In days gone by some of the Motu-speaking peoples around Port Moresby used to go on annual trading expeditions to the Gulf of Papua. There they would exchange with the inhabitants of that area pots and other valuables for sago and canoe logs. These expeditions were called hiri, and were not only spectacular in terms of the number, nature and size of the sailing craft involved and the cargoes they carried but also very important economically and in other ways to the Motu and others directly or indirectly involved.
For over forty years, archaeologists working along Papua New Guinea’s southern coastline have sought evidence for early ceramics and its relationship with Lapita wares of Island Melanesia. Failing to find any such evidence of pottery more than 2000 BP, and largely based on the excavation of eight early pottery-bearing sites during the late 1960s into the early 1970s, synchronous colonization some 2000 BP along 500km of the south Papuan coastline by post-Lapita ceramic manufacturers has been posited.
How can linguistics contribute to our knowledge about human dispersals in the distant past? We will consider the case of New Guinea and surrounding islands, one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world. This study is a follow-up on the Eurocores OMLL project Pioneers of Island Melanesia, reported in Dunn et al. (2005).
Peatlands are common in montane areas above 1,000 m in New Guinea and become extensive above 3,000 m in the subalpine zone. In the montane mires, swamp forests and grass or sedge fens predominate on swampy alley bottoms. These mires may be 4–8 m in depth and up to 30,000 years in age. In Papua New Guinea (PNG) there is about 2,250 km2 of montane peatland, and Papua Province (the Indonesian western half of the island) probably contains much more. Above 3,000 m, peat soils form under blanket bog on slopes as well as on valley floors.
Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the region south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and Island Melanesia - lands that have remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present .
Two of the unanswered questions of Papua New Guinea prehistory are: (1) whether agriculture was present
in the mid-Holocene not only in the highlands but also in the lowlands and Bismarck Archipelago and (2)whether the presence of agriculture might have been influenced by interaction between these regions. This paper addresses these questions through an analysis of prehistoric stone mortars, pestles and figures, which hold information on both style and function.
This chapter provides a brief description of Papua New Guinea, its past and present climate as well as projections for the future. The climate observation network and the availability of atmospheric and oceanic data records are outlined. The annual mean climate, seasonal cycles and the influences of large-scale climate features such as the West Pacific Monsoon and patterns of climate variability (e.g. the El Niño‑Southern Oscillation) are analysed and discussed.
UNDP has been working during the last decade to support countries to transition to green, inclusive, climate-resilient development paths. More than US$790 million in grant financing from the Global Environment Facility-managed Least Developed Countries Fund and the Special Climate Change Fund, as well as the Kyoto Protocol’s Adaptation Fund and bilateral finance, have been mobilized to assist countries to achieve their adaptation
priorities. These resources build on and complement over US$2.5 billion in co-financing that has also been invested.
The project Mangrove Rehabilitation for Sustainably Managed Healthy Forests (MARSH) commenced on October 1st 2012 and ended on September 30th 2015. The project was initially supposed to be implemented over five years in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. In the first quarter of Year 3 the donor decided to change the focus from community based to national interventions for greater impact and to limit the rest of the activities of the third year to PNG alone. The project life span was thus shortened and there was nothing started in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
The belief that illness, death and misfortune of all sorts is frequently caused by the deliberate interventions of individuals with special powers or magical knowledge is pervasive throughout Melanesia. As a result, sorcery and witchcraft beliefs and practices exert a powerful influence on many aspects of day-to-day life, as well as being significant vectors for community tensions, conflict and violence.
Our cultures and traditions are deeply entrenched in every Papua New Guinean, in our families, our homes and basically in our way of life. Our cultures and traditions are also preserved and kept alive through our arts, paintings, sculptures, carvings, dances and songs, folklores, architecture and literature. In fact, our cultures and traditions apply in all aspects of our lives. Culture is the very essence of our existence - it reflects our history, language, tradition and our beliefs.
A four-week mission was undertaken in Papua New Guinea to evaluate the work of the National Cultural Council and the Provincial Cultural Centres and the relationships between them, and to advise on the development of cultural centres with special regard to their structures, functions and programmes, as well as to their coordination.
This is an economic evaluation of the compensation to which Papua New Guinea’s customary landholders -
wrongly dispossessed through Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABL) - might be entitled if they successfully sued the government. The evaluation involves the calculation of commercial loss but also, and probably more importantly, economic equivalent value loss. The framework identifies the relevant heads of value (not just priced transactions) and demonstrates appropriate methods for valuation. It does not pretend to be a price calculator but rather a tool for advocacy.
Large numbers of birds, including more than 68 000 wild-caught and reportedly captive-bred CITES-listed individuals, were imported from the Solomon Islands in the 2000s. The vast majority were imported by Malaysia and Singapore and often re-exported, particularly in the case of Singapore. In terms of species composition, there were a few species native to the Solomon Islands, however the majority (77%) were non-native species from Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. 13 736 individuals of these non-native species were exported as “captive-bred”.
This volume reports the results of studies carried out in the Southern half of the Simbu Province of Papua New Guinea (Fig. 1.0 by the Simbu Land Use Project (SLUP) between 1980 and 1982.
Massive overhunting of wildlife for meat across the humid tropics is now causing local extinctions of
numerous species. Rural people often rely heavily on wild meat, but, in many areas, this important source of
food and income is either already lost or is being rapidly depleted. The problem can only be tackled by looking at
the wider economic and institutional context within which such hunting occurs, from household economics
to global terms of trade. Conservation efforts must be placed within a landscape context; a mosaic of hunted
Escalating anthropogenic impacts on tropical biodiversity have increased the vulnerability of endemic species. Selective harvesting of species is one of the major threats to birds and mammal species in the tropics. Many indigenous cultures, however, have long established cultural associations with certain species. The hunting and trade of species have been mainly for subsistence and socio-cultural ties within their communities.
Hunting is a major driver of biodiversity loss, but a systematic large-scale estimate of hunting-induced defaunation is lacking. We synthesized 176 studies to quantify huntinginduced declines of mammal and bird populations across the tropics. Bird and mammal abundances declined by 58% (25 – 76 %) and by 83% (72 – 90%) in hunted compared to unhunted areas. Bird and mammal populations were depleted within 7 and 40 km from hunters’ access points (roads and settlements). Additionally, hunting pressure was higher in areas with better accessibility to major towns where wild meat could be traded.
THE present paper discusses a form of social classification which may be referred to provisionally as sex affiliation. The essence of it is that male children are classed with their father's group and female children with their mother's. I shall first endeavour to give an account, in its more or less relevant aspects, of the social organization of the people among whom this sex affiliation is practised; after that we may discuss the practice itself in greater detail and consider its implications.