Australia

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Australia Oceania
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• Region dominated by Australia New Zealand
• Most residents live in urban settlements near the
  coast
• They share a common European heritage close
  cultural links with Britain
• Remainder of the region is dominated by island
  chains that can be divided into three regions

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• Melanesia
• Dark Islands
• Located on the western edge of Oceania and
  largely inhabited by dark skinned people
• Includes New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu,
  Fiji
• Polynesia
• Many Islands
• Groups of smaller islands located in the south
  central Pacific
• Includes French Tahiti, Society Islands, Hawaii,
  Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa as well as the Maori
  people of New Zealand
• Micronesia
• Small Islands
• Located north of Melanesia and west of Polynesia
• Includes Nauru, the Marshall Islands, and Guam,

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• Characteristics that Unite Australia Oceania
• The unique physical setting has historically
  isolated it from the rest of the world
• The region reveals a fascinating set of responses
  between indigenous people and varied European
  cultures
• The region is united by its youthful political
  geography

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Physical Environment

• Because of geographic isolation, unique plants
  and animals have evolved
• This is a latitudinally diverse region 20 N
  45 S
• There is also much variation atlitudinally

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Physical Environment

• Australia
• Three major landforms from west to east
• Western plateau occupies more than half of the
  continent, 1,000-1,800 ft. in height
• Lowland basin region stretches 1,000 mi. north
  to south most is a flat, featureless plain with
  little water
• Forested and mountainous region Great Dividing
  Range runs from the Cape York Peninsula to
  Victoria it is an old mountain range with few
  peaks above 5,000 ft.
• The range has historically been an impediment to
  interaction between the coast and the interior

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Physical Environment

• Australia
• There are four distinctive climates found in
  Australia
• Tropical wet dry in the north
• Hot and dry interior
• Temperate east coast with ample rainfall
• Mediterranean southwest coast

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Physical Environment

• Australian Animals
• Because of their isolation, the animals of
  Australia have evolved in unique ways
• Marsupials (animals that carry their young in
  pouches) were able to adapt to the natural
  environment

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Kangaroo
Rock Wallaby
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Wombat
Fighting Kangaroos
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The Tasmanian Devil
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Physical Environment

• Australian Animals
• Because of their isolation, the animals of
  Australia have evolved in unique ways
• Marsupials (animals that carry their young in
  pouches) were able to adapt to the natural
  environment
• The introduction of exotic (non-native) species
  can be particularly detrimental to the Australian
  environment
• The introduction of rabbits is one of the most
  well known examples of the introduction of an
  exotic species
• Rabbits were introduced by English settlers for
  sport hunting
• There is no natural predator for the rabbit in
  Australia coupled with the breeding capacity of
  rabbits quickly led to problems
• The government mounted an eradication effort that
  utilized fences, snares, guns, dogs, fires and
  numerous other means but it has had limited
  success

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Physical Environment

• New Zealand
• New Zealand is also home to a number of unique
  species
• 85 of trees and plants are found nowhere else on
  earth
• The country consists of two main islands
• North Island
• Subtropical and relatively wet climate
• South Island
• Distinctly colder than the North Island
  becoming more severe as one moves south

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Physical Environment

• Oceania
• Consists of thousands of islands that are
  influenced by the surrounding maritime
  environment
• The formation of islands varies throughout the
  region
• The larger islands of Melanesia New Zealand are
  composed of fragmented continental rock
• The majority of the islands originated from
  volcanic activity without any connection to other
  geological processes
• The formation of islands in Oceania is a process
  that takes thousands of years
• Larger, more active volcanic islands form High
  Islands usually surrounded by coral reefs
• Over time (hundreds of thousands of years), the
  volcano is steadily worn away via erosion,
  leaving low peaks surrounded by a coral reef

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Bora Bora, French Polynesia
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Bora Bora
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Physical Environment

• Oceania
• Eventually, the entire volcano erodes away,
  leaving a coral reef surrounding a shallow lagoon
• The reefs tend to remain because they are made of
  living material
• Often an atoll will form - the combination of
  narrow sandy islands, barrier coral reefs, and
  shallow central lagoons

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Rangiroa Atoll
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The Indigenous Population

• The islands of New Guinea and Australia were the
  first in the region to be inhabited by people
• People first began to migrate 40,000 years ago
• Smaller, remote islands were unreachable because
  the people did not possess sophisticated
  watercraft
• More distant lands in Melanesia were reached
  3,500 years ago from there islands in Polynesia
  Micronesia were discovered
• By AD 1000, people had reached the Hawaiian
  Islands, New Zealand Easter Island

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European Colonization

• New Zealand was discovered by Dutch explorer Abel
  Tasman in 1642
• Between 1768 and 1780, British captain James Cook
  surveyed the Australian and New Zealand
  coastlines
• Australia
• By the 1780s, the British needed a penal colony
  in which they could exile their convicts
• Southeastern Australia was chosen as the site of
  the new colony
• In 1788, 750 convicts were deposited at Botany
  Bay (near present day city of Sidney)
• Additional shipments of convicts, as well as free
  settlers soon followed the free settlers soon
  outnumbered the convicts

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European Colonization

• Australia
• Settlers soon migrated inland and up the coast,
  founding new cities along the way
• Many people were initially attracted to Australia
  for its livestock raising possibilities and gold
  (gold rush in the 1850s)
• As they migrated inland, the settlers came into
  contact, and later conflict with the aboriginal
  people
• In most cases, the Aborigines were pushed out of
  the way when British settlers came into an area
  (In the case of Tasmania, Aborigines were hunted
  down and killed)
• New Zealand
• Whalers and sealers arrived in New Zealand
  shortly before 1800
• More permanent agricultural based settlement
  began after 1840

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European Colonization

• New Zealand
• As more settlers arrived, tensions between them
  and the native Maori people
• In 1845, the Maori resisted British rule, thus
  began the Maori Wars which were fought until 1870
• The British prevailed and the Maori lost most of
  their land
• Elsewhere in Oceania, European settlement was
  much less significant. European powers
  eventually gained control of the region, but few
  migrated there

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Aboriginal People of Australia

• The Aboriginal people existed in a hunting
  gathering society prior to European contact
• The population remained quite low (est. 300,000
  at the time of contact)
• Aborigines were often viewed as sub-human by the
  Europeans because they had no centralized
  political organization and they did not practice
  agriculture
• There were no treaties signed and no concessions
  made, they were simply run off their land
• With colonization, the Aboriginal population was
  forced into the interior particularly in
  northern and western Australia

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Aboriginal People of Australia

• Today approximately 2 of the Australian
  population is classified as Aboriginal
• The majority of them (70) live in urban areas
  and have been assimilated into Australian society
• Many of them practice Christianity and few speak
  their native language
• Very few live in the Outback and practice their
  traditional hunting and gathering way of life
• Despite this, there is a growing movement among
  the Aborigines to preserve their traditional way
  of life

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Diversity of the Australian Population

• Over 70 of the Australian population reflects
  British or Irish heritage
• These groups dominated migration in the
  nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
• Additional European migration (Italians, Greeks,
  Germans) added to the diversity of the European
  population
• Historically, non-white migration into Australia
  has been limited by the White Australia Policy in
  which governmental guidelines promoted European
  and North American immigration
• Recently, this trend has been reversed, more
  diverse people have been allowed to emigrate into
  Australia
• Since 1970, people have been chosen based upon
  their educational background and potential for
  succeeding economically
• There is a growing number of immigrants from
  China, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam
  Yugoslavia

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Diversity of the Australian Population

• The immigrant population has grown dramatically
  in recent years
• Today, 22 of the population is foreign born
• By the late 1990s, almost half (40) of
  immigrants were from Asia
• This recent influx of migrants has changed
  Australian Society
• Some of the countrys fastest growing religions
  are Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism
• 2.5 million (of a population of 18 million) speak
  a foreign language
• There are some who are not in favor of this move
  towards a more multi-cultural society
• A small, yet vocal minority would like more the
  restrictive immigration policies to be reinstated

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The Maori of New Zealand

• The Maori are more numerous and visible than the
  Aborigines in Australia
• After the Maori Wars, the Maori began to rebuild
  their society
• Today they account for more than 10 of New
  Zealands 3,8 million people
• They are concentrated in the North Island
• Although they are moving into urban areas, they
  are still committed to preserving their religion
  and traditional art