Geographical location, deforestation, climate change: What led to the deadly landslide in Papua New Guinea

• Papua New Guinea is vulnerable to natural disasters such as landslides and earthquakes because of a host of reasons, including its geographical location and deforestation.
• However, climate change has worsened the situation in recent years.

CAUSING FACTOR

• The main reason is the geographical location of the country.
• It sits on the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ — a string of hundreds of volcanoes and earthquake sites which run along the Pacific Ocean.
• The ring, which is a semicircle or horse shoe in shape, witnesses many earthquakes due to constant sliding past, colliding into, or moving above, or below each other of the tectonic plates.
• Frequent earthquakes also lead to a high number of landslide incidents in Papua New Guinea.
• For instance, in 2018, a large earthquake triggered many landslides across the region.
• Other factors like the country’s mountainous terrain and tropical climate also contribute to more frequent landslides.
• The situation is exacerbated by the fact that Papua New Guinea lacks infrastructure and economic development to deal with natural disasters
  • unlike other nations like Taiwan, Italy and Japan, which are also vulnerable to such disasters.
• As a result, death tolls are usually high when landslides or earthquakes take place in the country.
• Besides the aforementioned factors, deforestation and mining have also played a role in more landslides.
• As Papua New Guinea is the world’s fifth largest exporter of palm oil, it is dominated by palm oil plantations, which have been cropped up in place of forests.
• The mining of “gold, silver, nickel, copper, and cobalt.. and LNG operations have been taking place in areas where deadly landslides occurred in the past

What is the role of climate change?

• Much like the rest of the world, Papua New Guinea is also reeling from the adverse effects of climate change.
• The country has witnessed an increase in temperature of approximately 0.8-0.9 degree Celsius, as measured in the difference between average temperature in 1900–1917 and 2000–2017, according to a report by the United Nations.
• Consequently, extreme weather events have become more frequent and intense in Papua New Guinea.