Ecology of Indonesian Papua Part One. Andrew J. Marshall
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J. Linsley Gressitt.
After transfer of control of western New Guinea to Indonesia (1963/1969) and, in 1975, the independence of Papua New Guinea (PNG), official efforts fell away—particularly after 1980 in PNG. Biogeography and Ecology of New Guinea (1982; see section on "Collections" below) could thus be said to mark the end of an era. Individual and group exploration and research (under sponsorship or otherwise) has, however, continued over the subsequent quarter-century, now with ecology, conservation, and "sustainability" as guiding themes. In this, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—including universities in both west and east New Guinea as well as research stations—have played an increasing role. Though progress—perhaps inevitably—has been fragmented, there have been significant achievements, some of them recorded in the Post-World War II section, below. Future exploratory efforts should focus particularly on poorly known areas (documented in recent conservation assessments; see References section, below). But at the same time work must continue on consolidating, enhancing, preserving, and making more available our knowledge of what we already have to hand—not easy in the face of competition for research resources, changing interests, insecurity, and indeed a fall in new entrants to the sciences.
Before the Rush: Early History (1500–1875)
WHEN BIRDS OF PARADISE HAD NO LEGS (1500-1815)
1500–1760
Settled by humans in the late Quaternary, with two further waves of immigrants respectively in the early and post-historical Recent, New Guinea and its islands—particularly after the Lapita migrations—were initially visited by Malay (and perhaps also Chinese) traders from Dobo (in the Aru Islands) and elsewhere. The earliest recorded explorers were, however, post-Columbian Europeans, sailing from both west and east partly in search of the "great southern land" then thought to be necessary to balance the large masses in the north, particularly Eurasia. Not until the 17th century—and passing into general knowledge only much later—were the northern fringes of the supposed southern landmass shown to be a great island.
Although Magellan’s expedition—to which we owe the first European use of the word "Papua" and knowledge of its birds of paradise—sailed near New Ireland in 1521, the first to arrive in the waters off the mainland was the Portuguese Jorge de Meneses in 1527. But, reaching only as far as Biak and the north coast of the Vogelkop Peninsula, he would have had no idea of its extent. He was followed in 1528 by Alvaro de Saavedra and in 1537 by Hernando de Grijalva, neither in turn venturing beyond Yapen and Biak. In 1545 Ynigo Ortiz de Retes, also—like Saavedra—in an attempt to sail to Mexico, reached as far as Manam and the Schouten Islands (off the mouths of the Ramu and Sepik) as well as the western Admiralty Islands, Aua and Wuvulu, before having to turn back to Tidore. On the voyage back he called in near present-day Sarmi and named the land "Nueva Guinea" because the people looked like Africans. Entry from the Americas only came later: in 1567—two years before Mercator’s world map first appeared—the Spaniard Alvaro de Mendaña discovered the later-lost Solomon Islands. He attempted a return in 1595 but died at sea, with Pedro Fernández de Quirós eventually taking command of that expedition. In 1606 Quirós, with papal and other support, once more sailed to the South Pacific, discovering what is now Vanuatu; but there his expedition fell apart. His associate Luis Vaéz de Torres—aided by the southeasterly trade winds—continued west towards New Guinea, reaching the present Milne Bay Islands near Samarai (where, on Sideia, the company dined on what is now the first record of a Papuasian marsupial) and afterwards sailing along the south coast and traversing the strait now named after him.
The first Dutch voyage to the East Indies set sail in 1597 and soon afterwards contacts by Dutchmen with New Guinea began in earnest. Willem Jansz on the Duyfken in 1606 may have been the first; but more important was the voyage of Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire in 1616, who viewed much of the north coast along with Manus Island and present-day New Ireland. Both voyages suffered massacres. In 1623 Jan Carstensz sailed along the southwestern coast and was the first to see—in disbelief—the snow-and ice-capped highest peaks of the mainland which for long bore his name (but now collectively are Mt Jaya). Two decades later, in 1643, Abel Tasman touched upon New Ireland and, for the first time, sailed by the north coast of what is now New Britain, but yet thought them continuous with New Guinea (and New Holland, as Australia was then known). But this would be the last such effort on their part: Jan Compagnie was a commercial enterprise, and of potential profit little was to be seen. Contacts with New Guinea became largely restricted to its western fringes, with which an active trade would be carried on and whence G. E. Rumphius, from 1653 at Ambon in the Jan Compagnie’s service for half a century, received much valuable information, in time incorporated into his famous Thesaurus amboinensis (1705) and Herbarium amboinense (1741–1750, 1755).
In 1700 came the epoch-making visit by the Englishman William Dampier—the region’s first "enlightened" explorer. In his ancient ship Roebuck he visited the north coast and discovered Mussau and Emira north of New Ireland, sailed along the north coast of New Ireland and then past his "St George’s Bay" along the south coast of what was still thought to be a large peninsula. After discovering the deep strait between it and New Guinea, he bestowed on what was now an island the name "Nova Britannia" (New Britain) by which it has been known ever since (save as "Neu-Pommern" during German rule). But the ex-buccaneer and explorer was also a natural historian and collector, so he brought back "curiosa" for appreciation and study: the earliest scientific specimens from the region (apart from those from Rumphius surviving in Florence).
Publication of Dampier’s A Voyage to New-Holland (1703) stimulated further coastal exploration over the subsequent three decades, particularly in the west (with Dampier himself returning in 1705), and in 1714 the Sultan of Tidore ceded his territories in New Guinea (with the southern Moluccas) to the Dutch. But it was the now-ascendant French and English who were to set an entirely new trend. Taking a cue from Dampier, most voyages from the 1750s onwards involved serious scientific work as well as exploration and contact, and carried naturalists or physician-naturalists.
1760–1815
The first of the "new" expeditions was British. In 1767 Philip Carteret in the Swallow visited parts of the southwestern Pacific, the northwestern Solomons and "greater" New Britain—and found that "St George’s Bay" was a channel. He thus gave the northern island its name of "Nova Hibernia" (New Ireland), so-called ever since (save as "Neu-Mecklenberg" during German rule). Significantly, Cart-eret discovered some safe anchorages at its southwestern end (including Gower Harbor—soon afterwards named "Port Praslin" by Bougainville and visited by many later expeditions, and in the late nineteenth century the scene of the tragic "Nouvelle France" settlement scheme). Carteret was followed in 1768 by the Frenchman Louis Antoine de Bougainville who, in two ships (La Boudeuse and L’Étoile) and with Philibert Commerson as naturalist, visited among other places parts of the southeastern coast, the Louisiade Archipelago, the northern Solomon Islands (notably those now known as Choiseul, Bougainville, and Buka), and southwestern New Ireland before hastening westwards to Java to relieve his crews. In 1770 James Cook, with J. Banks and D. Solander, definitively verified New Guinea’s distinctness from New Holland (now known as Australia) by sailing through Torres Strait. Beyond that treacherous passage, the Endeavour only landed on the southwest coast for one day, where Banks made some thirty plant collections—of which a list survives—under protection of the ship’s guns and marines.
The French now used the new knowledge of the region, particularly that gained by Bougainville and Commerson, for economic gain—their governor in Mauritius, Pierre Poivre, was determined to break the Dutch spice monopoly. With advice from Commerson (who had joined Poivre’s service), Simon Provost in 1769–1770 (as part of an expedition on two ships, L’Étoile du Matin and Vigilant) and then Pierre Sonnerat in 1771–1772 (under Provost), as part of extensive missions in the Moluccas and Philippines, reached Gebé (near Gag) in the extreme west of Papuasia; but they touched neither on other New Guinean islands nor the mainland (in spite of the title of Sonnerat’s popular 1776 book, Voyage à la Nouvelle-Guinée). Economically, however, the French voyagers were successful; the principal spices came to be established in the Mascarenes and elsewhere, in time contributing to the demise of the Dutch East India Company. Sonnerat’s natural history collections (Paris) are primarily zoological; he also lives on in the epithet for one of that museum’s collections databases.
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