)
101,991
50,478
49%
Tuvalu (2002)
9,561
2,625
27%
Kiribati (2005)
92,533
1,116
1%
In United States (2000)
American Samoa (2000)
57,291
91,029
159%
Guam (2000)
154,805
58,240
38%
Northern Mariana Is (2000)
69,221
255
0%
Palau (2005)
19,907
2,228
11%
Marshall Islands (1999)
50,840
5,479
11%
Federated States of Micronesia (2000)
107,008
1,246
1%

Source: Secretariat of the Pacific Community (2008); Statistics New Zealand (2008); US Census Bureau (2001).

Figure 2: Land area, population and density in the Pacific, by country, 2008.

[NOTE: THE FIGURE BELOW IS NOT COMPLETE AND IS INCLUDED HERE FOR EASE OF REFERECNE ONLY. PLEASE REFER TO EXEL FILE FOR COMPLETE GRAPHIC.]

2009_600.jpg

Source: Derived from Secretariat of the Pacific Community (2008).

Figure 2: Annual percentage natural increase and net migration, 2008.

2009_601.jpg

Source: Secretariat of the Pacific Community (2008).


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