New Caledonia: a continental island

Total land area: 18,576 square kilometres
Highest point: 1628 metres above sea level
Annual rainfall: 1000–2000 millimetres
Population in the year 2000: 212,800
As well as the indigenous Kanak people, many people from France and other French territories live in New Caledonia.

Environmental threats to New Caledonia include drought on the west coast, and cyclones. In the future, any rise in sea level will encroach on coastal areas.

What is a continental island?
A continental island is a fragment of land that has broken away from a larger continent. New Caledonia split from the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland about eighty-five million years ago. Continental islands have a wide range of rock and soil types. Because of that, they are home to many different native plants.

Food and water on New Caledonia
The main island of New Caledonia has fresh water in most places.  Much of the soil is shallow and stony, but about a tenth of the land can be cultivated.

In earlier times, the Kanak people of New Caledonia depended on food crops that their ancestors introduced. They grew two main crops: taro (which they cultivated in specially built ponds) and yams. Marine resources were also important.

Toolmaking on New Caledonia
The Kanak people took advantage of New Caledonia’s many different rock types. They made cutting tools from flint-like rocks, and used jade for fashioning tools, ceremonial objects, and adornments. Ceremonial adzes from New Caledonia were often used as a symbol of chiefly authority. They are made from a type of jade called nephrite. Most pounamu (New Zealand greenstone) is also nephrite.

How the Kanak world began

Life, in all its vigour, came into being and took form; it made the thunder roar, raised great waves, then vanished, only to emerge elsewhere.

Gradually, humanity … became dominant … Through myths and clan symbols, the relationship with the ‘other world’ remains potent.

There are many ‘Kanak countries’ in New Caledonia. A Kanak country is both an area of land and the group of people who live in it. All members of the group are related to a founding clan, and trace their history back to the original hill or house platform from which the group takes its name.

Quote from Mwakaa: The Pathways of Kanak Tradition edited by Emmanuel Kasarhérou, published by Centre Culturel Tjibaou, Nouméa, Nouvelle-Calédonie, 2000