Centre for Resource and Environmental studies : Ecological economics program : working papers in ecological economics

Abstract

The South Pacific region is defined as that served by the South Pacific Commission, containing 22 island states separated by vast ocean expanses. The largest country in population and land area is Papua New Guinea (462,243 km2 and 3.6m) and the smallest Tokelau (10 km2 and 0.0016m). While the Pacific island countries are disparate in natural resource and environmental endowments and in population density, culture and ranking in the human development index (UNDP, 1996), they commonly face problems of natural resource and environmental depletion (Thistlethwaite and Davis, 1996) and urbanisation (Connell and Lea, 1993; Connell and Lea, 1995). While major industrial centres and the problems associated with them are absent, growing populations are gaining access to urban housing, piped water and sewage and at the same time to a wide range of consumer goods and foodstuffs. The environmental problems associated with demands on resources and on the assimilative capacities of fragile environments have been well documented.