Emergy Analysis of the Papua New Guinea's Nature and Economy

Abstract

As Papua New Guinea enters its 40th anniversary, nothing is more desirable then to find a new development pathway for the next 40 years. Faced with various geophysical and sociopolitical constraints, a development model that harnesses the National Goals and Directive Principles is highly desired. Papua New Guinea’s current growth model was borrowed from its colonial past which has failed to provide a sound platform for prosperity. Papua New Guinea requires a new kind of development model for progress. The “sustainable development” model was considered as a desired model yet it failed to work. Currently, two other related sustainability models, i.e. green growth and green economy, offer promising possibilities for Papua New Guinea to prosper. Presently, Papua New Guinea is experiencing tremendous transformation due to its long-term development plan. However, the basic question remains, do these development models offer practical solutions for Papua New Guinea to advance more sustainably? Different methodologies can be used to evaluate development progress. In this study, emergy was chosen as the methodology to evaluate Papua New Guinea’s environment and economy. Emergy is different from other valuation approaches as it tries to evaluate both environmental and economic resources on a common basis. It is a biophysical approach which differs from the pure economic or the market based approaches. The result of this study indicated that Papua New Guinea has not really progressed towards a sustainable society. The results show that it has higher total emergy use yet this has not been translated effectively into improved quality of life. Although the country has experienced sharp increase in its GDP growth, it is also faced with an unsustainable population growth trend. Based on the emergy analysis, it can be concluded that the National Strategy for Responsible Sustainable Development Policy is a necessity for the country to maximize the real wealth. According to the study, Papua New Guinea has a long way to become a transformed society compared to South Korean and Indonesia.