New Guinea

By Rhett A. Butler [Last update August 8, 2020]

New Guinea, the second largest island in the world, is home to one of the last great expanses of tropical rainforest as well as some of the world's most traditional forest dwellers, some of whom have had little or no contact with the outside world (as of 2010, 44 groups in Indonesian Papua are estimated remain uncontacted). The island is also rich with natural resources including timber, minerals, and offshore fisheries and energy deposits.

Today New Guinea is divided into two parts: the independent country of Papua New Guinea (eastern half), and the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua (the western half formerly known as Irian Jaya).

Papua New Guinea has seen more widespread "development" than the Indonesian part of the island, although the average citizen remains poor. Most Papuans are part of the informal economy, living off subsistent activities. The dominant industries are extraction-based (logging, mining, and increasingly, industrial agriculture).

Quick Facts on New Guinea

• Population: 7.1 million
• First human habitation: 40,000-60,000 years before present
• Languages: 1073 (826 PNG, 257 Indonesian Papua, 12 overlapping)
• European colonization: First contact came in the 16th century; first European claim was in 1828 when the Netherlands claimed the western half of the island as Netherlands New Guinea; Germany and Britain established claims shortly thereafter. For the first half of the 20th century Australia and the Dutch ruled the two halves of New Guinea.
• Indonesian Colonization/Independence: The Dutch handed Papua over to the U.N. in 1962, Indonesia took the territory in 1963. Australia granted independence to the half it controlled in 1975.
• Land area: 786,000 sq km (303,500 sq mi)
• Length: more than 1600 km
• Highest point: Puncak Jaya (4,884 meters - 16,023 feet) in Papua
• Biomes/ecosystems: glacial (permanent equatorial glaciers), alpine tundra, savanna, montane and lowland rainforest, mangroves, wetlands, lake and river ecosystems, seagrasses, and coral reefs
• Biodiversity: Despite covering less than 0.5 percent of Earth's surface, New Guinea is estimated to contain 5-10 percent of global biodiversity. New Guinea's species are characteristic of Australia rather than Asia due to its historical links to the Australian land mass (when sea levels fall, New Guinea is connected to Australia).

Forest cover in New Guinea

According to Hansen / WRI 2020, the Indonesia-controlled part of New Guinea accounts for about 54% of the island's primary forest and about 51% of the island's total tree cover. If the adjacent islands of Bougainville, East New Britain, Manus, New Ireland, and West New Britain are included as part of New Guinea, then the Indonesian share falls to 50.5% and 48%, respectively.

Environmental issues in New Guinea

New Guinea's rainforests are being logged, cleared, and converted at a rapid rate due to timber extraction, subsistence agriculture, and expansion of industrial agriculture. Between 1972 and 2002 PNG lost more than 5 million hectares of forest, trailing only Brazil and Indonesia among tropical countries.

Since 2002, the island as a whole last 1.15 million ha of primary forest, representing 1.9 percent of its extent in that year. PNG accounted for 53% of overall tree cover loss between 2002 and 2019.

In both PNG and Indonesian Papua, deforestation typically begins with selective logging operations. Once valuable timber is extracted from an area, the forest tract is more likely to be coverted for industrial plantations.

Water pollution from mining is also a concern in New Guinea.

Plant diversity in New Guinea

According to Middleton et al 2019, the Indonesian portion of New Guinea and the Maluku Islands have 9,518 species of vascular plants, of which 4,380 -- or 46% -- are endemic. 465 "new" species of plants were described between 2011 and 2017.

New Guinea itself is estimated to have 13,634 plant species, more than any other island. Papua New Guinea has 10,973 described species, while Indonesian New Guinea (Papua Barat and Papua provinces) has 7,616.

More images at the New Guinea slideshow

THE LATEST NEW GUINEA RAINFOREST NEWS

With rare mammal tourism, observing means conserving (commentary) (01 Nov 2024 00:27:11 +0000)
- Mammal-watching tourism has traditionally focused on large, charismatic species, such as the African ‘big five’ (lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and African buffalo) or humpback whales in California and New England.
- But this is changing in recent years as some big cat species once considered impossible to see in the wild — like jaguars — have become major tourist draws, contributing to their conservation. “It comes as little surprise that people will pay to see big cats, but will they pay to see smaller, less well-known mammal species? Yes, it turns out.”
- As interest in mammal-watching grows, can any of the 6,500 other less iconic global mammal species also benefit? The authors of a new op-ed think so, especially when the tourism benefits are captured by local communities and private land-owners, providing direct incentives for them to conserve mammals, big and small, on their lands.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

New database unveils the role of Asian hornbills as forest seed dispersers (15 May 2024 15:36:43 +0000)
- Equipped with bulky beaks and impressive wingspans, hornbills are vital long-distance seed dispersers in tropical forests. But while a lot is known about the eating habits of hornbills, many mysteries still remain.
- A new study has compiled an open-source, publicly available database of Asian and New Guinean hornbill frugivory and seed dispersal research.
- The new resource aims to help researchers, students and conservation organizations pinpoint knowledge gaps so that they can target their efforts and limited resources.
- The new frugivory database could also prove useful for reforestation projects, many of which increasingly recognize the importance of planting food plants to attract natural seed dispersers, which in turn helps to further regenerate the forest.

Conservationists welcome new PNG Protected Areas Act — but questions remain (12 Apr 2024 16:08:07 +0000)
- In February 2024, Papua New Guinea’s parliament passed the Protected Areas Bill, first introduced two decades ago, into an act, which aims to establish a national system of protected areas to achieve the conservation target of protecting 30% of PNG’s territory by 2030.
- The act lays out a legal framework for working with customary landowners in the country to earmark protected areas, establishes regulations to manage these areas and provides provisions for alternative livelihoods to forest-dependent communities.
- The act also mandates the establishment of a long-term Biodiversity and Climate Task Fund, which communities can access to implement their management plans and conservation objectives.
- While conservationists say the act is a good step toward protecting biodiversity, they raise concerns about its implementation and whether the promised benefits of protected areas will reach landowning communities.

Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests (11 Apr 2024 08:34:58 +0000)
- A new study indicates that significant networks of informal, unmapped and unregulated roads sprawl into forest-rich regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
- Slipping beneath the purview of environmental governance, construction of these “ghost roads” typically precede sharp spikes in deforestation and represent blind spots in zoning and law enforcement, the study says.
- The authors underscore that the relentless proliferation of ghost roads ranks among the gravest of threats facing the world’s remaining tropical forests.
- The findings bolster a growing momentum toward the development of AI-based road-mapping systems to help conservation biologists and resource managers better keep track of informal and illegal road networks and curb associated deforestation rates.

In Raja Ampat, pearl farming balances business and ecological sustainability (22 Mar 2024 13:55:11 +0000)
- In the Raja Ampat islands of eastern Indonesia, pearl farming thrives within a healthy marine ecosystem, with companies like PT Arta Samudra focusing on sustainable practices.
- Pearl farms are very secretive about their methods, which include the delicate process of implanting beads into oysters to cultivate pearls, a technique developed to accelerate pearl production.
- Challenges such as climate change impacts and maintaining a pristine environment highlight the importance of balancing industry growth with ecosystem preservation.
- With concerted efforts to protect marine habitats, Raja Ampat’s pearl industry aims for global recognition while emphasizing sustainability.

Indonesia invites Turkish investors to develop tuna farms in Papua (30 Jan 2024 09:41:01 +0000)
- Indonesia has invited Turkish investors to participate in offshore tuna farming in the Papua region’s Biak Numfor district, aiming to make it a hub for tuna exports.
- The Indonesian fisheries ministry said Turkish fisheries operators can bring innovation to enhance productivity and ensure sustainability of the tuna fishery.
- Indonesia, a significant contributor to global tuna production, faces sustainability challenges due to excessive harvesting of wild tuna.
- The outreach to Türkiye is the latest in efforts to get foreign investors to help develop Indonesia’s various fisheries, including a similar offer earlier in January for Vietnam to invest in lobster farms.

In PNG, researchers record 9 new species of predatory hermaphroditic land snails (24 Jan 2024 20:14:12 +0000)
- A new study describes nine new species of land snails lurking in leaf litter across PNG. The discovery results from an extensive countrywide survey undertaken after a gap of 60 years.
- The newly identified snails, all grouped under the genus Torresiropa, are predatory hermaphrodites and about the size of a fingernail. They are restricted to single islands or mountain ranges.
- The discovery adds to the little-known biodiversity of mollusks in the country, and scientists expect to find many more new species in the future.
- As logging, road construction and other human activities threaten the rainforests of PNG, experts warn that human-mediated activities could drive many land snail species to extinction before they are even known to science.

Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea (30 Nov 2023 23:15:25 +0000)
- Papua New Guinea boasts the third largest rainforest in the world and houses about 7% of the planet’s biodiversity, including threatened species found nowhere else in the world.
- In recent years, fraudulent practices in the logging and agriculture industry have resulted in massive forest loss across the country while road network expansion plans threaten to further fragment forests and open them up for resource exploitation.
- Satellite data and imagery show logging activity on the rise in PNG, particularly in the province of Oro.
- Conservationists and officials say forest laws must be tightened in PNG and local communities included in decision-making to reduce forest loss, while incentivizing communities to conserve the remaining forests.

Collaboration key to rediscovery of egg-laying mammal in Papua’s Cyclops Mountains (28 Nov 2023 14:43:57 +0000)
- Collaboration between international and local researchers, conservation authorities, NGOs and Indigenous groups was key to the success of an expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains that uncovered new sightings of a rare egg-laying mammal and multiple unidentified species.
- “I think the trust between the expedition team and the community was important in the success of the expedition, and a lack of trust may have contributed to former searches being less successful,” said University of Oxford researcher James Kempton who proposed the expedition in 2019.
- The highlight of the expedition was camera-trap images of Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna, distantly related to the platypus, which scientists hadn’t seen since 1961 and which they’d long feared was extinct.
- The expedition also found the Mayr’s honeyeater, a bird scientists haven’t seen since 2008; an entirely new genus of tree-dwelling shrimp; countless new species of insects; and a previously unknown cave system.

Report: Forest-razing biomass plant in Indonesia got millions in green funds (02 Jun 2023 01:14:13 +0000)
- An Indonesian oil and gas company is using government money to clear rainforest for a biomass power plant, according to a new report.
- The project has received a total of $9.4 million from two Ministry of Finance agencies, including one tasked with managing environmental protection funds from international donors.
- Criticism of Medco’s activities reflects a broader debate over whether clear-cutting rainforest can ever be considered sustainable, even when done in the name of transitioning a major coal-producing country away from fossil fuels.

Gold miner faces global protests as it rekindles a mine with a violent legacy (01 May 2023 20:01:46 +0000)
- Three years after the Papua New Guinea government refused to renew its license, the Porgera gold mine is now on track to reopen.
- The mine will relaunch under joint ownership of the government and mine operator Barrick Gold.
- Activists in PNG have joined global protests against Barrick, saying the new agreement does not address a legacy of violence and environmental damage, and drawing parallels between Porgera and Barrick’s mines in Tanzania and Pakistan.

PNG youths’ loss of tradition is bad news for hunting — but also for conservation (14 Apr 2023 14:36:08 +0000)
- For millennia, hunting has been a prestigious and traditional activity in many Papua New Guinean cultures.
- With an increase in Western education and economic opportunities, there’s been a decline in young Papua New Guineans’ skills in hunting and traditional ecological knowledge, a recent study suggests.
- This decline in hunting skills and loss of generational ecological knowledge may impact conservation efforts in the country, with researchers highlighting the need to maintain this knowledge.

Logging threats loom over tree kangaroo refuge in Papua New Guinea (25 Jan 2023 16:30:14 +0000)
- Logging is threatening the Torricelli Mountains, a biodiversity-rich forested range in Papua New Guinea known for its tree kangaroos and other threatened species of birds and mammals.
- Community conservation efforts have helped to increase the numbers of tree kangaroos, once nearly pushed to extinction by hunting and logging, in conjunction with development projects for the people of the Torricellis.
- The Tenkile Conservation Alliance, a Papua New Guinean NGO, has led an effort to protect the area, but the government has yet to officially designate what would be the Torricelli Mountain Range Conservation Area.
- Satellite imagery shows the loss of forest and an increase in roadbuilding over the past two years. And residents of the Torricellis say that representatives of logging companies have been trying to secure permission to log the region’s forests.

Mongabay’s ‘must listen’ podcast list for 2022 (22 Dec 2022 15:52:09 +0000)
- 2022 was an exciting year for Mongabay’s podcast team, with a brand-new season of the long-form, exploratory series “Mongabay Explores,” diving into the island of New Guinea and its one-of-a-kind biodiversity and cultural richness over seven episodes.
- Regular host of the Newscast, Mike G., took listeners to the sky and sea to highlight Indigenous conservation efforts, bioacoustics, and combining Western science and traditional knowledge for marine conservation efforts.
- The Newscast also explored lesser-examined topics like cryptocurrency and their environmental impact.
- If you’re new to Mongabay’s podcast content or you want a review of some of the best recent episodes from this past year, start here.

New app transforms data gathering for wildlife in Papua New Guinea (24 Nov 2022 11:27:04 +0000)
- A new app, developed in-house, has made documenting biodiversity easier and more efficient for the staff of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance in Papua New Guinea.
- The Protected Areas Management (PAM) app allows staff to record observations while in the field, facilitating the use of photos and videos, and automatically logging other information such as location and elevation.
- Since its launch, the app has encouraged staff to record more species and has made it easier for female staff in a generally patriarchal society to document and share their findings.
- The TCA says its working to make the app available to other conservation organizations within the next year.