Introduction to Papua

Indonesia? Where in the world are we?  Answer ...near the equator north of Australia see:  

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-3.601142,124.541016&spn=32.031514,56.25&t=h&z=4

Papua is the eastern most major island of Indonesia.  The island is divided into two parts - the eastern side Papua New Guinea (PNG) is an independent nation.  The western side is a part of the nation of Indonesia.  PNG is a former Australian colony and Indonesian Papua is a former Dutch colony. For some interesting reading of history and events see: http://www.janesoceania.com/papua_history/index.htm
Ironically Papua is known as Indonesia's "Last Frontier". Like Alaska in the USA we noticed some people in Indonesia don't know that Papua is part of their own country.

The janesoceania site linked above also has some great older photographs that describe the life of native villagers in the forests away from civilization.  See link: http://www.janeresture.com/irian_jaya/index.htm   .  The included photos appear dated many years ago but we have been told many Papuans away from our western style civilization live the same way in the present.

The mining town site of Tembagapura is located in central Indonesian Papua.  As an introduction a great explanation and photo album is available from Geologist Kurt Friehauf at:
http://faculty.kutztown.edu/friehauf/indonesia/timika.html
This is a photo journal with some explanations of the area including descriptions of Timika, Tembagapura and Mine operations. Continue through his trip by following the links on the lower right corner of web pages. We took a close look at this site to get a general impression of the area before making the final decision to go to the site visit at Tembagapura and Freeport operations.