This thesis looks at chiefly Polynesian leadership in the 21st century. Since 2006, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Cook Islands and Aotearoa have each experienced the loss of prominent chiefly leaders. In each of the cases, new leaders have risen to take the places of the recently departed ones. In a world that is constantly changing, the...

Polynesian settlers transformed the native forests of the central Pacific islands into productive economic landscapes. Root crops came to dominate agronomic systems in many areas but arboriculture was the dominant mode of food production in some, and it is not well understood how these different endpoints evolved. In the Marquesas Islands, an economy dominated by...

This thesis presents a description of evidentiality in the Urama language, which is a dialect of Northeast Kiwai, spoken on Urama Island in the Gulf Province of Papua New Guinea. The data in this study has come from both narratives and elicitation sessions with a native speaker of the language. The aim of this thesis...

The purpose of this research is to better characterise the specific behaviour of Tropical Cyclones (TCs) in the Southwest Pacific ocean basin in response to a number of key global and regional teleconnection patterns.

Mariculture interest in the Tridacnidae family of giant clams has increased in response to economic and nutritional opportunities, but also in response to increasing reports of local extinctions as a result of over-harvesting, pollution, and habitat degradation. Key impediments to culturing giant clams for stock restoration initiatives include larval mortality, typically 96%, and a lack...