ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the question of sustainability using some perspectives on Highlands Papua New Guinea. Given the fact that Highlanders have continuously inhabited the area for approximately 50,000 years, the set of cultures in the Highlands provide a useful basis from which to consider successful approaches to long-term resilience. There have been many important works on the history of societal collapse, but less has been written on what might be called the long-term history of sustainable resilience. Contraception or induced abortions can help to reduce population growth, as can of course illness conditions or killings resulting from conflict. Tension over gardening land was clearly exhibited in the fighting histories of the 1950s that Andrew Vayda collected. The pattern of fighting in which a group might be driven off their land usually resulted in their later return to their territory, but in a few cases led to annexation.
