Susanna Ounei
Susanna Ounei was born in 1945 in Ouvéa in the Loyalty Islands Province of New Caledonia.
Her official birthdate was 15 August 1945, although later in life she found that this date may have been incorrect.
She grew up in Poindimié on the east coast of New Caledonia.
Under French colonial rule the Kanak population fell from about 70,000 in the pre-colonial era to about 26,000 in the 1980s.
The Kanaks were segregated from whites and were subject to many restrictions and impositions.
Ounei wrote that "We grew up seeing how our parents were humiliated."
Serious Kanak resistance began to develop in the 1960s and 1970s.
In response, the French government encouraged massive migration to New Caledonia to reduce the Kanaks to a powerless minority.
Biodiversity of New Caledonia
New Caledonia's animal land diversity was similar to that of some oceanic islands, particularly New Zealand and as in these islands, the biodiversity was greater before being inhabited by humans. The island has no native mammals except for bats and no native amphibians. The vertebrates are dominated by reptiles and birds. Today the island has 21 endemic species of birds, including one endemic family, the Rhynochetidae, represented by one living species, the kagu. The island is also home to the unusual tool-using New Caledonian crow. The separation of the Gondwana islands before the mammalian expansion that allowed the radiation of flightless birds (moa, kiwi, sylviornis, cagous) and Mesozoic reptilian forms such as the tuatara of New Zealand.