Tourism as an industry in the 20th and 21st Century has primarily been an international money-making industry which has attracted many governments of less developed countries as a fast mechanism for development. This has often involved a trade-off between the pursuit of economic wealth and support for the social, cultural and natural environments. The negative impacts of mass tourism in these economies are countless and well documented, especially as many of these countries are still trying to deal with impacts caused during colonial occupancy. Consequently, alternative tourism has been presented as a way to manage tourism development which is economically, social and ecologically sustainable. One manifestation of this trend is community-based tourism, which aims to be inclusive of the host communities as they plan for tourism and considers the socio cultural and natural resources and desires of tourists in a more equitable manner. The aim of this thesis is to determine how ecotrekking as a form of community-based tourism can provide a foundation for development for remote rural communities in developing countries. It was conceptually determined that if the needs of the community matched those of the tourists, then a sustainable ecotrekking industry can evolve. To explore this issue contextually, a case study of the Kokoda Track (KT) in Papua New Guinea is presented based around three research questions: 1. What role can market segmentation play in sustainable tourism development in remote rural communities? 2. What outcomes do the Kokoda Track communities envisage for the future of tourism on the Kokoda Track? 3. Do Kokoda tourists meet the outcomes envisaged by the community? A review of the literature found that market segmentation is a tool used in destination planning to assess visitor characteristics and match these to resource capabilities. It was employed in this study to determine the characteristics and needs of Kokoda tourists through a questionnaire survey distributed to trekkers via the tour operators. It was found that the Kokoda tourist is a university educated, middle-aged man who visits the KT for adventure and historical reasons. They have higher-order needs of personal development and knowledge and value the authenticity of the experience. The second research question was approached using secondary data analysis. Notes from Participatory Rural Appraisal workshops with community leaders in 2004 and 2005 were reinterpreted. The key themes to emerge were that the communities have a great need for basic facilities (education, transportation, telecommunications, medical infrastructure and water supplies) and they see tourism as an economic means to develop those facilities. They would like to build more guesthouses and provide food for tourists to increase revenue however, they are unsure of the extent to which this will be supported by trekkers. A comparative analysis of the findings from research questions 1 and 2 was employed to address the third research question. The quantitative needs of the tourist market segment were matched to the qualitative expectations of the communities. It was found that the current Kokoda tourist is in favour of many of the outcomes that the Kokoda communities envisage. These include the provision of locally made food and guesthouses. Further to this, the empirical results from the questionnaire found that ecotourists and cultural tourists are the tourist types that need to be targeted by operators. They indicated a strong match with the desires and needs of the Kokoda communities. For example, they indicated that the KT can cater for a much smaller number of trekkers than the other three pre-determined tourist types (adventure, organised and historic tourists). Additionally, the natural and cultural environments are more important to these tourist types inferring that the protection of these resources is of primary importance. Consequently, it was established that ecotrekking can play an important role in development in less developed countries, if the right market segment is targeted to meet the needs of the community. Generally this can then ensure a slower rate of development, which allows the communities to adjust to the changes that occur at both a socio-cultural level and also in the infrastructure within their communities. In the longer term it also allows them to see how tourism can provide long term benefits not offered in extractive industries such as forestry and mining.

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) dominates global interannual climate variability. However, the imprint of anthropogenic climate change hinders understanding of natural ENSO variability. Model predictions of the response of future ENSO variability to anthropogenic forcing are highly uncertain. A better understanding of how ENSO operates during different mean climate states may improve predictions of its future behavior. This study develops a technique to quantify the response of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature and salinity to ENSO variations. This analysis defines expected regional relationships between ENSO forcing and the tropical Pacific climate response. For example, the western tropical Pacific records El Niño events with greater skill than La Niña events; whereas the oceans near the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) preferentially record La Niña events. This baseline understanding of regional skill calibrates interpretations of both modern and pre-instrumental coral geochemical climate proxy records. A suite of monthly resolved 18O variations in a fossil corals (Porites spp.) from the tropical western Pacific (Papua New Guinea) and the SPCZ (Vanuatu) are used to develop case studies of ENSO variability under external forcing conditions that differ from the modern climate. A record from Misima, Papua New Guinea (1411-1644 CE) spans a period of reduced solar forcing that coincides with the initiation of the Little Ice Age. This record indicates that the surface ocean in this region experienced a small change in hydrologic balance with no change in temperature, extended periods of quiescence in El Niño activity, reduced mean El Niño event amplitudes, and fewer large amplitude El Niño events relative to signals captured in regional modern records. Several multidecadal (~30-50 year) coral records from Tasmaloum, Vanuatu during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (~900-1300 CE), a period of increased solar forcing, depict ENSO variability that is generally lower than modern times. However, these records often cannot be distinguished from 20th century ENSO variability due to ENSO variability uncertainty associated with record lengths. Neither record can be tied to concurrent changes in solar or volcanic forcing, calling into question the paradigm of ENSO variability being predominantly mediated by external forcing changes on multidecadal time scales. / text

Recent developments in international relations have seen dramatic increases in the number and activities of human rights non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This has inspired research that seeks to explain processes of human rights socialisation, particularly in crisis zones. In this context, NGO advocacy is often welcomed as being inherently beneficial for adherence to human rights principles. Such a position, however, fails to account for the critiques offered by theorists who suggest that the wielding of any power to affect change can have negative as well as positive outcomes, and the critiques of realist international relations theorists who assert the dangers of unqualified promotion of normative concerns in the face of power interests. In this context, this thesis offers a critical evaluation of the contributions of NGO advocacy in human rights socialisation. Two models of human rights socialisation – the spiral and boomerang models – are utilised in examining human rights advocacy in West Papua, a province of Indonesia. The West Papuan case study indicates that detrimental outcomes can result from the failure of human rights advocates to account for political interests and state sovereignty in their strategies of human rights promotion. Human rights campaigns framed in terms of people’s rights to physical security and subsistence, instead of more political rights, such as the right to selfdetermination, are likely to be more positive for human rights adherence. This points to the desirability of a hierarchy of rights principles in human rights advocacy and suggests, for the socialisation models used, a need for clearer distinctions between the human rights principles prescribed for advocacy.

Papua New Guinea has the highest infant and maternal morbidity and mortality rates in the Western Pacific Regions and 50% of hospital admissions are from vaccine preventable diseases. About 85% of 6 million inhabitants live in rural PNG where basic services are lacking or non-existent. Difficulties such as lack of infrastructures like road network and communication, geographical barriers like big mountain ranges, large rivers and swamps, shortage of skilled health professionals and higher concentration of health workers in cities pose great challenges in delivering health services effectively across the country. Telehealth may play an important role in reaching health services to the underserved population in PNG. As part of this study, it is essential to assess the potential of telehealth to enhance the delivery of health services. Specifically, this research aims to report the knowledge, attitudes and skills towards information and communication technology of health care providers in PNG. The study used a cross sectional method of health professionals working at the time of the survey. It collected 174 questionnaires from four hospitals and used SPSS (version17.0) to analyse the data. The results showed that younger male physicians, paramedics, those with gadgets, higher educational qualifications and exposed to ICT resources possess better knowledge and skills than female, older age group and those without gadgets or under exposed to ICT. Currently, the health care professionals in general have leap frogged the technology by focusing on handheld devices such as cell phones rather than landlines. This represents scope for growth and willingness by health workers to adopt and expand telehealth in PNG.

Mining and mineral exploration have been a source of considerable tension in the developing world and specifically where they take place on indigenous lands. This thesis investigates the nature of the relationships between different stakeholders to a mineral exploration project in Fiji. It is an examination of the obstacles to community participation, a key component of even-handed development, in the planning and policy-making process. It is argued that the Namosi exploration project has been the locus for emergent social disruption. It is also argued, that the causes of this conflict are anchored in a flawed process of policy-making between the state and exploration companies and the contest for authority between key actors, which has led to the disempowerment of some villagers from both within and outside the community. Equally, the political ideology of the state and the contentious history of mining in Fiji, have played a part in the tendency towards social conflict in association with minerals exploration. / The starting point for analysis has been a comparison with the social conflict literature as it applies to Papua New Guinea. The purpose has been first, to confirm the relevance of that work to situations encountered in Fiji, and second, to provide a broader critique of the literature than previously available; one that further develops understanding of social conflict related to natural resource development. Given the circumstances of state and village politics in Melanesia, the question is asked, whether the normative 'fully realised communities' anticipated by Selznick in his communitarian idyll can be achieved. The thesis concludes that the nature of community involvement in development planning for mineral exploitation, creates a very different type of participation than that outlined in the literature of mining corporations and states. Although some actors have recourse to other means of empowering themselves, this is not a prelude to development for the wider community.

No description available.

This thesis reveals the origins and meaning of the National Goals and Directive Principles, the processes leading to their tabling, discussion and drafting and the role of the Constitutional Planning Committee and Australia in this process. This thesis investigates for the first time the vision embedded in the National Goals and Directive Principles. The vision of the five National Goals and Directive Principles compelled post- independence governments to deliver social, economic and political development with consideration to equality, economic self-reliance, national sovereignty and protection of the natural environment. The goals were integrated in the constitution of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, however the National Goals and Directive Principles were ignored or only given passing acknowledgement by successive governments. The National Goals and Directive Principles were a road map, which the new nation could follow when the colonial rulers Australia had departed, but some subsequent policies actually contradicted the aspirations, advice and nationalist blueprint declared in the constitution. The translation of the National Goals and Directive Principles to policies implemented by government departments and debated in the House of Assembly comprises the final, but significant, element of this investigation. There has been no major study on the declaration of the National Goals and Directive Principles although 29 years has passed since independence. This thesis reveals the genesis of a national vision and ideas expressed by an educated indigenous elite in Papua New Guinea but mostly influenced by expatriates and foreign consultants over the brief period between responsible government and full independence (1959-1975). The thesis argues that it was more a foreign than home-grown idea that Papua New Guinea would be a viable nation. It identifies the origin of the idea that a nation needed a unifying set of guiding principles and how this vision ended up being embedded in the constitution of the new nation. The central assertion of this thesis is that a vision of the new nation was never agreed upon nor did it emerge from the unique cultures, knowledge and history of Papua New Guinea's people. It argues that Papua New Guinea went through the expected, conventional process of decolonisation and constitution writing, and that declaring a national vision was never central to the rapid development of a political structure. The National Goals and Directive Principles were made to look like a collective indigenous vision, but they emerged from foreign ideas, theory and practice and were used by an educated elite obsessed with and overwhelmed by the rush to take over political and economic power. There was no long-term national vision merely the continuation of the colonial order and the maintenance of borrowed, western ideas, disguised as a national discourse.

Bibliography: leaves 418-425 / vii, 425 leaves, [3] folded leaves : maps ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, 1985

After a series of transitional phases, the microfinance industry has recognised that microfinance should comprise a variety of financial services, not only credit. In their endeavour to provide services to low-income populations, microfinance practitioners have therefore delivered services through a variety of institutional forms and delivery methods. While the outreach has been promising, the provision of services on a cost covering basis has lagged. Practitioners have attributed the difference in performance to differing country contexts (in particular urban, highly populated versus rural, less populated areas) and institutional capacity. / The goal of this thesis is, therefore, to identify factors which potentially affect the performance of microfinance institutions but have so far not found due consideration. With the increasing trend towards commercialization the microfinance industry, like commercial banking, relies more on economic, capitalist principles in cash based economies. These principles and the use and need for cash based services are assumed to be universally accepted and existing. I attempt to identify issues, in particular characteristics of societies, which contradict this notion and thus might impact on the performance of microfinance institutions. I examine these in Bogia District of Madang Province, a rural area of Papua New Guinea (PNG). In addition, I study a potential role model for a microfinance institution that might be able to integrate these local specificities beneficially into its service delivery. / This thesis makes this argument in theoretical terms in Chapters Two and Three, which comprise a review of factors affecting the performance of microfinance institutions, in particular focusing on factors so far not deeply researched. The review establishes that some issues are more considered as influencing performance than others. In particular the potential clients' understanding of economic principles and their familiarity with the functions and use of money in partly established cash economies find little consideration in the microfinance research literature. / Chapter Four provides background details to PNG and Chapter Five details the research methods as well as the field site. Chapters Six and Seven analyse the key findings of the field research, in particular: i) the local socio-economic and socio-cultural characteristics and their potential impact on the performance of microfinance institutions and ii) an application of these findings to examine whether a co-operative could serve as a role model for the successful service delivery in rural areas of PNG. / Through the field research it could be documented that these issues are crucial to identify for any microfinance institution since familiarity with financial services and functions of money and understandings of contractual obligations of villagers in rural areas, in particular for credit services, may vastly differ from the institutions’ perception. Through their remoteness villagers are also used to interact informally within their clan and kinship groups. Therefore, a co-operative set-up will be a suitable option for delivering microfinance services in rural areas of PNG since it is a familiar and accepted form and can incorporate local specificities into its service delivery and thereby contribute to the economic development of its members.

Health indicators in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are poor by virtually any standards and have declined over the last 2 decades. As in other developing countries that find it impossible to achieve ‘health for all’ through western medical services alone, the idea of developing an integrated health system, one that incorporates traditional medicine, has been proposed as a way of addressing poor health status. The idea of developing an integrated health system in PNG is not new but only recently has it translated into action with tangible results including a draft ‘National Policy on Traditional Medicine for Papua New Guinea’. Over many years researchers have bemoaned the paucity of information on cultural beliefs and treatment practices that could make the incorporation of traditional medicine into the health system, along the lines proposed in the National Policy, better informed. To date this information gap has not been filled. / The thesis includes a review of literature on traditional medicine around PNG and the results of a case study conducted by indigenous research assistants among the Nasioi speakers of Central Bougainville. An international perspective is brought to bear through a critique of theoretical models of integration and a review of practical experiences in other countries that have tried to develop various types of integrated health systems. Information from each of these sources is considered in an endeavour to address the urgent need for information to inform the implementation of the National Policy on Traditional Medicine for Papua New Guinea. / All available studies on traditional medicine in PNG were included in the literature review. Despite PNG's vast cultural diversity it became evident that some common elements exist between different cultural groups. / The case study used a focused ethnographic approach to examine treatment-seeking responses to illness and associated beliefs and decision-making criteria in relation to traditional and modern medicine. It also investigated the organization of traditional health services, attitudes towards an integrated health system and the potential for practitioners to collaborate with one another. The case study made it possible to focus on pertinent issues that had not been covered in earlier studies. The case study suggests that in areas where the organization of and attitudes toward traditional medicine resemble those in the Nasioi area there may be great potential for a health system that incorporates traditional medicine to deliver health benefits to communities. The case study also serves as an example of research that could be replicated or adapted by provinces that need more information about their own situation before embarking on the process of incorporating traditional medicine into the local health system. / The process by which integration might proceed in PNG is considered in the context of integration experiences in other countries. Although ideologically attractive, total integration is not realistic for PNG at this stage. The informality and lack of documentation on traditional medicine as well as the lack of resources to support the development of an integrated health system mean that PNG’s own version of an incorporated or collaborative model of integration is more appropriate. / It should be noted that in this thesis the term ‘integrated health system’ is used to cover the full range of varying degrees of integration of traditional with modern medicine and should not be taken to imply only a fully integrated system. Similarly, the terms ‘integration’ and ‘incorporation’ are normally used to refer to the process and not the outcome. / Even an incorporated health system may not be a viable proposition in all parts of PNG. Where it is feasible, incorporation would need to be progressed in a carefully considered and planned manner with a realistic and long-term approach. The process would require coordination at national level and the flexibility for provinces to participate according to their own prevailing circumstances and capacity. Incorporation should proceed slowly and will require government support including the allocation of resources. It may be possible to pilot and thus fine-tune PNG’s integration model in a few places, such as the Nasioi area, before expanding to multiple provinces. / The potential benefits of an incorporated health system include strengthening of primary health care, better access to services, more affordable services, cultural relevance, a holistic approach, preservation of traditional knowledge, increased autonomy and possibly cost savings. An incorporated health system is worth pursuing because, if carefully planned and implemented, it does have the potential to improve health status in a country where health indicators desperately need to be elevated.