Case study: population and Environment Australia migration

Question 1

What are the environmental challenges Australia faces?

Answer 1

• soil degradation
• desertification
• habitat destruction
• urbanisation
• hazards
  > cyclones
  > droughts
  > thunderstorms
  > floods
  > bush fires

Question 2

What is the population characteristics of Australia?

Answer 2

• most population is concentrated outside the tropics and hostile semi-desert
• in the more temperate latitudes the country’s cities are facing overpopulation

Question 3

What has Australia done to discourage immigration?

Answer 3

• mandatory detention centres for asylum seekers in
  > introduced in 1992
  > Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, and Nauru
• Pacific Solution
• justified in terms of saving lived that would otherwise be lost at sea
  > reports of suicide, rape and medical neglect at the offshore detention camps
  > 2016 Government of Papua New Guinea rules the Manus Island detention centre was illegal