Dear Sir:
I work in the Karawari region of the East Sepik where, for
the past 7 years, I have been leading a group of PNG ethnographers and
archaeologists in recording and conserving the enormous cave art system that
riddles the northern escarpment of Mt MacGregor as it falls down the headwaters
of the Arafundi and the Karawari Rivers.
Some of the people we work with are amongst the last nomadic
hunter gatherers in PNG, and the continue to live in these caves with stencils
and images that date back, we believe, 20,000 years. As yet we haven’t had the
expertise to confirm their age, but they are very similar to caves found in
Borneo and Western Australia which have been dated to that era. Our efforts are
fully endorsed by the National Museum and Art Gallery in Port Moresby, and we
have written numerous articles on their importance. The National Geographic
Society, which assists us with small grants, published a story about the
Meakambut people in the January 2011 magazine (attached).
For a couple of years we have been aware of gold speculators
traveling through the area and talking about mineral exploration on both the
Karawari and the Arafundi Rivers. Just recently a company called Pristine No
18, which is partly owned by Rimbunam Hijau, had applied for an ELA 2008
covering the majority of these historic caves and the rainforest where the
Meakambut still live and thrive. The northern tip of the ELA includes land
owned by neighbours, the Alamblak Yimas peoples, who have very little land to
expand upon and are apparently happy to have their swamplands explored for
gold.
But the Meakambut and the entire Penale tribe are adamantly
against the exploration. They know that once Pristine #18 has invested in
exploration, they will find it impossible to evict them from their lands and
forests. And they know what is at stake: Our company, Nancy Sullivan &
Assoc, has spent the past 7 years paying all the school fees (and now project
fees), establishing a primary school, and bringing health services (in regular
patrols by a pediatric surgeon from Wewak) to the area. This is our quid pro
quo for allowing us to study their caves and ultimately produce a book about
them. Thus far we have received Guggenheim, Rockefeller and Christensen Fund
grants, as well as National Geographic support. Our interest in the region is
sincere and longstanding; we have a project that should continue for decades
yet and provide these communities with the income from scientists and community
development for their future.
For more
information about the company and what we do, please see www.nancysullivan.net and for
images of the work we do in the caves, please see the following: www.nancysullivan.typepad.com/weblong_2014/04/the-meakambut-penale-ewa-alamblak-and-sumariop-get-a-check-up.html
For details about
the Pristine # 18 meeting in the village recently, see our blog:
www.nancysullivan.typepad.com/weblong_2013/03/rh-descends-on-the-meakambut.html
We have the support of Ludwig Schulz, the Angoram MP, and a
wide swatch of his constituency who have benefitted from our work.
For the MRA representative who attended the meeting, we
understand that Pristine #18 has 2 weeks to assemble an exploration application
for the Ministry’s approval. We seek to circumvent this right away, in the
interest of all the Penale as well as the Ewa and Sumariop people whose
precious caves and histories will be disturbed by this venture.
To date, we have presented powerpoints on the caves to receptive audiences in Korea, the USA, Australia, Italy and the UK. Because of our high international profile, we will have no
choice but to begin a media campaign in support of our request to keep RH and
commercial mining out of these forests and away from the NATIONAL CULTURAL
PROPERTY within them. The Ewa people of the upper Karawari have suffered at the
hands of art dealers who emptied their caves of carvings before independence and
left them with next to nothing as compensation---while their father’s carvings
continue to fetch 6 figure prices on the Oceanic art market and can be seen in
museums across the US and Europe. They too would be victims of this short term
greed if the exploration went forward. It is the government neglect of this
region for decades that has left the Karawari people so vulnerable to
exploitation. They are growing cocoa and other small crops we assist them with,
and we continue to raise funds for development projects that would keep them in
their land, where they wish to remain. In an area where there are virtually no
aid posts or schools, and where no provincial or national government has heard
their cries for assistance since Independence, we are confident that an
international campaign to save the region would go viral quite quickly.
I would be loathe to embarrass the ministry by embarking on
a campaign like this. But we have no other choice but to reach out to the
Ministry now and ask that you OPPOSE THE APPLICATION BY PRISTINE #18 FOR ELA
2008 IN THE Karawari.
Nancy Sullivan
Photos above by Amy Toensig for National Geographic; below by Nancy Sullivan
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