During the past century, Pohnpei has been colonized by a chain of successive western powers who have introduced different types of land uses and disrupted much of the traditional resource management. At the same time, traditional constraints on population growth have diminished. According to the 1994 census, Pohnpei's population grew an average of 1.81 percent annually from 1985 to 1994. Increasing population pressures are manifesting themselves in many ways. Today, fishermen use more intense fishing methods and take more time to harvest modest catches which produce, on average, smaller fish.
Families question the purity of their once clean and abundant drinking water.
Farmers travel deeper into the upland areas to cultivate crops, while their ancestors' original farmlands have been subdivided and built upon by children and grandchildren. Infrastructure built by Japan and the United States has been dictating land use and settling patterns since the 1930s. The Japanese paved Pohnpei's first streets in Kolonia, the island's port town and hub. Today, a road circling the island facilitates transportation. With the aid of U.S. Compact funds, a power line also rings the island, and water treatment and sewage facilities serve residents of Kolonia and its surrounding areas.