3 comments

  • swiftcoder 2 hours ago
    Really cool. I hope they succeed in establishing native rights to the forest before the logging companies make them extinct again.
  • triyambakam 2 hours ago
    I wouldn't be surprised if more such discoveries were found. Papua is, as best as I can describe it, insane.
    • abanana 1 hour ago
      Indeed, it seems the interior of the country is so little-known and so unspoiled by modern civilisation, it would be surprising if we don't have any unexpected discoveries coming out of there in the nearish future.
      • anon84873628 1 hour ago
        Not to get all internet indignant about it, but the island is currently split into two countries thanks to the colonization by Indonesia. Which human rights advocates and indigenous leaders consider to be a systematic ethnic cleansing and cultural erasure of the indigenous Melanesian Papuan population. Along with an ecocide driven by a toxic mix of military occupation, corporate exploitation, and resource extraction.

        The situation in West Papua is essentially one of the least recognized humanitarian and ecological tragedies slowly happening right under our noses.

        • red75prime 1 hour ago
          > cultural erasure of the indigenous Melanesian Papuan population

          Old people lamenting how children learn about all those other ways of life? Some cultural isolates do really dumb things.

          • DoItToMe81 51 minutes ago
            The military goes in and splits up their communities by murdering them on behalf of logging and mining companies.
            • red75prime 37 minutes ago
              What it has to do with the "cultural erasure" I quoted specifically? "Who owns the land" is a different problem that is not made simpler by the fact that the land is subject to tribal conflicts.