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The Pacific Ocean is the world's largest body of water. It encompasses a third of the Earth's surface, having an area of 179.7 million km² (69.4 million sq mi). Extending approximately 15,500 km (9,600 mi) from the Bering Sea in the Arctic to the icy margins of Antarctica's Ross Sea in the south, the Pacific reaches its greatest east-west width at about 5 deg N latitude, where it stretches approximately 19,800 km (12,300 mi) from Indonesia to the coast of Colombia. The western limit of the ocean is often placed at the Strait of Malacca. The lowest point on the earth surface—the Marianas Trench—lies within the Pacific ...it's political epicentre is Norfolk Island. |
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OCPN |
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This section of the NISDV site, will be devoted to promoting the NISDV vision of securing Norfolk's future within an 'Oceanic Confederation of Polynesian Nations' (OCPN) - modelled, to some extent, on the best features of the European Union; & coordinated by New Zealand, but with it's Secretariat headquartered on Norfolk.
The NISDV believes that only by taking a highly structured, multilateral approach, to managing the security & natural resources of polynesian-oceania; will the region be well prepared to meet the multi-dimensional security challenges of the 21stC. & beyond.
The NISDV envisages that, in addition to all of the polynesian island nations which accede to the OCPN; France, Britain, Germany, Australia & Chile, would also be invited to Associate Membership.
Australia would continue to 'administer' Norfolk Island on behalf of Britain & under the auspices of the OCPN; however ultimate sovereign possession (as a British Crown Dependancy) of the Island, would remain with the United Kingdom.
The NISDV also proposes that in recognition of the fact, that Pitcairn Island's long-term future will best be assured by closer integration with the polynesian islands to the north, under the rubric of the OCPN; it consider reviving it's original Tahitian name of 'Mata-Ki-Te-Rangi' as part of the process of accession to the OCPN.
The Global Prospect : Bleak
"Malthus - the first philosopher to focus on the political effects of poor soils, famine, disease, and the quality of life among the poor - is an irritant because he has defined the most important debate of the twenty-first century. As the human population rises from six billion to ten billion before it is predicted to level off, testing the planet's environment as never before - with a billion people going hungry and violence (both political and criminal) chronic throughout poor parts of the globe - the word Malthusian will be heard with increasing frequency in the years to come."
pp.93-94,
Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos
Author: Robert D. Kaplan, New York, Random House
Released: 07 January, 2003
ISBN: 0375726276
Paperback
'Rosy future' - The world is shrinking, and globalisation is the new order that binds us all together in mutual interdependence. Sink or swim, we go forward as one world. With luck you've heard enough political bullxxxx not to believe this sort of stuff any more. But if you do, you're not to blame. Politicians and the media talk vaguely of 'globalisation' as a rosy new future in which we will all be winners, and the idea of a world working in harmony is just too appealing to resist.
Specific strategy - However, 'Globalisation' is not a vague, warm feeling about the future. It is a specific economic strategy pursued by the countries of the industrialised '1st' world and the transnational corporations whose interests they represent. The core of this strategy is to ensure open, unregulated access to the world's markets - the model of 'free trade' liberalisation which allows TNCs to sweep aside smaller local competitors irrespective of social or environmental cost. Developing countries are 'opened up' for exploitation, and the profits which they could have used for their own development are whisked away to the bank accounts of TNC shareholders overseas.
Rich get richer - While there are individuals who have amassed great wealth from the liberalisation of the world economy, the majority have seen little benefit. Universally, globalisation has placed great pressure on working people, as national governments force down labour standards in an attempt to attract foreign investment with the promise of low costs. Internationally, while some newly industrialised countries have increased export earnings as a result of liberalised global trade, poorer nations have been completely excluded from the feast. It is now universally acknowledged - especially after the East Asian crisis of 1997-98 - that globalisation has both winners and losers, and that the losers will be the poor.
McCulture - Together with this economic globalisation, a parallel cultural process is also at work. Vast media conglomerates beam their uniform brand of news into homes all over the world, and advertising consolidates the message. Relentless images lead to the 'McDonaldisation' of local cultures, driving people to exchange real lives for junk consumerism. The 'global language' we are all meant to speak is nothing more than an ability to recognise the trade marks of US 'goods & services' producers.
Alternative globalisations - Happily, there have been attempts to build alternative globalisations to the monoculture of transnational business - and here communications technology has played a positive role. Campaigns and community groups swap local strategies of resistance from opposite sides of the globe, forging new alliances and - sometimes - winning new battles too. Today globalisation is an economic nightmare threatening the poor, but tomorrow it could be a new model of truly creative interdependence.
The Regional Prospect : Unprepossessing
The assumption of foreign rule and colonialism in all its forms - Protectorate, Condominium, Crown Colony, Mandate, Trusteeship, Compact, Free Association, Commonwealth, Pays Outre Mer, Territory and Statehood – affected all of Island-and-archipelago Oceania, during the 19thC. and continues into the 21stC.
Foreign rule, by invitation or by possession continues in West Papua, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna, American Samoa, French Polynesia, Easter Island, Hawaii, Guam and CNMI.
The Oceania of 1840 (at the time of the first annexation – of Aotearoa/NZ by Great Britain), is very different, yet in many ways similar, to the Oceania of the new millennium, despite the arrival and departure of foreign rule.
The end of colonialism and the gaining of Independence, have not necessarily brought prosperity and security or strengthened cultural traditions; but post-independence Oceania is dynamic, changing and complex and continues to entangle the histories of several European, Asia and Latin American powers with old and new polities and entities across the region.
The South Pacific extends over a vast area from the equator to the Antarctic Circle.
The sphere of geopolitical influence of the states and territories in the region (some 16 independent and self-governing states and a number of colonies and territories administered by several metropolitan powers) is about 30 million square kilometres.
The region is politically, economically, ethnically and culturally diverse; sparsely populated (except in some of the urban areas where population densities are amongst the highest in the world) and widely scattered.
One unifying theme is the fact of "islandness" and, except for Papua New Guinea, 'smallness'. The two concepts are, as noted by Sutton and Payne (1993), closely linked. As well, they argue, islands are characterised by "remoteness, environmental precariousness, insularity, rights to maritime zones and military indefensibility" (Sutton and Payne, 1993: 584).
The region's size and diversity means that generalisations about it are difficult. Since the early 1970s, with the formation of the South Pacific (since 2000, Pacific Islands) Forum, it has been easier and more appropriate than in earlier times to discuss the islands as a region.
The Pacific Ocean, the world's largest body of water. It encompasses a third of the Earth's surface, having an area of 179.7 million km² (69.4 million sq mi). Extending approximately 15,500 km (9,600 mi) from the Bering Sea in the Arctic to the icy margins of Antarctica's Ross Sea in the south, the Pacific reaches its greatest east-west width at about 5 deg N latitude, where it stretches approximately 19,800 km (12,300 mi) from Indonesia to the coast of Colombia. The western limit of the ocean is often placed at the Strait of Malacca. The lowest point on the earth surface—the Marianas Trench—lies within the Pacific.
The Pacific contains about 25,000 islands (more than the total number in the rest of the world's oceans combined), the majority of which are found south of the equator. (See: List of islands in the Pacific Ocean.)
Along the Pacific Ocean's irregular margins lie many seas, the largest of which are the Celebes Sea, Coral Sea, East China Sea, Sea of Japan, Sulu Sea, Tasman Sea and Yellow Sea. The Straits of Malacca joins the Pacific and the Indian oceans on the west, and the Straits of Magellan links the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean on the east.
The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan named the ocean Pacific, meaning peaceful. For most of his voyage from the Straits of Magellan to the Philippines, Magellan indeed found the ocean peaceful. However, the Pacific is not always peaceful. Many typhoons and hurricanes batter the islands of the Pacific and the lands around the Pacific rim are full of volcanoes and often rocked by earthquakes. Tsunamis, caused by underwater earthquakes, have devastated many islands and wiped out whole towns.
Island of the Blest: The Historical Milieu in which our People Undertook to Redeem Norfolk Island for the British Empire
The voyages of Capt. James Cook to Australia and New Zealand in the 1770s and new conquests in India after 1763 opened a second phase of British territorial expansion.
The victories of the Napoleonic Wars added further possessions to the Empire, among them Cape Colony, Mauritius, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, British Guiana (Guyana), and Malta. During the second empire mercantilist ideals and regulations were gradually abandoned in response to economic and political developments in Great Britain early in the 19th cent.
Britain’s new industrial supremacy lent greater force to doctrines of free trade; which, as part of their critique of mercantilism, questioned the economic value of political ties between the colonies and the mother country.
The plight of large nonwhite populations within the empire became a matter of concern to humanitarians. Abolition of the slave trade (1807) and of slavery (1833) was accompanied in the colonies by efforts to improve the lot of indigenous groups. Better communications and the establishment of a regular civil service facilitated the development of a more efficient colonial administration. But the growth, notably in the English-speaking colonies, of national identity and of relative national self-sufficiency, as well as a trend of opinion in Britain favoring colonial self-government, made the British - now also engaged in liberalizing their own governing institutions - willing to concede certain powers of self-government to the white colonies.
In 1839, Lord Durham, in response to unrest in Canada, issued his “Report on the Affairs of British North America.” Durham stated that to retain its colonies Britain should grant them a large measure of internal self-government.
The British North America Act of 1867 inaugurated a pattern of devolution followed in most of the European-settled colonies by which the British Parliament gradually surrendered its direct governing powers; thus Australia and New Zealand followed Canada in becoming self-governing dominions.
On the other hand, the British assumed greater responsibility in Africa and in India, where the Indian Mutiny had resulted (1858) in the final transfer of power from the East India Company to the British government. To govern territories with large indigenous populations, the 'Crown Colony' system was developed. Such colonies, of which one of the most enduring was Hong Kong, were ruled by a British governor and consultative councils composed primarily of the governor’s nominees; these, in turn, often delegated considerable powers of local government to local rulers.
In the latter decades of the 19th cent. there occurred a revival of European competition for empire in which the British acquired or consolidated vast holdings in Africa—such as Nigeria, the Gold Coast (later Ghana), Rhodesia (Zambia and Zimbabwe), South Africa, and Egypt—and in Asia—such as Burma (Myanmar) and Malaya. The size and wealth of the empire and the anxieties produced by European colonial competition stimulated a desire for imperial solidarity. The Imperial Conference, begun in 1887, represented an attempt to strengthen Britain’s ties with those colonies that had become self-governing territories.
references:
Bach J, “The Royal navy in the Pacific Islands”, JPH, 3, 3-20, 1968
Bennett J, “Holland, Britain and Germany in Melanesia”, in Howe KR, Kiste RC and Lal BV, eds, Tides of history; the Pacific Islands in the 20th century, Allen and Unwin, 1994
Douglas B, “Imperial flotsam? The British in the Pacific Islands” in Winks RW, ed, Oxford History of the British Empire; Historiography, OUP, 366-78, 1999
Frazer I, “Decentralisation and postcolonial State in the Solomon Islands” in Lal BV and Nelson H, eds, Lines across the sea; colonial inheritance in the post colonial Pacific, PHA 95-110, 1995
Heath I, “Charles Morris Woodford; adventurer, naturalist, administrator” in Scarr D, ed, More Pacific Island Portraits, 193-210, ANU, 1978
Howe KR, “Fiji”, in his Where the waves fall, Allen and Unwin, 255-80, 1984
Latukefu S, “Tonga at independence and now” in Lal BV and Nelson H, eds, Lines across the sea; colonial inheritance in the post colonial Pacific, PHA, 57-68, 1995
Macdonald B, “Grimble of the Gilbert Islands; myth and man” in Scarr D, ed, More Pacific Island Portraits, 211-30, ANU, 1978
Macdonald B, Cinderellas of empire; towards a history of Kiribati and Tuvalu, ANU, 1982
Morrell WP, Britain in the Pacific Islands, OUP, 1960
Thompson R, “Messy entanglements in British and Australian decolonisation in the Pacific 1960-1963” in Talu A and Quanchi M, eds, Messy entanglments, PHA, 167-74, 1995
Trask H, “Cultures in collision; Hawaii and England 1778”, Pacific Studies, 7, 91-117, 1983
Wood-Ellem E, “Queen Salote and the British dual mandate policy” in Denoon D, ed, Emerging from empire? Decolonisation in the Pacific, ANU, 22-25, 1997
TIMELINE CONTEXT OF SETTLEMENTS ON NORFOLK ISLAND:
1772 Cook's RESOLUTION voyage.
1774 Morning of 10 October: discovery of Norfolk Island.
1779 Banks suggests founding a convict settlement at Botany Bay.
1782 End of the American War of Independence.
1783 Matra's plan of colonization in New South Wales.
1785 Sir George Young's plan:(Uncle of Mutineer Ned Young)
1786 Determination to found a settlement at Botany Bay.
1788 Foundation of Sydney.
Laperouse in Botany Bay.
1789 Establishment of New South Wales Corps.
Settlement of Norfolk Island.
1792 End of Phillip's governorship.
1792-5 Administration of Grose and Paterson.
1795 Hunter Governor of New South Wales.
1795-6 Bass and Flinders make voyages in the TOM THUMB.
1797 John Macarthur buys merino sheep.
Discovery of coal.
1798 Bass discovers Bass Strait and Westernport.
Bass and Flinders circumnavigate Tasmania in the Norfolk.
1800 King Governor of New South Wales.
Voyage of the LADY NELSON from England.
Flinders's voyage in the INVESTIGATOR.
1802 Murray discovers Port Phillip.
Flinders meets Baudin in Encounter Bay.
1803 Flinders circumnavigates Australia.
Wreck of the PORPOISE.
Flinders imprisoned in Mauritius.
Collins's Port Phillip Settlement.
1804 Foundation of Hobart.
Settlement at Port Dalrymple.
1806 Bligh Governor of New South Wales.
1807 Arrest of John Macarthur.
1808 Mutiny in New South Wales; deposition of Bligh.
1809 Macquarie Governor of New South Wales.
1810 Extinction of New South Wales Corps.
Liberation of Flinders.
1813 BlaxIand discovers a way across the Blue Mountains.
Evans discovers the Bathurst plains.
Davey Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land.
1814 Death of Flinders.
Establishment of Civil Court in New South Wales.
1816 Bank of New South Wales founded.
1817 Oxley explores the Lachlan.
1818 Oxley explores the Macquarie.
1819 Commissioner Bigge in New South Wales.
1821 Brisbane Governor of New South Wales.
1823 New South Wales Judicature Act passed.
Oxley in Moreton Bay.
1824 Wentworth's AUSTRALIAN.
Foundation of Brisbane.
1824 Annexation of Bathurst and Melville Islands.
Hume and Hovell's expedition to Port Phillip.
1825 Alteration of western boundary of New South Wales.
Lockyer explores the Brisbane River.
Arthur Governor of Van Diemen's Land.
1826 The ASTROLABE at Westernport.
Settlement at Westernport.
Darling Governor of New South Wales.
1827 Lockyer's Settlement at King George's Sound.
Darling's law to regulate the press.
Alan Cunningham explores the Liverpool Range and the Darling Downs.
Stirling examines the Swan River.
1828 Enlargement of the Legislative Council of New South W ales.
Westernport Settlement abandoned.
Sturt discovers the Darling.
1829 Annexation of the Swan River.
Whole of Australia claimed as British territory.
The PARMELIA conveys first immigrants to Swan River.
Publication of Wakefield's LETTER FROM SYDNEY.
1830 Accession of William IV.
Act establishing trial by jury in New South Wales.
Sturt explores the Murray to the sea.
Perth founded.
Governor Arthur's 'Black Drive.'
1834 Act to establish Colony of South Australia.
The Hentys settle at Portland.
The Dorsetshire labourers transported.
1835 John Batman in Port Phillip.
1836 Mitchell explores Australia Felix.
Adelaide founded.
Lonsdale takes charge of the Port Phillip Settlement.
Bourke's grazing licences policy.
1837 Accession of Queen Victoria.
Melbourne named.
House of Commons Committee on Transportation.
1837-40 George Grey's explorations in Western Australia.
1838 Gawler Governor of South Australia.
Military settlement at Port Essington.
1839 Latrobe appointed superintendent of Port Phillip.
Strzeleeki finds traces of gold.
1839 Death of John Batman.
Lord Durham's report on the state of Canada.
McMillan's first expedition to Gippsland.
Abandonment of Moreton Bay Settlement.
1840 Order in Council discontinuing transportation to Australia.
Eyre starts for the centre of the continent.
Strzelecki's journey through Gippsland.
1841 Grey appointed Governor of South Australia.
1842 Robert Lowe in New South Wales.
Act for the Government of N.S.W. and Van Diemen's Land passed.
1843 Ridley invents the stripper.
1844 Convicts shipped to Port Phillip.
Sturt's journey to the interior.
Leichhardt's first exploring expedition.
1845 Grey appointed Governor of New Zealand.
Burra copper mine discovered.
1846 Fitzroy 'Governor-General' of Australia.
Lieutenant Yule hoists British flag in New Guinea.
1847 Gold found in Port Phillip.
The Gladstone Colony at Port Curtis.
1848 Melbourne elects Lord Grey to the Legislative Council.
Leichhardt's last expedition.
1849 The RANDOLPH in Hobson's Bay: resistance to convict immigration.
Port Essington abandoned.
1850 Western Australia becomes a penal colony.
University of Sydney founded.
Australian Colonies Government Act passed.
Railway from Sydney to Goulburn built.
1851 Separation of Victoria from New South Wales.
Hargreaves digs for gold on Summerhill Creek.
Gold found at Ballarat.
The diggings commence.
1852 University of Melbourne founded.
1853 Tasmania named.
Town of Gladstone founded.
French annexation of New Caledonia.
1854 The Eureka Stockade.
Hobson's Bay railway built.
1855 Transportation to Norfolk Island ceased
1855 New constitutions come into effect in New South Wales, Victoria,
South Australia, and Tasmania.
Ballot Act passed in Victoria.
First anti-Chinese legislation passed.
1858 Torrens Real Property Act passed.
1859 Colony of Queensland proclaimed.
Kingsley's GEOFFREY HAMLYN published.
1860 McDouall Stuart reaches the centre of the continent.
1861 Burke and Wills expedition.
Cowper's quarrel with the New South Wales Legislative Council.
1862 McDouall Stuart crosses the continent to Port Darwin
Duffy's Land Act.
1863 South Australia undertakes to administer the Northern Territory.
New Caledonia a convict colony.
1865 McCuIloch proposes protection in Victoria.
1867 End of transportation to Western Australia.
Gold discovered at Gympie.
The Darling grant controversy.
1868 First Queensland Act to regulate Kanaka labour
1869 John Forrest's journey in search of Leichhardt.
1870 British troops withdrawn from Australia.
Adam Lindsay Gordon died.
1872 Overland telegraph line from Adelaide to Port Darwin constructed.
1873 John Forrest explores the interior.
Moresby's discoveries in New Guinea.
Stephens's 'free, compulsory, and secular' Education Act.
1874 University of Adelaide founded.
John Forrest's journey from Perth to Adelaide.
Fiji annexed by Great Britain.
Clarke's FOR THE TERM OF HIS NATURAL LIFE published.
1875 Ernest Giles's inland journey.
1877 Dispute as to payment of members in Victoria.
High Commissionership of the Pacific established.
Brunton Stephens's poem, THE DOMINION OF AUSTRALIA, published.
1878 Black Wednesday' (January 8).
1879 First Australian Trade Union Congress.
1880 Capture of the Kelly Gang.
1880 Payment of members carried in Victoria.
1881 Reform of the Victorian Legislative Council.
1882 Discovery of Mount Morgan.
The Kimberley gold rush.
Henry Clarence Kendall died.
1883 Silver discovered at Broken Hill.
McIlwraith annexes New Guinea.
1884 German annexation of Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, the Bismarck
Archipelago, and Samoa.
1885 Federal Council established.
Soudan contingent from New South Wales.
1887 Anglo-French Condominium in the New Hebrides.
First Colonial Conference.
1888 Intercolonial Conference on Chinese immigration.
ROBBERY UNDER ARMS published.
1890 Great maritime strike.
University of Tasmania founded.
1891 First Federal Convention.
1892 Coolgardie gold-field discovered.
1893 Corowa Conference on Federation.
1894 Women's enfranchisement in South Australia.
1895 Victorian Wages Board system established.
Paterson's THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER published.
1896 Henry Lawson's IN THE DAYS WHEN THE WORLD WAS WIDE published.
1897 The second Colonial Conference.
1897-8 The Federal Convention.
1898 First Federal Referendum.
1899 Second Federal Referendum.
First Labour Government (Queensland).
Australian contingents sent to South African War.
1900 The Commonwealth Constitution before the Imperial Parliament.
1901 (May 9) First Commonwealth Parliament opened.
1902 Immigration Restriction Act passed.
Third Colonial Conference.
1903 First Deakin Government.
Amended Naval Agreement.
1904 The Watson Government.
Reid-McLean Government.
Dalgety selected as site for federal capital.
1905 Second Deakin Government.
1906 Amended Anglo-French agreement as to New Hebrides.
1907 Act for construction of Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta railway passed.
Imperial Conference.
1908 First Fisher Government.
Revocation of choice of Dalgety, and Canberra finally selected as site of federal capital.
1909 Third Deakin Government.
Imperial Defence Conference.
Compulsory military service instituted in Australia.
Lord Kitchener's report.
1910 University of Brisbane founded.
Second Fisher Government.
1911 Referendum for amendment of constitution.
Admiral Henderson's naval report.
Imperial Conference.
1912 University of Perth founded.
1913 Cook Government.
Referendum for amendment of constitution.
The AUSTRALIA completed.
1914 Third Fisher Government.
Great European War.
Fight between the SYDNEY and EMDEN at Cocos (November).
Imagineering Pitcairn : The Future's Uncertain & The End is Always Near
Tahitipresse Date:12/10/2003: Pitcairn and French Polynesia want to strengthen partnership
French Polynesia Finance Minister Georges Puchon and New Zealand’s British high commissioner, Richard Fell, have called for the development of exchanges between Pitcairn Island and French Polynesia.
“A work group bringing together various territorial departments is due to be set up within 15 days,” said Philippe Guesdon, a member of Puchon’s ministerial cabinet. The group intends to focus on the legal aspect of Tahiti’s relations with Pitcairn Island, Guesdon said.
Pitcairn was made famous as the eventual destination of the mutineers from the H.M.S. Bounty. Today, the people living on Pitcairn want to set up a new legal structure to facilitate the development of transportation, supplies and tourism with French Polynesia, a government communiqué stated. The first area of interest involves creating a customs system.
Pitcairn is interested in becoming less dependent on Great Britain and working more closely with the Gambier Islands in the nearby southeastern section of French Polynesia.
A project that has been brought up regularly on Pitcairn in recent years involves the building of a runway to accommodate small planes. If such a project is developed, the Mangareva Airport in the Gambier Islands could become a stopover en route to and from Pitcairn, opening up the possibility of attracting more overseas visitors.
bravenet.com
