By David Robie
PORT MORESBY — At the rate Pacific urban areas are growing, many are in danger of becoming unsustainable. Some, such as ghettoes like Ebeye and squatter settlements in Port Moresby and Papeete, already are.
But a University of the South Pacific academic warns that many towns and cities are under threat from urban environmental degradation unless far-sighted planning begins.
According to geography senior lecturer Dr Jennifer Bryant-Tokalau, population growth, environmental degradation, land distribution and tenure, and unemployment need to be urgently addressed to avoid doomsday scenarios for the future.
Unsafe drinking water, polluted lagoons, spreading disease and massive loss of topsoil are already realities in the Pacific.
Speaking at the international Waigani Seminar at the University of Papua New Guinea last month, Dr Bryant described the sharp deterioration in the quality of life in many Pacific urban centres.
Although many commentators and researchers have addressed some of the issues of overcrowded towns in the past, Dr Bryant has focused on the environmental systems and human issues of urban development.
The seminar — opened by PNG's governor-general, Sir Wiwa Korowi, with an attack on foreign exploitation, and closed on a visionary note by the country's outspoken ambassador to the United States, Meg Taylor — was a major contribution towards PNG's national sustainable development strategy.
The Wingti government seized the opportunity to announce it would immediately begin implementing controversial new forestry guidelines in spite of bitter opposition from logging companies, officials from the giant Ok Tedi mine were on the back foot over renewed accusations by landowners about pollution of the Fly River, and a government adviser pledged the sustainable development strategy was intended as a genuine action plan and would not "sit on a shelf".
In spite of perceptions that the Pacific islands are predominantly rural societies, the region's population pattern has changed dramatically in the past decade.
Now only Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Western Samoa have less than a quarter of their population living in urban areas. Seven countries are more than 50% urbanised.
In addition, the Solomon Islands will have 26% of its population living in urban areas by the year 2006 and Papua New Guinea will be 33% urban by 2005, given present growth rates.
Some estimates say Vanuatu will also be more than 25% urbanised by the turn of the century.
The two other countries with lower urban populations, Niue and Western Samoa, have high migration rates, with the majority of their populations living abroad — in urban areas.
However, Dr Bryant said: "The definition of urbanisation, and the recently changing economic circumstances in Western Samoa in particular — with the establishment of factories employing large numbers of women — make the calculation of the urban population difficult, as it is obviously changing rapidly."
Some projections place Western Samoa's urban population at 25.5% by the year 2000. Moreover, adds Dr Bryant: "It is quite possible that with return migration, particularly from New Zealand which has increasing unemployment levels, particularly among Maori and Pacific islanders, pressure on Apia will increase as return migrants seek work in the urban area."
The impact of migration, such as from outer islands and from highlands to coast, includes pressure on land ownership and access, the breakdown and challenging of traditional patterns of behaviour and major political upheavals.
"These are likely to continue", said Dr Bryant, "particularly with higher levels of education and alienation of people from their land, overcrowding of housing, greater competition for education and health care, and a deterioration in basic services.
"Urban poverty is becoming increasingly obvious, and the urban areas of the South Pacific are manifesting lifestyles which were unheard of here as recently as 20 years ago."
Among major concerns are population densities in the small coastal areas that contain most Pacific towns and cities, particularly in atoll nations.
In the Marshall Islands, for example, 6% of the country's population now lives in the urban centres of Majuro and Ebeye. The population density of Ebeye is reputed to be one of the highest in the world at almost 154,000 people per square kilometre.
Dr Bryant said: "The pressures of life in such densities, even where the actual populations are small by world standards, have been well documented and include problems of communicable disease, high infant mortality, increasing marginalisation of women, nutritional problems and severe unemployment."
In the Federated States of Micronesia, 87% of drinking water is piped from streams considered unsafe. In Kosrae, 70% of houses have poor drainage.
In Pohnpei, 9% of houses have no toilets but share with others. In Tuvalu, septic tank designs are inappropriate for local conditions.
"With rising sea levels, coral atolls and limestone islands will face a rise in the water table and thus surface flooding which will make certain methods of waste disposal inappropriate and unhealthy", said Dr Bryant.
All Pacific urban areas face similar problems. In Suva, for example, septic tank effluent cannot "percolate" properly because much of the ground has a layer of marl, or soapstone.
"As urbanisation increases in the Pacific, it is likely that the pollution of ground water will also increase", said Dr Bryant.
"Ground water pollution and the contamination of shellfish by micro-organisms from excrement cause a range of health problems, including skin and eye disorders, as well as gastrointestinal illnesses, hepatitis and cholera."
According to a World Bank report, only a minority of Pacific islanders have access to consistently safe water and sanitation.
It is clear that national budgets will be severely stretched by spending for reticulated sewerage.
"If a community cannot afford to construct a sewerage plant, then it is unlikely that it can afford to operate and maintain one", said Dr Bryant. "This must surely call into question the wisdom of aid money being spent purely on the provision of such plants."
Atoll countries are vulnerable to the problems of waste disposal. Toxic and hazardous wastes are a big headache for many developing countries.
In the Pacific increasing quantities of dangerous and illegal pollutants are being discharged into streams and oceans. Solid waste is also a problem in urban areas.
In spite of the devastating overcrowding in the Marshall islands, the annual birth rate is 49.2 children per thousand — and only nine African countries exceed this rate.
Thirty per cent of the urban population aged over 15 suffer diabetes.
"If cities cannot provide the basic needs for a growing proportion of the population and are also facing deteriorating environments, then they are clearly not 'sustainable', said Dr Bryant.
"Urban areas, and therefore entire countries and the Pacific region, are about to face some extremely serious and explosive situations."
Rather than relying on legislation and central government control to provide solutions, Dr Bryant believes communities and the local populations themselves hold the key to their future.
She sees the region as being well placed with resourceful bodies such as the South Pacific Forum,, the South Pacific Regional Environment Program and the University of the South Pacific, able to channel expertise and funding.
But in the end, she said, only the community groups — including action and education groups, church and women's organisations, and business-associated service groups — will find the solutions.
Pacific governments are increasingly looking to privatisation to solve many of their economic problems. However, Dr Bryant said, "The bottom line of the private sector is that it is difficult for it to cater adequately for the poor as there are few economic returns".
Concludes Dr Bryant, Papua New Guinea and other governments in the region need to make urban growth and its implications a top priority.