Forgotten World (158): Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG) occupies the eastern part of the world’s second largest island (the western part of the island called New Guinea is part of Indonesia) and it is prey to volcanic activity, earthquakes and tidal waves. A very small proportion of the land can sustain cash crops, including coffee and cocoa, but abundant rain forests provide the raw material for a logging industry.
Some 80% of PNG’s population of 6.3 million live in rural areas with few or no facilities. Linguistically, it is the world’s most diverse country, with more than 700 native tongues. Many tribes in the isolated mountainous interior have little contact with each other, let alone with the outside world, and live within a non-monetarised economy, dependent on subsistence agriculture.
PNG had to deal with separatist forces on the island of Bougainville in the 1990s. Up to 20,000 people were killed in the nine-year conflict which ended in 1997.