In pictures: the dwindling population of the Pacific’s Niue island

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  Today, there are fewer than 1,600 people. Fifteen times as many Niueans, some 24,000, now live across the ocean in New Zealand, 2,400 kilometres away. Nick Perry/AP Photo

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  The stories, songs and language that developed into the Niuean culture over more than 1,000 years are at risk of vanishing. Nick Perry/AP Photo

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  But the Niue prime minister, Toke Talagi, remains bullish on his country’s future. ‘We were viable before anybody else came here. We were independent before anybody else came here,’ he says. Nick Perry/AP Photo

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  Roy Pavihi, 26, is part of a youth group that’s learning to make canoes, using traditional tools like chisels and modern ones like electric planers. He says he thinks the project is encouraging people to stay. Nick Perry/AP Photo

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  ‘We need to follow the skills of our forefathers,’ he says. ‘Our village was renowned for fishing and canoes.’ Nick Perry/AP Photo

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  New Zealand is gradually reducing its aid to Niue, arguing that its contributions to the trust fund and its investments in tourism are helping the country become more self-sufficient. Nick Perry/AP Photo

While much of the world worries about how it will accommodate rapidly growing populations, some islands in the Pacific face the opposite dilemma: how to stop everybody from leaving.

The population decline on Niue, a lush coral atoll, has been steady and relentless.