Australasia

Australasia, which lies in the Pacific Ocean, is surrounded by the Indian Ocean to the west and the Southern Ocean to its south. Australasia is made up of about thirty-eight countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and island countries such as the Fiji Islands, the Christmas Islands, Kiribati, and the Federated States of Micronesia, among others. Some experts also include Asian countries such as Indonesia and East Timor as a part of Australasia. However, as its name suggests—a combination of Australia and Asia—it encompasses, on the one hand, the continent of Australia and its Pacific neighbors (such as New Zealand, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea) and, on the other hand, parts of Southeast Asia.

With only about 0.5 percent of the total world population, or about thirty-five million people, the geographic region known as Australasia has one of the smallest populations on the planet. But given a wide range of climates—from warm equatorial to milder and temperate climates—the region is rich in biodiversity. It has tropical rain forests, deserts, and grasslands such as savannahs. About 10 percent of the world’s flora and fauna is exclusive to this region. The economies of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and other Pacific islands depend heavily on their natural resources, such as minerals, forests, and plantations. But this wealth in natural resources does not translate into economic wealth for the people of the region. Poor infrastructure and poorly developed industries leave many inhabitants of the area struggling at subsistence levels.

The culture of the region—its cuisine, arts, and passion for sports—reflects the merging and dilution of the individual cultures that influenced it over time: the British and European powers that ruled the area during the era of colonial expansion, the indigenous people who lived here originally, and the wave of immigrants who were drawn to the region to take advantage of its natural resources. Despite the impact of this history, some indigenous communities continue the fight to preserve their ancestral way of life. For example, about 6.5 million indigenous people inhabiting the Pacific islands have retained many cultural traditions and ancestral practices. Papua New Guinea boasts about one-third of the world’s languages, including 780 distinct dialects. Even in New Zealand, the majority of the Maori people, who are the original settlers in the region, have fought hard to protect their cultures from the influence of Europe. Both New Zealand and Australia claim English as their main language, while giving an official status to the languages of the indigenous communities.

Historical Perspective

The shared history of Australasian countries, such as Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand, among others, begins in the early nineteenth century, when these countries became part of the British Empire. In 1770, Captain James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia as a part of Great Britain, and by 1829, all of Australia had become British territory. In 1901, six colonies created under British rule were renamed the Commonwealth of Australia. But migrants from Southeast Asia had trickled into Australia about forty thousand years before the British occupation. The cession of New Zealand to Britain was much bloodier. The Maoris settled in New Zealand around 800 CE. Even as the Maori tribal chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, in which they relinquished sovereignty to the queen of England, they retained land rights. The indigenous people fought several wars between 1843 and 1872 to retain those land rights, but they were defeated at the hands of the colonizers. Another Australasian country—the Solomon Islands—also became a British colony in the 1890s, and during World War II, the Japanese and United States turned these islands into a bloody battleground as the two nations fought for mastery of the Pacific.

Geography and Climate

Australasia had been a part of a single land mass called Gondwana until it began fragmenting into groups of islands beginning about two hundred million years ago. Today, this region extends from Southeast Asia in the west to the Pacific islands to the east. Australia and Southeast Asia also display unique identities due to their distinct flora and fauna, which are separated by the Wallace Line. It was British botanist Alfred Russel Wallace who gave this imaginary line its name after he noticed the distinct ecozones of the two regions.

The climate of the countries in the region vary widely from temperate and tropical in Australia to milder in New Zealand; a warm tropical climate prevails in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific Islands located between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Australia, the largest country in the region, experiences a range of climates, which gives it biogeographic variety. Southern Australia has a Mediterranean climate that is characterized by warm, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Australia’s interior is desert, and it is home to very few humans. These deserts are surrounded by temperate grasslands known as savannah.

Australia’s Western Plateau is mainly covered with deserts and large plains. The Central Plains cover an area of 676,250 square miles. The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest reef system, covers an area of about 133,000 square miles.

The north and south islands of New Zealand are mountainous. The volcanic peaks on North Island are still active and create natural hot springs and geysers. The Southern Alps that run along the length of South Island are home to glaciers and Mt. Cook, which tops out at about 3,764 meters.

Economy

Australasian countries such as Australia and New Zealand have mixed economies, with a heavy dependence on trade—in particular, a trade in minerals, agricultural products, and other natural resources. Australia is a leading producer and exporter of coal, iron, copper, uranium, gold, and natural gas. Although many of the countries in the region boast a relatively high gross national income (GNI), the UN Committee for Development deemed Papua New Guinea to be one of the least-developed countries in 2005 because of poor infrastructure and a stagnating economy. In addition, crime is a serious problem here because of the government’s poor law-and-order record, so many companies are reluctant to do business in the country.

The large swathe of rain forests in the region has made forestry and forestry products an important industry. Tree plantation projects across the country—mostly Monterey pine and eucalyptus—have increased the yields of timber. Similarly, in Papua New Guinea, the forest industry serves as the backbone of the economy, although the industry is not a fully developed one. Under its forest ownership program, 95 percent of the forestland is owned by tribal communities in Papua New Guinea. The Solomon Islands have a thriving commercial forest industry, with 70 percent of the islands’ exports coming from forest products.

Yet another critical industry, the fishing industry, benefits from the tropical climate that supports rich marine life in the region. Australia sells pearls and about six hundred varieties of freshwater and seafood species, such as rock lobsters, abalone, and prawns. These seafood and fish-related exports bring in $1.3 billion of revenue. New Zealand exports about 90 percent of its seafood production. Because they constitute a majority, the Maoris can claim about 50 percent of the fishing income This industry, however, is not commercially viable in the rest of the Pacific islands due to poor infrastructure.

Australia, which for all intents and purposes has a services and tourism economy, is also an important exporter of natural resources, energy, and food. The country is rich in reserves of coal, iron, copper, gold, natural gas, and uranium. Given the temperate climate, which supports sheep rearing and cattle grazing, Australia and New Zealand are the world’s largest wool exporters. The two countries are also the world’s leading wine producers. Papua New Guinea is a major producer of cash crops such as sweet potatoes, sugar cane, coconut, coffee, cocoa, and rubber. But subsistence farming constitutes about 85 percent of the region’s agricultural output. The Pacific island countries mainly grow crops such as banana, sugarcane, coconut, and a root vegetable called kava. Some of the major exports from the region are vanilla and squash from Tonga Island; taros, a root and stem vegetable from Samoa; and sugar products from the Fiji Islands.

Demographics

The people of Australasia share virtually no common demographic characteristics due to the wide gaps in the region’s population indicators, such as literacy, life expectancy, and urbanization. Australasia can claim only about 0.5 percent of the world population; only the Antarctic continent has a smaller population. About thirty-five million people inhabit the region, with Australia accounting for about twenty-four million of that total. Australia and New Zealand also have a very young population, with about 40 to 42 percent of the total population within the 25 to 54 age group. In contrast to the other island countries in the region, they are also highly urbanized countries, with about 86 to 90 percent of the population living in cities. But the picture is quite different in countries such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands; in these nations, only 13 to 22 percent of the population is living in the urban areas. The variation in the quality of health services available in these countries also means that the life expectancy varies across the region. It ranges from 65.5 years in Papua New Guinea to 80.6 years in Australia. The literacy rate in Australia and New Zealand is quite high: about 99 percent. In Papua New Guinea, on the other hand, it is a low 57.3 percent. Whereas English is widely spoken in the region and is the main language in New Zealand and Australia, all of the region’s countries also try to preserve and encourage indigenous languages such as Maori, Pidgin, Melanesian, Bahasa, Samoan, and French, among other languages. New Zealand also has sign language as one of its official languages. In terms of religious beliefs, given the influence of British colonization, Catholicism, Anglicanism, and other Christian faiths dominate in this region. Communities also practice Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism in small numbers. The countries in these regions are also rich in indigenous traditions and faiths.

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