[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] On Space Colonies (Part 4)

Since the island countries of the South Pacific have been integrated into the world economy--beginning in the 19th century with the colonization by European powers, continuing into the 20th century as island economies have become linked with the wider world through tourism, trade, and war, and enduring into the 21st century--the theme of emigration has taken on an increasingly important role in the region. At first, the main current of emigration was involuntary when Australians in the late 19th century engaged in "blackbirding," kidnapping men from the South Pacific (mostly Melanesia) to labour in Queensland sugar cane plantations. Later in the 19th century, and into the early 20th century, immigration was a more important theme, as recurrent epidemics and the growing demand for labour inside the South Pacific (particularly in Fiji and New Zealand), where the British Empire fostered booming agricultural exports. In the late 20th century, however, emigration from the smaller island countries sharply accelerated:

"Population pressures vary dramatically between different island groups. In the Polynesian and Micronesian countries emigration is an important population safety valve. Although these countries have high fertility rates, the steady stream of people moving to the Pacific rim countries keeps the resident population growth reasonably low. For example, the Tongan population increased by only 0.3% per annum over the last twenty years but the fertility rate is 4.2 births per woman. In the Cook Islands, each woman had an average of 3.3 children but emigration (mostly to New Zealand) kept the population growth at below 0.4% per annum. The population of Kiribati grew at only 1.4% despite a fertility rate of 4.5 children per woman. The population of Tokelau actually decreased -0.9% despite a fertility rate of 5.7 children per woman. Niue's population decreased -1.3% with a fertility rate of 3.5. There are, in fact, more people from Niue, Toikelau and the Cook Islands living in New Zealand than on their home islands. American Samoa's resident population is estimated to be only one third of all the people born there.

On other islands, populations have soared (4.2% in the Marshall Islands, 5.6% in the Northern Mariana Islands, 2.9% in Naru, 2.6% in Palau). Melanesian people choose not to emigrate and populations are rapidly increasing on their islands (3.4% in the Solomon Islands, 2.8% in Vanuatu, 2.6% in New Caledonia, and 2.3% in PNG. Fiji's population growth remained low primarily because of emigration of large numbers of Fiji's Indian population following the racially inspired coup of 1987. (Population figures from SPC 1997)

Where islanders have the ability to emigrate easily, large families are an economic and social advantage. The brightest students inevitably leave the islands to obtain an education in Australia, New Zealand or the United States. French youth go to France for continuing education. Only a very small proportion of those who leave the islands return on a permanent basis. In developed countries, the young people find employment and send funds back to their families. These remittances comprise a major portion of foreign exchange income and are especially valuable on islands where there are few local employment opportunities. There are, in fact, few employment opportunities in Pacific islands beyond the major urban centres. For example, of the 54 inhabited islands of Tonga, only two islands have any meaningful level of local employment, Tongatapu and Vava'u."

The effect on Tuvalu is particularly dramatic, but even for large and relatively viable states like Samoa emigration has taken a relatively large toll, and seems likely to only accelerate. Many times as many Tokelauns and Niueans and Tuvaluans reside elsewhere (mainly New Zealand, their former colonizer) as in their titular homelands, while there are as many Samoans and Tongans in New Zealand as in their ethnic homelands. (The United States has received its contingent of Polynesian immigrants from American Samoa; not only do American Samoans emigrate in large numbers, but hopeful migrants from the former Western Samoa regularly spend time in American Samoa to qualify for residency and migration to the American mainland.)

Why is this? Simply put, the small island-states of the South Pacific aren't nearly large enough to sustain diversified economies. Agriculture and fishing are resource-intensive activities which are not at all cost productive, given the presence of cheaper imports and the popularity of non-traditional foodstuffs. Tourism can support only a limited number of people. Offshore banking and Internet/telecommunications industries provide useful margins, but these industries can't sustain large nubmers of people.
Manufacturing--save for inexpensive locally-used items--is completely out of the question given the small size and general isolation of South Pacific economies. Besides, South Pacific island cultures tend to be conservative and somewhat authoritarian, contrary to Margaret Mead's ill-judged research; Tonga, for instance, is going through some interesting times with its absolute monarch. Why not emigrate?

New Zealand--as the largest and richer South Pacific economy, ahead of French-colonized New Caledonia/Kanaky and French Polynesia as well as American-colonized Hawai'i and Guam--has received the lion's share of these immigrants. There are now as many non-Maori Pacific Islanders living in New Zealand as there are Maori, making for a decidedly interesting future. (Or, perhaps, alternate history.) But then, New Zealanders themselves migrate in large numbers; Australia alone has a half-million New Zealand citizens resident, compared to a total New Zealand population of four million. (http://www.immi.gov.au/facts/17nz.htm)

What does the South Pacific experience suggest for an archipelago of colonies and outposts scattered over the Solar System in a century's time? Simply put, that as soon as interplanetary travel becomes affordable (in terms of time and money), relatively marginal societies will begin to lose people to the relatively more prosperous colonies. This experience has occurred elsewhere: In Scandinavia, there are the examples of the Kalix river valley in Sweden (settled and abandoned in a century) as well as that of northern Finland (settled by Karelian refugees after the Second World War but losing population ever since), while the failure of the colonization effort in the "clay belt" district at the headwaters of the Ottawa River in the early 20th century is also illustrative. In my previous posting, I mentioned the dozen small colonies on Ceres which found themselves overshadowed by the European Union's new Ceres city; why, if living standards are lower in the smaller colonies than in Ceres city and if the cultural distance is not too great, would all of those colonies remain viable entities? Why stay on frigid ice-rock Rhea when, just a couple of days away in travel time, the immensely rich reserve of hydrocarbons and nitrogen known as Titan is waiting (and when Titan City has much better shops and excellent medical facilities open to all comers)?

Colonies which are very distant from the larger and more successful colonies, in terms of travel time and in terms of cultural distance, will be able to remain distinct and suffer only minimal population losses. (At least until the colonists are tired of obeying the Great Leader's dictates on the moral impurities of near-Solar civilization and stage a revolution so they can buy that newly-terraformed land near Elysium.) The definition of distant will vary, of course, depending on the drive technologies available--a Solar civilization with low-impulse ion drives will find intercolonial travel more difficult than one with high-impulse fusion drives. This caveat aside, those colonies which are open to trade, though--including, probably, the very large majority of the Solar System's outposts--will soon suffer from a drain of people and of trade that will end by bringing them still closer into the orbit of Earthly civilization.



Thoughts?