Oceania a continet full of surprises

Getting to know Oceania better

(Map of Oceania taken from Yahoo Images)

Oceania is a continent but unlike the other ones, it is not continuous formed but many islands, and a lot of people do not know much about it, the countries that people associate with this continent are Australia and New Zealand. But the other ones are unknown or not easily located on map by the majority of us.

This continent is divided into 4 regions: Micronesia, Australasia, Melanesia and Polynesia.

In this blog we are going focus on the Australia region, this is composed by three countries: New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea. The first two countries are getting a big importance in today’s globalized world, and the tendency is that PNG will follow the steps of their neighbors in order to develop themselves and get both market benefits and transmission of technology.

These three countries have a lot of things in common, but a very important factor is their history, all of them make part of the common wealth and for all of them England represents a big power and the Queen Elizabeth II figures as their monarch.

These three countries are very proud of their aborigine people, and the diversity of ethnic groups and nature are a big deal for these cultures. But things differ; In PNG the majority of the population is aborigine and still conserves a lot of the traditional customs and heritage. And in New Zealand with a 78% and Australia with 92% of white Europeans descendents, are more westernized cultures. This does not mean that the European ethnic group does not respect or try to conserve the original culture of these places, but instead they respect and try to conserve them, they advertise through tourism the origins of the culture, which is very diverse and reach, and for years this countries have been living in a peaceful environment where there is no internal wars, because there is no social discrimination and the people of these countries are either Australian or New Zealand no better or less because of their ascendance.

These differences these countries they live in peace with their past and know how to enjoy the future under tolerance and the multiculturalism approach. Taking the best from everyone and projecting the future with all of the good things that differences bring.

Question: Australia is one of the world´s driest countries, how does it manage to survive these extreme natural conditions?

According to (Marsh, 2002) Australia is one of the world´s biggest agricultural exporters, this comes as a surprise that a country which counts with extremely dry conditions can beat countries like Colombian at the agricultural sector, but the difference is that the government pays a lot of attention and take the right measures so the farmers are incentivized to remain in the countryside and continue to do their job as competitive as possible.

(Photo taken from Getty Images. "Pinnacles at Night" by Grant V. Faint)

As an example for this we can mention the year 2002, when Australia was experimenting harsh drought breaks. So the government created a fund from which farmers could lend money at really low interest rates and up to an amount of a $100,000. The other measure it implemented was the creation of a drought fore, that consists in putting to work unemployed hands alongside famers which suffer from the drought, by doing this farmers will get extra help managing the harsh conditions and employment will be generated. (Marsh, 2002)

Special Note:

This Blog was made and design by María Camila Restrepo Zuluaga, Julia María Rodas Jaramillo and María Natalia Suárez Vallejo

References:

1. Echeverri, S. & Torres, M.L. 2009. Presentation "Oceania" part of the subject Organizations and Cultures at the University EAFIT

2. Marsh, V. 2002. Farmers given more help. Financial Times, London (UK).