ANGLONESIA

Anglonesia is a neologism used here to refer to Australia, New Zealand and the United States in the Pacific (ANZUS). The progress from colonialism to independence in the Pacific Islands region (both north and south of the equator) has not brought an end to the influence of the former colonial powers. Presently, there are ten territories or dependencies linked directly to an extraregional government, and five others are constrained in their foreign policies by the terms of their free associaton compacts. Like these territories, the independent states are also affected by the political, security and economic policies of the extraregional powers. There continues to be an overlap of interests between outsiders and islanders, which is likely to persist even as more island stated begin to exert their influence more and more within the region as well as globally.

MELANESIA

As diverse internally as they are different from each other, the islands of Melanesia - those in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji - defy convenient generalizations. Their traditional societies were fragmented into over 900 small linguistic groups that had their own forms of social and political organizations, little contact with each other, and no ambitions to develop national organizations. Only after the coming of the Europeans did these small social groups begin to merge into larger identities. This process was most rapid in Fiji, where traditional groups were more homogeneous than those in other islands. History presented both Fiji and New Caledonia with a new source of social division; immigrant Indians in the former and French settlers in the latter soon became numerically, as well as politically and economically, important. Elsewhere, the foreigners remained tiny minorities, in contrast to the indigenous Melanesians.

The physical differences between the islands are obvious; Papua New Guinea dwarfs the rest, having six times the population and 25 times the land area of Fiji, the next largest area in Melanesia. And yet, all of the Melanesian territories are large by Pacific standards, a fact that contributes to their importance in regional and international forums. Their economies also differ in scale. In the early 1980s the per capita gross domesitic product of New Caledonia was 14 times that of the poorest country, Vanuatu, some 12 times that of the Solomon Islands, about nine time that of Papua New Guinea, and four times that of Fiji. The predominantly agrarian Melanesian sectors of each of these economies, however, resemble each other, and many Melanesian households live in ways fundamentally unchanged from those of their ancestors. Politically, New Caledonia is the exception; although the other Melanesian states have achieved independence, it remains a French territory. The other Melanesian states gave rhetorical support to the movement of its indigenous inhabitants to become the last Melanesians to obtain nationhood.

MICRONESIA

Micronesia, or "Little Islands," refers to a myriad of coral atolls and volcanic islands scattered across the immense expanse of the western Pacific. Its main archipelagic units are the Caroline Islands composing most of the Federated States of Micronesia as well as Palau (or, Republic of Belau); the Glibert Islands (Kiribati); the Mariana Islands, including Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); the Marshall Islands (Republic of); and the single island of Nauru (Republic of). Although stretched across an area larger than the continental United States, the more than 2,000 islands of Micronesia have a combined land area of a mere 3,100 square kilometers - roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island. Fewer than 100 of these poorly endowed, economically underdeveloped islands are inhabited. A mid-1994 estimate of the population was about 392,000.

Diversity is a distinctive feature of the area - hence very few generalizations are valid for all of the indigenous societies. Major ethnolinguistic groupings include the Chamorros, Gilbertese, Kosraeans, Marshallese, Nauruans, Palauans, Polynesians, Pohnpeians, Chuukese, and Yapese. The Chamorros are native to Guam and the Northern Marianas, Gilbertese to Kiribati, and Polynesians to the outer atolls of Pohnpei. Other groupings derive ther names from their respective island designations.

Politically, Micronesia is complex, but all of its constitutional entities maintain governmental systems that are traceable to the Western democracies. Kiribati and Nauru are fully independent nations. Guam is an integral territory of the United States while the CNMI is a commonwealth of the United States. The rest of Micronesia entered into a relationship of Free Association with the United States following termination of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The U.S. remains responsible for their external defense and provides some financial assistance in return for certain strategic compensation.

POLYNESIA

The region known as Polynesia (from the Greek, meaning "many islands") is vast in terms of sea area, covering approximately 39 million square kilometers - excluding New Zealand and Hawaii, territories originally settled by Polynesians but containing predominantly non-Polynesian populations. In contrast, the total land area of the region is only about 8,260 square kilometers, the largest island being Tahiti at 1,042 square kilometers. The total population of the region in the early 1990s was approximately 511,000. Only French Polynesia and Western Samoa have populations of over 100,000, and tiny Pitcairn Island's population was only 100 in 1987 (latest data available). Scarcity of arable land - in fact, any land at all - and the stagnation of subsistence economies in which copra represented the only significant export stimulated large-scale out-migration to other regions of the Pacific, including Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, and the United States. Tourism, fishing, and the exploitation of the resources of the ocean floor, however, present potential sources of future economic growth.

Polynesia contains an impressive diversity of political entities. Tonga is an independent kingdom that was under British protection between 1901 and 1970. Western Samoa and Tuvalu are states that gained their independence in 1962 and 1978, respectively. The Cook Islands and Niue are self-governing in free association with New Zealand, which assumes responsibility for their defense. Tokelau is a territory of New Zealand administered by that nation from Apia, Western Samoa. French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna are two overseas territories of France. Pitcairn Island is a British colony and American Samoa is an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States, and Easter Island (Rapanui) is a province of Chile.

- - all pau!   (Last modified: 05 August 1996)