Monthly Archives: November 2022

Biodiversity and Ethnolinguistic Attrition in Papua New Guinea

Written by Bianca Curtin

Papua New Guinea is at present the most linguistically diverse nation worldwide, boasting about 840 living languages that belong to at least 33 family classifications. However, this astounding diversity is currently under threat, with over 32% of the lands’ indigenous dialects declared to be endangered. Whereas previously multilingualism thrived in the region’s lack of an official dialect, now the nation has instituted a dominant lingua franca, the English-based creole Tok Pisin, and established English as its formal education language, thereby contributing to the rapid deterioration of such diversity. A research project published in 2021 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in the United States (PNAS) found that only 57.7% of surveyed secondary-school students were fluent in an indigenous dialect, compared to 90.8% of students’ parents. Conductors of the study suggest that this language attrition is the “result of economic and social development of a country undergoing globalization,” most notably affected by rising rates of urbanization as well as population growth.

(Pictured: PNAS survey data on PNG language and ethno-biological knowledge decline)

Papua New Guinea is also highly diverse in terms of biodiversity, estimated to have upwards of 200,000 species of fauna and flora, about half of which still are yet to be named. Forest estate occupies about 71% of the nation’s total land area, including the world’s third largest tropical rainforest, preceded only by the Amazon and the Congo Basin. Yet, studies show that, at present, approximately 15% of PNGs rainforest estate is degraded, being lost at an annual rate of 1.4%. The Wildlife Conservation Society Newsroom reports that in the past three decades, a quarter of the nation’s rainforests have been destroyed. This inevitably has led to an alarming decline in terms of regional biodiversity, further threatened by lack of regulation, industrialization and infrastructural projects, as well as pollution. The industry sector is especially prominent in this respect, developing with increasing acceleration to accommodate mining, oil, forestry, and fishery activity, as well as production of prominent resources, namely timber and palm oil. Construction of an enormous new road system, the Trans-Papua Highway, is predicted to contribute to this acceleration.

(Pictured: construction of the PNGs new Trans-Papua Highway)

Papua New Guinea’s diverse geographic landscapes, especially its mountainous terrain, have provided the region with the ideal conditions for its linguistic breadth and species-richness. The region’s native populations have developed immense bio-cultural knowledge systems, having learned to use resources from local ecosystems overtime. However, this too is under threat. A mere one-in-five Papuan ethnolinguistic groups have any documentation of their bio-cultural knowledge, only 2.5% of whom maintain detailed records on such practices. It seems that in order to preserve the immense diversity of Papua New Guinea, environmental and ethnolinguistic conservation efforts must act in tandem to combat the negative impacts of urbanization and heightened industrial activity.

Genocide is a form of massacre to a grand number of people for political, economic, or social beliefs. When discussing the history of genocide in the world, you can see that whenever there has been a genocide that has taken place, the rules of war have been violated. One example is the Holocaust during World War 2 when the Axis powers and the Allies were fighting each other. Not only was Germany killing actual military soldiers, but they were killing actual civilians that were not trying to interfere with the war, and that went against the Geneva convention which says that you can’t kill civilians that are in areas of conflict. This is just one of the many occurrences that have shown that there is a lack of control of the rules of war during a conflict. Not only does this show that war can be an unfair battle between parties and their people, but it also supports claims that conflict and disagreements should be dealt with by other means. One way or another, mass killings of a people should be banned and if the event of a genocide happens, the oppressors should be handed firm consequences for the harm they caused to the people and the environment around the incident.

Ethnocentrism in Guam
By Brandon Dawson

Ethnocentrism is viewing people’s actions or beliefs through one’s own cultural lens instead of using the other people’s culture as a frame of reference. Guam’s treatment has been greatly influenced by ethnocentrism, especially in the early 20th century. In the early 1900s, a series of Supreme Court cases known as the “Insular Cases”, in which the court held that the rights given to American citizens in the Constitution applied only to people in what the court called “incorporated territories”. People in other territories, called “unincorporated”, were given less rights. The Court ruled that American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands were all unincorporated territories. These territories were deemed unincorporated in Downes v. Bidwell due in part to the fact that they were inhabited by “alien races” for whom the “administration of government and justice according to Anglo-Saxon principles may for a time be impossible.” This treatment continues to this day, over 100 years later. Residents of unincorporated territories don’t have the same rights as those living in one of the 50 states. Those in American Samoa aren’t even granted American citizenship. People living in unincorporated territories can’t vote in general elections, don’t have a voting representative in congress, and are barred from some federal social programs, such as SSI and certain Medicare subsidies. As recently as April of 2022, the Supreme Court affirmed in United States v. Vaello-Madero that the 5th amendment’s due process clause and the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause do not ensure that residents of unincorporated territories can be eligible for federal aid. Residents of Guam, as well as all other unincorporated territories of the United States are still treated worse than their counterparts on the mainland due to their cultural values and practices being viewed through the ethnocentric lens of early 19th century American imperialists following the Spanish-American war.

Currently in the Solomon Islands, Australia is financially aiding them to make an attempt to prevent climate change from damaging themselves and the world. Though the Solomon Islands have been facing some challenges with COVID-19 and concerns with the United States and Australia, due to the security pact made with some pacific islands and China, this issue is major because the Solomon Islands are losing land rapidly. Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that Australia is raising the total budget for development overseas by almost 900 million US dollars, and almost 600 million of that budget is going to the Pacific areas. Wong stated, “this additional assistance will directly support action in the region to strengthen climate resilience, including on climate science and renewable energy.” Her actions in attempt to stop climate change isn’t just for the Solomon Islands. Her motives in this is to also to make “major step towards the goal of making Australia stronger and more influential in the world.” These major actions that the Foreign Minister is making is a crucial step in positively changing the world because the threat of climate change is so severe, it can reshape the world completely if not delt with through direct action.

Al Jazeera. “Australia promises millions in climate, security aid for Pacific.” Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/21/australia-promises-millions-in-security-aid-for-solomon-islands