Special Issue "Sustainable Human Populations in Remote Places"

Guest Editor
Dr. Dean Carson
Population and Tourism Studies Group, School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory 0909, Australia
Website: http://www.cdu.edu.au/population
E-Mail:
Interests: sustainable rural communities; tourism and economic development; population mobility; policy responses to disadvantage; population responses to critical incidents

Dear Colleagues,

Remote areas are those with low population densities and distant from major population centres and transport routes. This Special Issue is concerned with the sustainability of human settlement in these places. Human settlement has long been under pressure as a result of limited infrastructure, small local markets, extreme climates, and difficulties in accessing food and shelter. More recently, global climate change, high rates of out-migration, and changes in the nature of resource economies have added to the challenges that people face in living in remote areas. We are seeking submission which explore the challenges to human habitation, and which report on community, industry, and policy interventions which have helped to address these challenges. Some of the key themes include: population ageing, globalisation, Indigenous habitation, gender roles, health status, generational change, migration, climate change, economic development, and transport and infrastructure. We are interested in the range of populations who inhabit remote areas – permanent residents, tourists, seasonal and short term workers, amenity migrants, fly-in/ fly-out workers and so on. We are interested in aspects of environmental, social, cultural, and economic sustainability. Case studies, comparative studies, and conceptual papers are all welcome.

Dr. Dean Carson
Guest Editor

• remoteness
• demography
• economic geography
• community resilience
• migration

Title: Improving Net Benefits from Tourism for People Living in Remote Northern Australia
Author: Romy Greimer
Affiliation: School for Environmental Research, Charles Darwin University; E-Mail: Romy.Greiner@cdu.edu.au
Abstract: Growing tourism is often considered an integral element of economic development strategies for remote areas. Australia’s tropical savannas destinations, like destinations across Australia’s outback regions and remote destinations elsewhere, tend to offer an essentially nature-based tourist product. Vast landscapes offer drive-through, bushwalking and birding experiences. Extensive coastlines, rivers and waterholes make popular fishing spots. Indigenous communities provide authentic cultural experiences. However, economic benefits can be marred by environmental and social impacts, and uneven distribution of benefits from tourism. This paper illustrates key problematic aspects associated with remote area tourism, particularly in an environmental and social domain. It presents empirical research results from two regions within Australia’s tropical savannas, the northern Kimberly (Western Australia) and the Gulf of Carpentaria (Queensland). Demonstrable and perceived impacts of tourism are quantified and an assessment provided of the net benefits of tourism to these destinations--across environmental, social and economic domains. Remote destinations--and the people who make decisions about them--need to understand the basic principles governing tourism and its development so that they can plan appropriately and take anticipative action to safeguard the natural and social values of the destinations, while offering a worthwhile experience for tourists to experience. This research offers recommendations to that effect.

Title: Fly-in/Fly-out: Implications for Community Sustainability
Author: Keith Storey
Affiliation: Department of Geography, Memorial University; E-Mail: kstorey@mun.ca
Abstract: “Fly-in/fly-out” is one of a number of terms used to refer to resource operations that are located at a distance from existing communities. Work is organized around a roster system in which employees spend a certain number of days working on site, after which they return to their home communities for a specified rest period. Typically the employer pays for transportation to and from the worksite and for accommodations and other services at or near the worksite.
This form of work organization is now the standard model for new mining, petroleum and other types of resource development, and in many places the “no town” model has replaced that of the “new town.” The work system has both beneficial and adverse implications for both existing communities near the new resource development and for the communities from which the workforce comes. This paper explores these outcomes drawing primarily upon examples from North America and Australia.

Title: Local Appropriation and Grassroots Involvement in Development Assistance as a Precondition for Sustainability
Authors: Cristina de Nicolas
Affiliation: Menzies School of Health Research; Cristina.deNicolas@menzies.edu.au
Abstract: If international development assistance is to have a lasting and sustainable impact, it must tackle inequalities, promote social justice and assure local appropriation. Interventions where beneficiary populations do not take it as their own will be inherently unstable, and cannot in the long term contribute to sustainable development.
Sustainability is a complicated concept, as it has become a catch-all term, into which a very wide variety of ideas and concepts have been packed. It is used to refer to the development interventions that introduce fair changes and address in the long term the causes of structural vulnerability helping to create an also sustainable human development. However, the sustainability of development aid strategies will never be accomplished unless there is a sense of ownership understood as an end which implies a process of community empowerment.
Development policies rarely assimilate the experience and understanding of the remote and often isolated populations of developing countries and the projects implemented in its name need to be seen as part of the broader social and political context.
This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the process of appropriation of the aid as a crucial factor for sustainability in developing societies and the rural settings in particular. It also aims at defining the concept of “ownership” and the role of international donors in development integrating the local politics of the recipient countries and their views in the heart of the debate on international development assistance and strategies for an authentic sustainable development.
Keywords: International Development Aid; appropriation; ownership; sustainability; grassroots involvement; sustainable development.

Title: Virtual Realities: How Remote Living Populations Become more Remote over Time Despite Improved Technologies
Authors: Dean Carson ¹ and Jen Cleary ²
Affiliations: ¹ School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University; E-Mail: dean.carson@cdu.edu.au
² Centre for Rural Health and Community Development, the University of South Australia
Abstract: The defining characteristic of human populations in remote areas is their sparsity. It is not just that population centres are small, but that they are distant from one another and from their regional, national and global trading partners. This paper argues that the 'tyranny of distance' has actually been exacerbated for remote settlements over time despite, or perhaps even because of, improvements in transport and communications technology. Improved technology has encouraged increasing urbanisation as infrastructure management requirements diminish. There is no longer the need for regularly spaced settlements to maintain transport and communications infrastructure. Settlements which had such roles historically now need to find new justifications for their existence. This paper examines the regulatory frameworks which support transport and communication infrastructure and policy and their impacts on remote settlements. The paper argues that a paradox exists for remote settlements in relation to improved technologies and their benefits, and that understanding this paradox is critical to mitigating the challenge of distance and in better informing regional development policy.

Title: Adaptive Planning and Sustainable Development in Remote West Papua
Author: Sharon Harwood
Affiliation: School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University; E-Mail: harwood@squirrel.com.au
Abstract: Planning is a term used to describe how a community plans for and manages change. The purpose of this paper is to describe how a remotely located indigenous community in West Papua plans for development in their locale. A planning knowledge production process (PKPP) model is created from contemporary planning theory to describe the process and knowledge inputs applied to manage change as a result of tourism development. The research found that this particular community had created a PKPP that is based on the notion of protecting environmental values for future generations, enables product adaptation to market demands and permits community control as opposed to mere input into decision making. Moreover the PKPP that was undertaken by the community was largely inconsistent with contemporary planning theory, as it emphasised the notion of social sustainability over the granting of certainty in development rights. The paper concludes that the literature on adaptive planning is yet to consider alternative conceptions of planning and mechanisms for achieving sustainable development specifically as these relate to remotely located communities.

Title: Tuvalu – Challenges to Long Term Sustainability in an Era of Climate Change
Author: Bruce Prideaux
Affiliation: School of Business, James Cook University; E-Mail: bruce.prideaux@jcu.edu.au
Abstract: Tuvalu, a small remote independent Pacific Ocean nation with a resident population of about 12,000, an average GDP of US$1600 per person and an area just slightly larger than the Vatican City, faces numerous problems that directly affect its long term economic and cultural sustainability. Isolated, underdeveloped and lacking any commercially exploitable resources, except perhaps its latent potential as a tourism destination, the nation’s main foreign income is derived from remittances from Tuvaluan nationals working overseas, foreign aid and income from an international trust fund established by Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Tuvalu is also particularly sensitive to sea level rises of the nature highlighted by the recent IPCC (2007) report. With a maximum elevation of less than 5 meters, and no continental shelf to protect it against cyclones, Tuvalu is highly vulnerable to problems associated with climate change. The problems associated with climate change induced sea level rises may be so large that relocation of the nation’s residents to another country may have to be seriously considered in the future.
Given the nation’s low GDP, its lack of any substantial export income and the dangers posed by climate change long term national sustainability is questionable. As with many other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) tourism has been suggested as one economic sector that may be developed as a new source of income. While the nation has some attractive resources of the nature that have been successfully developed in other SIDS’s it has failed to attract the attention of the global tourism industry and currently attracts as few as 200 leisure visitors each year. The nation’s remoteness, its lack of infrastructure that is able to meet even basic tourism demands and the need for significant foreign investment make development of tourism a difficult although not insurmountable task.
This paper firstly examines a range of issues that directly affect the long term sustainability of Tuvalu as a nation. Issues considered include the potential threat posed by climate change, the potential need to relocate its population and the absence of an export sector that can generate additional income. Building on this discussion the paper then examines the potential for tourism to be developed as an export industry. This assessment is made in the light of the nation’s isolation, potential long term implications of climate change and the potential to develop its existing marine resources, Polynesian culture and beaches. The paper finds that while there is general recognition of the problems that must be overcome to achieve long term sustainability there is a high degree of inertia in adopting strategies such as tourism development to progress long term sustainability. Findings are based on face to face interviews conducted with 23 public and private sector respondents in Tuvalu.

Title: Cultural Resilience - Roles of Cultural Traditions in Sustaining Rural Livelihoods - Case Study from Rural Kandyan Villages in Central Sri Lanka
Author: Chandima Daskon
Affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Otago; E-Mail: dasch015@student.otago.ac.nz
Abstract: For many of us who live in a fast-paced globalizing world, diversity of cultural traditions including traditional knowledge, customs, beliefs, norms, values and ancestral relations might seem irrelevant and outdated. The reasons for the significance of cultural values are complex and many advocacy groups have not successfully provide clear explanations for and convincing arguments in favour of the prioritizing cultural values in the development processes.
The aim of this paper is to examine the roles played by culture in the context of achieving sustainable rural livelihoods, posing the question of how cultural traditions might potentially offer alternatives, not only to strengthening livelihood assets and strategies of rural communities, but also in generating new opportunities during vulnerabilities caused by economic, social and political changes. Kandyan villages afford us a good evidence of ‘cultural resilience’, relying on the longstanding cultural traditions for their survival. This paper shows how culture and traditional values strengthen livelihood adaptation and resilience and, argues that while the impulse for change may come from external influences, adaptation comes from within, through dynamics, which are specific to values of the people. Culture is far from being simple or static, and provides important safety nets for rural communities enabling them to transform adversity into opportunities. The paper concludes that cultural traditions provide a multi-purpose adaptive system not only encouraging individual economic achievements in a community, but also safeguarding the embedded values of their societies.
Key words: culture; resilience; rural communities; livelihoods; Kandy; Sri Lanka

Title: The Persistence of Place: Addressing Infrastructure and Service Provision through Combined Approaches in Rural Scotland
Author: Sarah Skerratt
Affiliation: Scottish Agricultural College; E-Mail: Sarah.Skerratt@sac.ac.uk
Abstract: There is widespread acceptance that the absence or presence of infrastructure and services in rural areas can lead to cycles of decline or resilience in these localities. It is also accepted that in remoter areas, population sparsity leads to a higher unit cost for delivery of services and infrastructure. For this reason, providers from the private sector do not find such areas attractive for investment. At the same time, we are facing a reduction in spending capability from the public sector due to the significant impact of economic crisis on their resource base.
How are these seemingly intractable challenges being addressed? I look at rural Scotland, examining the policy timeline since early 2000 (following devolution), and public sector interventions, particularly since 2007 when a major reform of local government policy and spending took place. I also look briefly at the activities of the private sector, particularly in relation to broadband provision. Specifically, I examine the ways in which people on the ground have taken service provision into their own hands in order to address shortfalls and market failure.
I conclude with questions concerning the “hot spots” and “not spots” of infrastructure and service provision that we observe in remote rural Scotland. I focus particularly on whether what can be termed a Darwinian approach (where the fittest survive) to such provision is acceptable, or whether there should be strengthening of a more strategic, cross-department, cross-sectoral approach to these challenges. I argue that these are critical questions, with investment and partnership being essential to enhancing community resilience in Scotland’s remotest rural areas.