Oceania: The environmental history of one-third of the globe

Abstract

Oceania, the region encompassing the Pacific Islands, is the longest continually settled oceanic environment on our predominantly blue aquatic planet - for this reason alone, it deserves far greater attention than it receives. Pacific environmental history is a potential tool for rectifying scholarly misrepresentation of their cultures as isolated and vulnerable to external influences. Two distinct biogeographical zones are recognized within Oceania: Near Oceania and Remote Oceania. The Pacific Ocean and its immediate littoral also experience the vast majority of the world's typhoons. Volcanic eruptions are the best-covered natural hazard in Pacific Islands scholarship. Most archaeologists and anthropologists focus on economic modes of production as the key to understanding political power in Pacific Island history. Whether this increasing combination of environmental and cultural factors to explain Pacific political evolution will endure remains to be seen. Environmental historians have only just begun their journey of exploration into the Pacific.