New species discovered in Papua
The debate around the Bali climate change conference focussed on deforestation to the extent that it results in greenhouse emissions. However, there is more to forests than a bunch of stored carbon, there is also an amazing diversity of animals and plants.
Underlining this is a June expedition to the Foja mountains in West Papua by Conservation International and Indonesian scientists. The discovered two new mammal species - a giant 1.4kg Mallomys rat (picture below) and a tiny possum. The danger of rainforest clearing is that these animals would be wiped out.
The Mallomys rat is pretty damned cute and is not afraid of people, in fact wandered into the expedition’s campsite.
They also recorded the courtship display of the beautiful male golden-fronted bower bird.
Pictures from BBC site.
December 20th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Thanks for the story and links.
The recent history or West Papua is very sad. Not only are the forest and mineral resources being exploited with scant regard for the environment (often illegally), but the indigenous people are being ruthlessly repressed by the Indonesian military. West Papua should have gained its independence from the Dutch in the 1960s, were it not for a rigged referendum which handed the territory to Indonesia.
Here is an interesting book on the region:
Elmslie, Jim; “Irian Jaya Under the Gun: Indonesian Economic Development Versus West Papuan Nationalism”
December 28th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Russ -
nice post, but it searches under
“being-constructive-on-election-finance-reform-part-5/”
- not it’s own title.
I’ve tried to refer people to it, and the indexing looks a bit skew-whiff.
Plus filed under “Justice & Democracy” tag?
Just a little techy niggle…