Monitoring of the Environment in Papua New Guinea

Monitoring studies asses changes in resources within a defined area over a specified time period. Rapid changes since the independence of Papua New Guinea have been marked by rapid urban growth, industrial expansion, cultural changes, and environmental degradation. The rich biodiversity has been threatened by factors common in most tropical regions: shifting cultivation, unregulated hunting and logging, rivers pollution and weak governance. However, the central government envisioned a goal of sustainability to be achieved by 2050 year which includes "nature wise utilization and conservation"; paradoxically minimal research has been done locally to back those long term efforts, and in this the significant advances of geomatics complement field surveys by assessing remote areas at different scales and times. The ambition of conquering and mastering the external world of nature lies at the heart of the modern scientific project; by sending satellites to the space man reached the Archimedean point according to the philosopher Hannah Arendt.