Abstract:
Oceania, the majestic “liquid continent,” covers about one‐third of the earth’s surface, yet it is inhabited by roughly only 10.6 million people – of which approximately 7 million alone inhabit Papua New Guinea (SPC 2013). this number may seem insignificant to some, yet Oceania boasts hundreds of different language and cultural groups (Lal and Fortune 2000: 53, 54), each unique to their Pacific island environment. thus this cosmopolitan region contributes greatly, although largely unacknowledged due to its “small size” (in terms of landmass), to the world’s natural and human diversity. to the north of the Pacific Ocean there is Micronesia (comprised of the Mariana Islands, Guam, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Marshall Islands, and Palau). to the south and east lies Polynesia (comprised of the hawaiian Islands, Samoa, american Samoa, tonga, tuvalu, tokelau, Wallis and Futuna, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Niue, easter Island, Pitcairn, Norfolk, and New Zealand). to the west is Melanesia (comprised of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji: see Figure 44.1). Within these broad ethnographic regions lie thousands of scattered islands, some of continental, but most of oceanic origins engulfed by what is known as a seismically active region – the “Pacific ring of fire
