Politics
Anote Tong, Kiribati President (second from right)...science is telling us that it is just a matter of time.Photo: Lisa
Williams-Lahari
De-population or over-population? But PNG growing population threat to region By Davendra Sharma While climate change fears and migration are causing grave concerns of de-population in parts of Polynesia and Micronesia, another part of the region is being cautioned about overpopulation. An unprecedented growth of 1.8 million in Papua New Guinea’s population over the last decade is alarming regional environment analysts because of imminent dangers of over-exploitation of fisheries and forestry resources in the predominantly mountainous country. A jump of 36% from the count 10 years ago, PNG now boasts a population of 7,059,653— higher than that of New Zealand or any other islands country with Fiji being the closest at 840,000. Influential Australian scientific group, CSIRO, said in a report in October that PNG’s growing population is “more of an immediate threat to the region’s sustainability than climate change”. Incoming governments will be faced with extreme pressure on its basic infrastructure like water and electricity as well as social services like healthcare and police. “But the problem is if you increase population pressure on top of that (natural disasters like tsunamis, cyclones, droughts and floods), it makes basic services like electricity and water and so-on, much harder to provide,” said James Butler, head of CSIRO’s environment and development team. He said as PNG was hugely dependent on foreign aid from Australia, which is its largest donor with A$500 million in handouts this year, the continuous population growth will increase demand on Canberra to increase its aid. Butler noted that both PNG and Australia need to prioritise aid expenditure with greater thought 38 Islands Business, November 2012
about population growth. The two governments agreed on a “zero tolerance” approach to impropriety in October as the new O’Neill government launched its anti-corruption policy. “Any fraud against development funding is in effect taking money from the least privileged members of Papua New Guinea’s society,” said AusAID’s Director General Peter Baxter. 10-20 years to arrest population growth In his research report, Butler said PNG’s phenomenal population jump would need to be addressed and restricted over the next 10-20 years before the region’s most populous nation loses control of its economic growth. This report follows another warning from another donor, Asian Development Bank (ADB), which warned that PNG had one of the lowest per capita incomes in the island region” despite such a large mining and resource sector. The ADB report in August said PNG had a lower per capita income than that of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga and that Port Moresby needed to become more aggressive in its tax approach to balance economic growth with population. Climate change and declining natural resources coupled with population growth will impose undue pressure on governments of the future when they grapple with matching high population with economic growth. “There’s no question over the centuries that people in Oceania have coped with all sorts of tsunamis and volcanoes and earthquakes and so-on and are actually very adaptable in some ways,” Butler noted. While PNG had a wide-ranging terrain in its vast land mass, such continuous population growth will soon have a bearing on resources. “The approach we’re trying to introduce is a
much more fine-grained analysis of the places that are most vulnerable. “In West New Britain...we’re discovering that there are one or two places which are extremely vulnerable and in general these tend to be the highly populated coastal regions or small islands just offshore. “These places need to have very specific strategies designed for them based on those very specific impacts that we’re projecting.” Butler said while population cannot be expected to grow evenly over all the regions in any country, PNG was unique in that regard. It is generally accepted that population expands faster in areas where there is an economic boom, thus creating urban sprawl in poorer countries. “The general prognosis is that population will continue to grow quite rapidly,” Butler told media. The CSIRO report gives impetus to an earlier Australian study on PNG’s urbanisation which revealed that the unprecedented growth in population is driving rural-urban migration. PNG urban numbers to hit 3.5 million? The findings by PNG National Research Institute (NRI) shows that PNG’s current 804,000 urban population will hit 3.5 million by 2030 if infrastructure and job opportunities are not spread out to the rural region of the country. The NRI findings point to how soon PNG would have to combat urban poverty as access to employment, education, health, housing, sanitation and other basic services like water and electricity becomes difficult. The paper’s author Donovan Storey of the University of Queensland reflected on a need to pool together policy makers, donors and researchers to help curb rapid population growth. Storey argued that if overall population growth was not curtailed in PNG, the resulting problem of rural-urban population shift would continue to haunt future governments. He said towns and cities will become “unlivable and ungovernable”. “Almost all employment creation is in the informal sector, for which there has been only limited policy support and these urban characteristics of informality are no exceptions, but the norm of cities and towns for the foreseeable future also show that,” Storey noted in his detailed analysis. A country’s greatest concern is keeping its economic growth and available resources in line with its population numbers. For PNG, economic growth is incredibly high due to increased mining and forestry boom in recent years. But the country’s per capita income is among the lowest in the region due to the high population. “The primary issue not just for PNG but for all in the Oceania region is the level of adaptable capacity,” said Butler. Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands have shown modest growths in population in recent years and as such their economic development should be considered sustainable. While PNG has to come to terms with rapid rise in population, the Cook Islands, Kiribati and Samoa are faced with de-population because of low fertility and migration to Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Last month government officials in the Cook Islands, host to the 43rd heads of government meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum meeting