A. S. Goudie · 2000
The review describes Samoa: Mapping the Diversity as a slim volume that brings together extensive data on Samoa through black-and-white maps and explanatory text. Its coverage includes the environment, forest cover, population, land tenure, infrastructure, agriculture and fishing. The reviewer considers it a comprehensive introduction to the Samoan environment and the uses Samoans make of it.
Camilla Cockerton · 2000
This review assesses the book 'Samoa: Mapping the Diversity' by R. Gerard Ward and Paul Ashcroft. The book aims to reveal significant regional differences in Samoa's environment, forestry, population, land tenure, infrastructure, agriculture, crops, livestock, and fishing, and to make information about Samoa more accessible and usable. Drawing primarily on census data from the 1980s and early 1990s, including the 1989 agricultural census, the authors construct detailed maps and tables that clearly demonstrate regional variations and spatial interrelationships. The book is immediately useful for planners, officials, and development practitioners, particularly for locally tailored solutions, and serves as a valuable resource for students and the public, exemplifying the application of data processing and GIS in Pacific Island contexts.
John Connell · 2002
John Connell reviews R. Gerard Ward and P. Ashcroft’s 1998 atlas Samoa: Mapping the Diversity. Its more than 60 maps cover Samoa’s 48 fipule districts, chiefly using late-1980s data and emphasizing agriculture through the 1989 Census of Agriculture. Explanations and bibliographies accompany every map and trace changes back to the 1950s. Connell values the recovery of material from obscure unpublished reports, particularly on fishing. He finds that the atlas demonstrates the spread of the wage economy near Apia, similar spatial patterns in commercial agriculture and fishing, uneven development, probably increasing inequality, and population movement towards northern Upolu. Forest cover on Savai‘i and differences in access to services further illustrate regional diversity. He also stresses the limits imposed by missing housing, income, nutrition and mortality data and by district boundaries that blur distinctions between Apia and nearby rural areas. Connell praises the atlas as comprehensive within the available disaggregated data and hopes it will encourage comparable atlases for other Pacific island countries.
