Tommy Wakum for gathering information from government agencies in Papua, as well as Scott Frazier. CI’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business made possible the relationship with BP, and for this we thank Glenn Prickett, Assheton Carter, and Marielle Carter.
We thank the Harvard University Herbaria, especially Bob Cook and Frances Maguire, for helping to arrange a postdoctoral appointment for AJM during the period that this book was pulled together. We also thank Rose Balan, Donna Barrett, Anne Marie Countie, Deidre Fogg, Ingrid McDonough, Karen Pinto, Chris Preheim, and Lisa Toste for administrative and technical support. AJM would also like to express thanks and appreciation to his friends and colleagues at the Herb-aria, especially Peter Ashton, Jen Baltzer, Stuart Davies, Jessica Dolan, Wendy Duan, Amy Dunham, Ken Feeley, Kanchi Ghandi, Henry Kesner, Walter Kittridge, Genevieve Lewis-Gentry, Dave Lohman, Laura Lukas, Melinda Peters, Sabrina Russo, and Emily Wood. Our publisher has been very supportive of this remaining volume of the series, and for this we thank them, especially Ed Walters and Christine LeBlond, who patiently guided us along the way. We salute the CEO of Periplus, Eric Oey, for his commitment to the series.
We are indebted to the Indonesian State Minister of the Environment for providing the Preface for the book, and the Papuan Peoples’ Assembly for their supporting letter. We thank Professor Edward O. Wilson for providing the Foreword. In addition, we recognize J. Burke Burnett for his dedication to the completion of this project. Michelle Brown also deserves mention as an important supporter of the initiative.
The project could not have happened without the support and dedication of the Government of Indonesia. In particular, we thank Dr. Dedy Darnedi, director of the Biology Research and Development Center, Indonesian Institute of Science. We also thank the Universitas Cenderawasih in Abepura and the State University of Papua in Manokwari for their support. Thanks also to the Papua Conservation Fund for supporting this project.
Anne McGuire was this project’s tireless editor, reader, and indexer. For this major contribution, we offer our utmost gratitude to her. In a like manner, Ann Twombly provided the excellent book design, and patiently saw this unwieldy project through to the typesetter and, finally, the printer. Thanks for her wonderful work!
Finally, we thank our families for their support, and we hope the students of Papua over the next decade will find this book helpful in their efforts to better know and better conserve all that makes Papua unique—the forests and waters and wildlife and traditional societies.
| 19 October 2006 | |
| Andrew J. Marshall | Bruce M. Beehler |
| Davis, California | Washington, D.C. |
Foreword
EDWARD O. WILSON
PAPUA HAS LASTED into the twenty-first century as largely a blank space on the map, and we will do well to treasure it for that. Here for the last time in history, as human modernity closes irreversibly over the planet, we may take comfort that there still exists a land "beyond the frontier" such as Papua. We can still feel the aura that drew explorers of past centuries and provided an exit from their otherwise controlled and predictable lives. We can share what the great adventurer Richard Burton expressed in 1856: "Of the gladdest moments in human life, me-thinks, is a departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands." There, he rejoiced, "Afresh dawns the morn of life." And exploring Papua is no trek through hourless days across some vast desert. Rather, it offers entry, as the present volume makes clear, into an intact world of ancient cultures and wondrous life forms.
I have never visited Papua, but I enjoyed all the emotions just expressed while traveling in 1955 through a large part of Papua New Guinea, to the east. I was a young entomologist then, myrmecologist to be exact, and the first specialist on ants to visit the great island. With no predecessors except a few casual collectors of these little insects, I had only a vague idea of what to expect. Everywhere I searched I found new species. I studied previously unrecorded social behaviors, and I frantically scribbled notes on all I saw (there were no pocket-sized tape recorders in those days). Humble though ants may be, and as modest my own efforts, I considered myself a true explorer in unknown terrain. With no previous myrmecologist’s footprints to give me pause, I felt somehow I belonged to this land and had some responsibility for it. I like to believe that others privileged to pioneer in their respective specialties have felt the same way.
New Guinea, including Papua, is a challenge and a paradise for anthropologists and biogeographers. Its complex mountainous terrain has divided its human populations, during 40,000 or more years of occupation, into the most diverse array of cultures and languages of any comparable area in the world. Long before people arrived, the island’s equatorial location and geology combined to make it one of the several most biologically rich regions of Earth, both on the land and in the coral reefs of its marine coasts.
For millions of years new species have flowed into it from nearby tropical Asia to the west and from Australia to the south. Many of the immigrants succeeded in penetrating the mountainous interior; and there, like Homo sapiens among the more recent immigrants, they tended to spread out and diversify. Some of the productions of the indigenous fauna and flora were trapped by their adaptation to strictly local conditions. Others, ecologically more flexible, expanded their ranges to penetrate northern Australia, as well as islands and archipelagoes in the remainder of Melanesia.
The island’s large size, its constant climate favorable to vegetative growth, rugged topography, and nearness to the continental source areas of Asia and Australia have made New Guinea a hypergenerator of human and biological diversity.
New Guinea, including the remote marches of Papua, will not remain secluded for long, however. Soon its indigenous people, together with a growing immigrant population, will take over as the explorers and developers. Those of us on the outside able to conduct the early studies of the island nonetheless have a responsibility to make the transition in future generations as secure and beneficent as possible. We will serve them and the whole world to great benefit if we include in this program of assistance the effort to conserve as much as possible of the great island’s extraordinary cultural and natural heritage.
Preface
PAPUA IS THE LARGEST ISLAND in Indonesia (area of 41.48 million ha), with the smallest population compared to other islands of Indonesia. More than 2.6 million people live in Papua, and almost 75% of the population lives in rural areas. Since the early 1990s, Papua has experienced the highest population growth rate of all Indonesian provinces, which stands at over 3% annually. This is partly a result of high birth rate and influx migration from other regions in Indonesia.
Papua is endowed with an amazing range of diverse and unusual ecosystems, including glaciers, alpine meadows, cloud forests, lowland forests, savannahs, mangrove forests, coral reefs, and seagrass beds. Well known for its vital tropical rainforest, with the tallest tropical trees and vast biodiversity, Papua plays a pivotal role in Indonesia’s biodiversity, contributing to the country’s status as one of the biologically richest countries in the world and hosting around 50% of all of Indonesia’s biodiversity. Papua is home to 15,000–20,000 plants (55% endemic), 602 birds (52% endemic), 125 mammal (58% endemic), and 223 reptiles (35% endemic). Many of these species are endemic to the island, including birds of paradise, tree kangaroos, rainbow fishes, birdwing butterflies, various orchids, and thousands of other plants and animals. In February 2006, a team of scientists exploring the Foja Mountains discovered numerous new species of birds, butter-flies, amphibians, and plants, including a species of rhododendron that may have the largest bloom of the genus.
However, biodiversity in Papua is facing very serious problems, such as biodiversity loss and ecological degradation. Ecological threats include logging—induced deforestation, forest conversion into agricultural plantation (especially oil palm),
