I love learning about new things, and thought some of the Junkies would too. Plus I need a break from reading papers about wildlife management / bird strikes /ARIMA modelling.
So it's time to learn a little bit about Papua New Guinea (PNG), a country that I've never been to but would love to visit.
I've met a couple of people from PNG and they're really nice, but tribal violence seems like a big (and f---ing scary) thing in their country.
I know that PNG has the highest endemic language diversity in the world, and that there are still 'tribes' (for want of a better word) there that are living in their traditional way, with little or no influence from 'western society'.
So let's take a trip to PNG together, Junkies, and learn a little more about the world.
Papua New Guinea is a country in Oceania, just above the northern tip of Queensland (the state in which I live). PNG makes up the eastern half of the island of Papua; the other half is occupied by the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua. PNG gained its independence from Australia in 1975, but remains part of the Commonwealth. Its capital, Port Moresby, is often ranked as one of the worst cities in the world to live in due to a number of factors including gang violence. Perhaps this is part of the reason why the majority of PNG's population live in rural or undeveloped areas.
Due to the extremely rugged terrain of much of the interior, there are over 1000 different cultural groups in PNG, most of which speak their own language. There are around 800-820 indigenous languages in PNG, representing 12% of the world's total languages in a country with a population of approximately 6.2 million. Most people speak a tribal language from where they grew up and Tok Pigin, PNG's pidgin English. When it's written down I can make some sense of Pigin, and when it's spoken really slowly and clearly you might be able to get a sense of what's going on. In the highlands of PNG there is a lot of tribal violence, with people being beaten or killed. Strangely enough, PNG is obsessed with the State of Origin, a yearly series of Aussie rugby league games in which Queensland crushes those weak southerners, New South Wales. Different tribes will support QLD or NSW and there have been deaths associated with these allegiances.
Due to the difficulties of travelling in the interior regions of PNG, the natural environment remains in a fairly good state, and there are probably heaps of new species there waiting to be discovered. The most famous of PNG's wildlife are probably the birds of paradise that Attenborough shows off very nicely in the Life of Birds. But PNG is crawling with fascinating wildlife and... plants (sorry Copper). I would really love to do some research there, though I was talking to some visiting researchers from PNG and got a bit frightened by their stories. One girl had all her money stolen by a tribe who lived adjacent to the area in which she was working... and her 'host' tribe went to battle to get it back for her. One girl was abducted and lost in the jungle for 2 weeks before finding a river and getting to the coast. And one researcher put his PhD on hold to support his friend in their local elections, but ended up watching him get shot and killed. Crazy s---.
A famous Australian ecologist, Tim Flannery, has written a really interesting book about his research in PNG called Throwim Way Leg. A good read and I highly recommend it if you're interested in ecology. He found some new species and had fun times in the highlands in the 80's I think. The book describes the various tribes and characters that he came into contact with, as well as the flora and fauna of PNG.
Hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about PNG Junkies! If anyone has been there, write what you thought about it below.
Don't know what country will be next, maybe an Eastern European one.
Peace