New Guinea and Singapore

Many of you have asked me questions regarding the way of life of the tribes living in Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya, compared to the way of life of people living in Singapore. The Blue Marble textbook is quite unclear on this, so I'll try my best to condense the differences into a few points that you might find easier to digest.

The people in New Guinea live in a forest environment. Their activities have very little impact on the physical environment. They do not greatly modify the environment, besides clearing small patches of forest to grow crops.

The people in Singapore however live in an urban environment, which is an example of a human environment. Over the years, the original physical environment has been changed and converted into a human environment. The physical environment has been greatly modified in order to create the modern urban environment. Here, the human features dominate the landscape.

The people who live in New Guinea depend largely on shifting cultivation, where they clear small areas of forest and grow crops for their own use. The forest which they live in provides them with all that they need: land for farming, wild animals for them to hunt, materials for shelters, clothing and tools. Technology is very primitive compared to that of Singapore.

In Singapore, the people do not depend so much on the physical environment around them. Instead, resources are imported from all over the world. Singapore does not depend very heavily on farming, but where there is farming, it is high-technology and not as primitive as the shifting cultivation adopted by the New Guinea tribes. Technology is very advanced, and is extremely important in all aspects of the daily lives of people living in Singapore.

The people in New Guinea have learned to adapt to the physical environment. Their lifestyles are affected by the physical environment.

The people in Singapore have changed the physical environment to suit their needs. The physical environment is affected by their lifestyles.

Note: New Guinea is made up of several political entities. It consists of the country of Papua New Guinea, and the Indonesian provinces formerly collectively known as Irian Jaya. Check this link for details.