The children of Melanesia.

The article presents several heart-warming stories of the children of Melanesia. It tells the story of Mosmeli whose mother died before she turned eight and spent most of her time with a church member who brought her to Sunday school where she met Miss Kalolaen, her teacher who learned to look beyond the physical appearance of a person after that Mother's Day incident. It provides an overview of the story of two girls who helped an old man find his way home

Solidarity statement by academics attending MMFF

Delegates to the Melanesia Media Freedom Forum express their solidarity with media workers in Melanesia in their struggle for freedom of expression, security, and professional recognition. Delegates note the words of Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum Dame Meg Taylor who told the Asia Lecture at Griffith University, Brisbane, on 11 November 2019:  ‘We live in unprecedented times of change which will test our abilities to respond.

The Emergent Middle Classes in Timor-Leste and Melanesia: Conceptual Issues and Developmental Significance

The emergence of a middle class has been identified as an important factor driving economic and political transitions in Asia and Africa. Class has been 'happening' in the broader Pacific region1 for some time, as Gewertz and Errington (1999:2) observed of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Nevertheless, to date, little systematic policy attention has been given to questions of class. We believe that the concept of an emerging middle class provides a useful entry point for understanding significant developmental and political transformations in Timor-Leste and Melanesia and is important for informing development policies. However, in order to explore the potential consequences that an emergent middle class may have, it is necessary to first consider how such a class can be identified in the region. We have chosen to focus on Timor-Leste, PNG and Solomon Islands because these countries are undergoing comparable social and economic transitions, many of which correlate strongly with the emergence of a middle class. Such changes include rapid economic growth driven by resource booms in Timor-Leste and PNG, associated formalisation of regional economies, deepening urbanisation, increasing social integration with metropolitan powers through growing diaspora communities, changing consumption patterns, and the transformative impacts of social media following recent internet and mobile telephone penetration. This paper has three substantive sections. First, it considers contemporary discussions of class and development in Asia and other developing regions. Second, the paper develops a multidimensional framework for identifying an emergent middle class, drawing on a range of economic, political and social criteria. Finally, the paper uses these criteria to examine recent developments in each of three case study countries and then draws some conclusions on the developmental and political significance of an emergent middle class in the broader Pacific region with a view to establishing a longer term research agenda.AusAI

International migration in a sea of islands: Challenges and opportunities for insular Pacific spaces

Our contribution to the International Conference “Connecting Worlds: Emigration, Immigration and Development in Insular Spaces”, held in the Azores between 28 and 30 May 2008, examines contemporary mobility of Pacific peoples in a transnational context with reference to processes of out-migration, return, re-migration and the complex systems of circular mobility between island countries as well as to and from countries on the Pacific rim. There are some significant differences between parts of the Pacific region in terms of the access their peoples have to work and residence opportunities outside their island countries. These are reviewed with reference to some major challenges for development in the region: rapid growth of youthful populations; high levels of unemployment; limited markets for local produce; unsustainable levels of extraction of timber, fish and mineral resources; changing climates; and unstable governance systems in some countries

The Melanesian Media Declaration

We, the participants at the Melanesian Media Freedom representing media from Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and West Papua, wish to express concern about growing threats to media freedom in our region and call on members of our industry and other organisations and individuals to take action to help secure the future of the Fourth Estate as a vital pillar of democracy

On the bryogeography of Western Melanesian Lejeuneaceae : with comments on their epiphyllous occurrence

The phytogeography of Western Melanesian (Papua New Guinea, West Irian and the Solomon Islands) Lejeuneaceae was studied on the basis of previous literature and the Huon Peninsula material from the Koponen-Norris expedition. The largest portion of the Lejeuneaceae belong to Western Melanesian and Malaysian endemics. The number of Western Melanesian endemic Lejeuneaceae (20.5 %) is, however, somewhat lower than generally in hepatics (38.2 %). This is apparently due to the large number of epiphyllous taxa in the Lejeuneaceae, a group especially widespread in lowland rainforests

The Formal, the Informal, and the Precarious: Making a Living in Urban Papua New Guinea

For many Papua New Guineans, the dominant accounts of 'the economy' � contained within development reports, government documents and the media � do not adequately reflect their experiences of making a living. Large-scale resource extraction, the private sector, export cash cropping and wage employment have dominated these accounts. Meanwhile, the broader economic picture has remained obscured, and the diversity of economic practices, including a flourishing 'informal' economy, has routinely been overlooked and undervalued. Addressing this gap, this paper provides some grounded examples of the diverse livelihood strategies people employ in Papua New Guinea's growing urban centres. We examine the strategies people employ to sustain themselves materially, and focus on how people acquire and recirculate money. We reveal the interconnections between a diverse range of economic activities, both formal and informal. In doing so, we complicate any clear narrative that might, for example, associate waged employment with economic security, or street selling with precarity and urban poverty. Our work is informed by observations of people's daily lives, and conversations with security guards (Stephanie Lusby), the salaried middle class (John Cox), women entrepreneurs (Ceridwen Spark), residents from the urban settlements (Michelle Rooney) and betel nut traders and vendors (Timothy Sharp). Collectively, our work takes an urban focus, yet the flows and connectivity between urban and rural, and our focus on livelihood strategies, means much of our discussion is also relevant to rural people and places. Our examples, drawn from urban centres throughout the country, each in their own way illustrate something of the diversity of economic activity in urban PNG. Our material captures the innovation and experimentation of people's responses to precarity in contemporary PNG.AusAI

Bryophyte flora of Western Melanesia

A project dealing with the hepatic and moss floras of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands has proceeded more than halfway. The revision of the flora is based on the study of ca 17000 specimens collected in 1981. Two new genera and ca 50 new species have been described in 33 published papers and seven manuscripts. Many families, genera and species not previously recorded for the area have been added to the flora. More than 300 names have been reduced to synonyms. The percentage of endemic species of liverworts (40 %) is higher than that of mosses (18 %). Most of the endemic species occur at elevations above 1700 m. The geological history of New Guinea suggests that these high altitude endemics may be relatively young, i.e. less than 10 million years old. The moss flora is more closely related to the floras of Indonesia and the Philippines and continental Asia than to that of Australia. This can be explained by plate tectonics. The altitudinal distribution of hepatic and moss floras partly coincides with the zonation of vegetation proposed earlier. Human influence on bryophyte floras is devastating but a part of the flora may survive in gardens and plantations

Understanding Judicial Independence in Vanuatu

This paper is intended to fill a gap in the literature concerning the Vanuatu judiciary, as this topic is rarely addressed other than in reports by international non-government organisations, such as Transparency International and its local chapter, Transparency International (Vanuatu), or bilateral donors and multilateral organisations engaged in law and justice work (which is often unpublished). The paper also identifies potential sources of influence that threaten judicial independence, and reflects upon what insights Vanuatu's experiences may provide into the influence of informal networks on judicial independence more broadly. The paper also raises a number of unanswered questions relating to broader questions about the sources of respect for the judiciary in Vanuatu and the role of culture in relation to this respect.AusAI

Tjibaou's Kanak: Ethnic Identity as New Caledonia Prepares its Future

On 11 May 2014, New Caledonia elected its fourth, and final, local Congress under the historic 1998 Noumea Accord. There was no Australian media coverage of that election, nor of a violent protest at the end of May just out of Noumea, when Kanak protesters shot and injured two French gendarmes. Indeed, few Australians are aware that our closest neighbour just two hours flying time off the east coast of Queensland is France, in its Pacific possession, New Caledonia. One reason for this is that the French, along with the local pro-France and pro-independence groups who were engaged in a bloody civil war only 25 years ago, successfully negotiated a series of agreements ending the violence of the 1980s and postponing a sensitive self-determination vote in return for a promised schedule of handovers of responsibilities by 2014. These agreements, the 1988 Matignon/Oudinot Accords and the 1998 Noumea Accord, have so far presided over a long period of peace and prosperity, keeping the French collectivity out of the regional and Australian newspapers.AusAI