MoU was signed for launching the "Bird Watching Project" in Port Moresby

Local Koairi children enjoying bird watching through a telescope.

 The CEPA-JICA Project launched the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the "Bird Watching Project" at Lamana Hotel on Friday 19th February, 2016. The MoU was signed by the Managing Director of CEPA (Mr. Gunther Joku), Acting Chief Executive Officer of PNGTPA (Mr. Eric Mossman), Vice Chancellor of PAU (Professor Ben Thomas), Council President of Koiari LLG (Mr. David Ogi) including the Chief Advisor of the CEPA-JICA Project (Mr. Koji Asano).

The Bird Watching Project will be implemented jointly by CEPA, PNGTPA, PAU and Koiari LLG through the CEPA/JICA Biodiversity Project in order to promote conservation initiatives and sustainable livelihood of the local communities in Koiari and Hiri regions of Central Province. At least 6 bird watching sites will be identified within the VNP, Koiari Park area of PAU, and Sirinumu/Laloki Catchment. 

Presentation of MOU by Ms. Kumaras Kalim, Director for Sustainable Environment Program, CEPA (Project Manager).

These sites will provide the unique opportunity for bird watchers and residents of Port Moresby or travelers to observe different kinds of birds and at the same time enjoy the natural biodiversity and the scenic sites. Also these places can be utilized for recreational purposes for the residents of Port Moresby and others to get away from the busy streets of the city and enjoy the comfort.

Signing of MOU. From the left, Mr. Eric Mossman (Acting Chief Executive Officer, PNG Tourism Authority), Professor Ben Thomas (Vice-Chancellor, Pacific Adventist University), Mr David Ogi (Council President, Koiari LLG), Mr Koji Asano (JICA Chief Advisor), and Ms. Kumaras Kalim (Director for Sustainable Environment Program, CEPA in the row behind)

The objective of the MoU is to maintain cooperation, enhance planning and information exchange in order to develop and promote the bird watching and eco-tourism activities in the target areas. Thus, the MoU is expected to create an environment for mutual understanding for the parties, in order to achieve the tangible results from related research, training and capacity building activities.

Source: JICA PNG, https://www.jica.go.jp

TPA promotes myths, tourism cannot replace mining

IN response to an agreement signed between the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (TPA) and OK Tedi landowner group as reported in the PNG media, Dr. Robert Bino in Port Moresby said the arrangement could be seen as tourism could be pursued as a land-use option especially when the same physical space was previously subjected to mining as a first-preference land-use option.

He claimed that ‘thinking’ is a myth and should not be promoted. “Now that mining is over in OK Tedi, and the landowners could opt to switch to tourism as a replacement land-use activity is a wrong perception,” he added.

“Mining in PNG context happens at a great cost to the natural environment whist branded tourists who visit PNG tends to be environmental enthusiasts, keen on enjoying the range of products that nature has to offer such as bird-watching. After the mining, all the birds around OK Tedi could have fled the area due to noise pollution.” Dr. Bino lamented.

“For tourism as a land-use option, mining in PNG context had been environmental-destructive at a cataclysmic scale and therefore it is misleading to depict the notion and wrongly promote the illusion that landowners still have the option of tourism to pursue when industrial-scale mining terminates on their land,” he said in a statement to PNG media.

Instead the tourism planning should be part of any mining and the extractive industry planning and issuing of operating licenses to developers coming into the country.

TPA and other tourism stakeholders as well as the PNG Tourism Ministry should be looking at tourism development plans when the mining wants to start and not when it ends.

Dr. Bino's comments came about when on the October 12th, 2018 the Tourism Promotion Authority signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a landowner company to develop eco-tourism.

The agreement with the Ok Tedi Landowners Royalty Investment Trust will see TPA provide technical and other support to the landowner communities to develop and market their tourism products.

Tourism Promotion Authority CEO, Jerry Agus, said whilst we appreciate the good work that the mining and petroleum sector is doing, it is common knowledge that this sector has a timeframe to it.

“Over the next 20 or 30 years’ time, we know that these sectors will come to an end,” he stated.

“And when that happens, which industries are we going to fall back on?

“We must develop buffer industries that our people and our communities must fall back on.”

The TPA boss said the decision by the Ok Tedi landowners, through their firm, the Star Mountain Group of Companies, is a positive step forward.

Royalty Trust CEO, Aubrey DeSouza, said this eco-tourism project is exciting as it will benefit the 10 mine villages around Ok Tedi.

“And we expect the project to grow and give them sustainable employment and other opportunities,” he said.

Royalty Trust aims to attract a maximum of about 50 to 100 bird watchers per month.

The Trust started in 2016 and mainly focused on investments such as real estate, hotels and share acquisitions to generate income for the landowner communities. - Via Garamut News.

Bilum – a souvenir to promote PNG’s tourism industry

By PETER S. KINJAP via Garamut News

Women have been somewhat regarded as second class race in the male dominated world although some significance contributions have made by women in many facets of life. In traditional PNG, women’s primary role is bearing children, looking after domestic animals, making food gardens and household chores. 

These responsibilities are tough especially when the mother is to feed a good number of domestic animals and many small children.

 In the midst of their daily struggles, they virtually constructed the concept and skillfully netted strings bags known as bilums which were used make their ease the loads in their chores.

To date no-one knows and can confidently explain how and why those ropes were twisted and looped to obtain a robust string bag which was very handy even today in the contemporary society. Prominent British anthropologists and couple Marilyn strathern and Andrew Strathern whom spent years in the highlands of PNG have thought that bilum was made through ritual practices in spirit worships, and woman loop the ropes while singing ritual chants.

 Moreover, Marilyn in her book titled The Gender of Gift never denied that Melanesian women were strong and equal to men, a point she compared with the European perspective on gender and feminist issues and later attracted a new dimension of perception on Melanesian women.

Many other articles written about bilum say PNG women first started to make bilum to relate to the womb, bilum is the ‘outer’ womb when a baby is born from the ‘inside’ womb. This conception is evident today in the Tok Pisin language when womb is described as “bilum blo pikinini”. Having said all these one would wonder where would be the origin of making a bilum in PNG.

 Who was the first woman to have the idea and started to teach other women the knowledge and skills of looping and making patterns and passed on? But that’s not the purpose of this article to investigate it’s originate. 

The origin of making the bilum remains mysterious and the first PNG woman to curve the knowledge into twisting the ropes is unknown. 

Melanesian woman have been physically strong, jam-packed with courage to conquer and fearlessly contest in the male dominated world.

Weeks ago, we learn that 30 courage PNG women will contest the 2017 general elections. Politics in PNG has always been a men’s willing. All the best to these mamas.

In some areas, they are unbeatable when it comes to label against menfolk. Such is the toughest job of caring and love giving in their homes. Not only they are hard at work but also unrecognizably acquired with special skills and knowledge. Sometimes, their creativity puts them in a special place within the society. Unarguably, this is where the creator placed and blessed them.

Turning their imagination into creativity is what makes them uniquely special. This is so, when it comes to looping and twisting the wool ropes into a cultural material, connoting their attributes of care and love. The aesthetic qualities of their bilum and its uniqueness have transformed greatly finding its way into the cash economy. Undoubtedly, bilum resembles the courage and determination of PNG women. 

Pretentious and exceptional words to describe women are not easy to find on the Mothers’ Day or the International Women’s Day. But those are words they deserve every day.

In Goroka and Karkar Island in Madang, every year round bilum festivals are held. These events hosted not only to recognize the cash-value of their creativity but also acknowledging and displaying their adorable self-taught looping skills.

In Madang, festival chairman Pholas Yongole says activities include a bilum show and the process of how Karkar bilums are made. In Goroka, festival chairlady Florence Jaukae said the festival is staged to celebrate ancient skills and designs of bilums and also about preserving, protecting the skills and designs. 

These annual events held respectively in Madang and Goroka not only to display the colorful woven bilums that attracts tourists and by passers but they hold the events hold the meaning of bilum making and creativity from womenfolk.

Changes can inevitably occurred in any given society and in PNG society development took place since the island was first discovered in 1526-27. Bilum is believed to be centuries old from then on until it was formerly first recorded by G. Landtmann in 1933, a record found in the Museum of Finland. From traditional to contemporary, the patterns, designs and selection of colours to make bilum by women have changed. 

Today it is a souvenir serving as a national identify to the international community. In 2005, supported by the Australian government, an association known as PNG Bilum Export and Promotion was created to help PNG women export the bilum product. This organization is helping PNG women to export bilum products to Australia and other parts of the world. The bilum has also find its way into the fashion world. 

Today the weaving of a bilum is a skill that is commonly shared by women across the country; a skill or traditional knowledge that is passed from one generation to the next generation. It is knowledge that is learnt from Grandmothers, Aunts, Mothers and friends.

Bilum designs vary from one to the next – no two bilums are identical. They can be seen on the streets of Sydney, New York, London, Suva, Apia or anywhere in the world – just a simple indication of how far this unique product travels. 

In all these places, they still remain as a PNG souvenir and a national identify. To the PNG Government, this is only a cultural material but it plays a greater role in the arena of tourism promotion with its aesthetic qualities and uniqueness to the outside world that needed to be emphasized. – Photos via Garamut News. 

Solo European Adventurer set to tour Papua New Guinea

by CHARLIE WALKER

LONDON - In March 2019, I will undertake a two-month journey through the interior of Papua New Guinea.

The goal is to get from the coast at Lae back to the coast at Wewak via the country's three highest peaks and having paddled the longest river, the Sepik, from source to sea.

The entire route will be completed without motorised transport and is approximately 2,400 km, breaking down as:

Cycling: 800 km
Hiking: 480 km
Packrafting: 1,120 km

Some of the challenges will include local crime, tribal warfare, whitewater, crocodiles and some of the world's densest jungle.

Due to the lack of internet connectivity, I will not be blogging during the trip but, when possible, will post updates on Instagram and Twitter.

I’m a British adventurer, writer and motivational speaker specialising in long distance, human-powered expeditions and I’ve travelled by bicycle, foot, horse and dugout canoe.

I’m a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a recipient of a Transglobe Expedition Trust 'Mad but Marvellous' grant.

My writing has featured in a range of publications including The Times, Daily Express, Wanderlust, Travelmag, Travel Africa and Sidetracked magazine.

I was named Travel Blogger of the Year in 2013 by the Association of Independent Tour Operators.

My longest expedition was a 70,000 km bicycle journey reaching the furthest cape in each of Europe, Asia and Africa before returning home. On this journey I traversed 60 countries, encountering extremes of weather, remoteness and physical exhaustion during the four and a half years I was away.

In 2012 I walked 1,600 km solo across the Gobi desert from China to Mongolia. This feat involved walking over six marathons a week for six weeks whilst carrying enough food and water to survive.

Also in 2012 I trekked 960 km across Central and Northern Mongolia in the company of only a semi-feral pony and a stray dog I found in the forest.

In 2014 I boated the Lulua, a little-known tributary of the Congo River, in a dugout canoe. This journey into remote and effectively uncharted territory was beset by rapids, waterfalls, hippos, crocodiles and finally, shortly after leaving the river, violent bouts of malaria and typhoid fever.

In 2017, I completed a world-first 8,300 km triathlon along the perceived Europe Asia border. This expedition spanned from the midwinter snowfields of the Russian Arctic to the Bosporus in Istanbul.

Source: Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

Morobean coast plans to lure cruise liners for tourism

By MALUM NALU

When I was a child growing up in Lae in the 1970s, part of the fun was travelling to visit family members in Bukawa, what is now known as Labuta LLG of Nawaeb.
Swimming in any one of the many rivers, in the ocean, and lots of food, especially taro, bananas, pork, fish, or game from the forests, are among my fond memories.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the rivers starting roaring faster down the mountains, eventually washing away all the bridges and parts of the Lae-Bukawa Road.
Bukawa was cut off from the outside world.

The Lae-Bukawa Road became a forgotten goat track where only foolhardy drivers, with a sense of adventure and a good 4WD vehicle, dared to cross.
People reverted to walking or travelling from Lae to Bukawa by sea.
In 2014, the Japanese government, through Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), started work on the long forgotten Lae-Bukawa Road, with Department of Works.
People are now able to drive from Lae to the main Bukawa village by road, albeit, with caution and with a good 4WD.

The Government’s ambition is to join Lae and Finschhafen by road, via Bukawa.
Just last month, Finance Minister James Marape was at Situm, where the Lae-Bukawa
Road begins, and reassured the people of the much-mooted Lae-Finschhafen Road.
The day after that, I travelled to Buingim village in Bukawa with Colin Taimbari of the Tourism Promotion Authority, and Defol Jabbar of Morobe Tourism Bureau.

It’s only a short one-hour trip by 75-horsepower dinghy along breathtakingly coastline.
Along the way, we stopped at the popular roadside market at Gayucpu, for some kulau (fresh coconut), fruit and taro and bananas to take back to Port Moresby.
It’s a popular market along the busy Lae-Finschhafen sea highway.

We then continued on to the idyllic seaside village of Buingim, where the villagers were about to have the first sea trial of their kasali (traditional sailing canoe).
It was a momentous occasion and we were feted like royalty.
Yes, we had lots of taro, bananas and fresh fish and other seafood straight out from the ocean.
Buingim is one of the friendliest villages you’ll find anywhere in Morobe, or Papua New Guinea for that matter, and we felt truly at home.
Jabbar, of Morobe Tourism Bureau, is working towards Buingim becoming a stopping point for cruise liners.
The villagers dance all afternoon along the beach to celebrate their new kasali and to welcome us visitors.

The sun sets his golden rays
As the children laugh and play and swim
And the mother’s carry their babies
As the fishing canoes come home
Silhouettes in the sunset

Another day is done in Buingim.
I watch the children of Buingim sitting on their pristine unspoiled beaches.
Their forefathers long before them depended on the sea for their livelihood.
They are continuing this tradition.
That week, thousands of miles away in Sydney, the Wafi-Golpu mine was discussed.
The mine will dispose of millions of tonnes of tailings into the Huon Gulf.
What will their future be like?
After that, we have a refreshing shower, have dinner and tea, and have a devotion service and long meeting with the villagers.
Taimbari and Jabbar talk to them about tourism and what they must do in order to attract tourists.

The villagers listen spellbound.

They are one village that is very keen on tourism.
Early next morning, as Sol casts his golden rays, we are off to Lae, with a short stop at Gayucpu, to pick up our taro and bananas.
Towards Lae, we pass Wagang (Sipaia) village, which is where tailings from Wafi-Golpu mine will be piped out from.

I think back to the children of Buingim, and many others along the Morobe coast, in light of this new invader.
For better or worse?

Source: The National newspaper.