The good doctor
An anthropologist preserving tracts of PNG’s natural habitat
Meet the indefatigable Dr William Thomas, 65, who’s taken on bureaucracies, tribal rivalries, mining companies and even giant spiders to preserve an area more than four times bigger than Singapore in Papua New Guinea’s “largest, least explored and most diverse wilderness”.
Endorsed by UNESCO, the New Jersey anthropologist has set up the Papua Forest Stewards Initiative, using traditional knowledge to conserve 3200 square kilometres of natural habitat in two areas of the Central Range.
Under the program, the landowners agree to keep their forest and culture intact, in exchange for payments to be funded by the sale of carbon credits.
Thomas has garnered support for the Forest Stewards from the Porgera gold mine in Enga
Province, along with organisations including the National Geographic Society, the Explorers Club in New York and Florida’s Bishop Museum of Science and Nature.
“My work has resulted in protected areas being declared by the national government, in Hela Province and the Kaijende Highlands of Enga Province,” he says.
Thomas points out that the 1993 Conservation Needs Assessment for PNG considered these areas of global significance. That conclusion was backed up in 2008 by an international biological-assessment team, which found 50 new species in the headwaters of the Strickland River alone.
Thomas has been exploring PNG and researching traditional knowledge since 1988, living for months on end with the small Hewa communities, scattered throughout the remote region.
“What a tremendous privilege to get to know these people and learn from them,” he says. “And maybe change the course of how we do conservation.”
For the first 10 years, Thomas says each field trip looked like the line of porters seen in the old
Tarzan movies.
“But over the years these people have taught me to live in the bush and patiently explained the intricacies of their lives.
“There’s no scientist in the western world who knows what they know and I want to make sure the Hewa have some control over their future and the pace of development.”
Finding a common ground for communication has also taken years. While Thomas speaks
Tok Pisin well, he admits there’s sometimes
Over the years these (local) people have taught me to live in the bush and patiently explained the intricacies of their lives. There’s no scientist in the western world who knows what they know.
a quizzical response to “a waitman with an
American accent”.
“Meetings with the local councils can last all day and usually involve countless translations,” he says. “My Tok Pisin is converted first into the local language and then into the regional dialect. Nothing happens quickly and nothing ever seems settled.”
After extended negotiations, however, the 296 clans have agreed to set aside their territorial boundaries as “roads of the cassowary”, free from clearing or hunting any species with snares or weapons.
These protected lands are being surveyed by locals equipped with digital cameras and will be allowed to return to primary forest.
One indicator of success so far is the increased presence of cassowaries, a species that first appeared during the Jurassic period about 150 million years ago.
However, Thomas says the program is not trying to create some kind of pre-human Jurassic Park.
“We want to save a mosaic of land use that traditional societies have created, with its limited scope of disturbance. We’re not trying to get rid of humans.”
Doing that is no walk in the park, acknowledges Thomas, who says he sometimes comes home from a trip looking like he’s spent “six months in a medieval gaol”.
“The landscape is unbelievably rugged and there are no marked trails. Most of the time my head is down, watching my step and walking as fast as I can to keep my guide in sight. You spend hours wet and muddy trying to get to the next camp before sundown.”
Thomas recalls one particularly arduous hike that took 11 hours to cover only 13 kilometres.
“We were humping it,” he says. “I can’t forget walking into a giant bird-eating spider’s nest by mistake and this crawly thing as big as a man’s hand came down to see if I was lunch.”
However, he waxes poetic when describing the rewards of his efforts.
“After a strenuous hike, we break through dense vegetation to see a whole valley full of hornbills go down in slow motion. Flocks of birds float silently below me. Sulphur-crested cockatoos and brahminy kites erupt from the otherwise endless carpet of green.”
In fact, it’s birds and their role in the environment that figure largely in the Forest Stewards program. Thomas has produced two books on avian ecology for the first generations of literate Hewa schoolchildren and their Kaijende counterparts.
“It’s an educational tool to encourage the conservation of biocultural diversity and also to educate outsiders about the richness of traditional knowledge,” he says.
“The children of the families that first took me in, back in 1988, are now my partners.”
Thomas recognises the trees-versus-job dilemma faced by governments who want to save the environment, but have “bills to pay and people living in poverty”.
“I’m not against chopping down and mining per se, because I use all that stuff,” he says.
“I think it’s a matter of scale and developing a portfolio that’s sustainable. The operators of the Porgera joint venture recognise this approach with their support.”
Thomas believes the Papua Forest Stewards Initiative may provide a blueprint to preserve natural habitats and indigenous cultures around the world.
“I know it can work and I know it’s a way to do good for the planet.”