Papua-Insects.nl

The Papua Insects Foundation

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Media news and what's new in this website?

Latest updates since July 2009

The list below presents only major additions and modifications. Minor modifications and additions are being made continuously in checklists and other pages and are not mentioned here. Please check the website pages now and then for updates. You can find the data of the last update on the bottom of most pages.

Thumbnail galleries

When a reasonable number of pictures is available thumbnail galleries are attached to the checklists. These galleries can easily be reached by just clicking the blue thumbnail gallery icon on the checklists. In case that species pages are available the clicked picture will send you to these page, in other cases you will just enlarge the picture. Please note that the thumbnail galleries could be far from complete. Good pictures of tropical species are rare, if available at all.

 

Papua media news

 

May 14, 2008 (Jakarta Post):
Oil palm companies pledge to stay out of Indonesian rainforests!!

Palm oil companies operating in Indonesia pledged to stop expanding plantations into forests in response to growing global criticism about deforestation and to promote more sustainable products.
Executive director of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI), Didiek Hadjar Goenadi, said here Monday palm oil companies would focus on utilizing idle land, including former forest concession areas, to maintain Indonesia as the world's largest crude palm oil producer.
"We realize the environmental impacts by opening all our forests so we will stop touching the forest and just concentrate on abundant lands which have not been cultivated yet," Didiek told reporters during a break in a seminar on climate change, agriculture and trade.
There are currently 6.7 million hectares of oil palm plantations in the country -- half belonging to private firms, while the rest are operated by small-scale farmers. Only about 600,000 hectares are managed by state-owned enterprises.
Didiek estimated there were about seven million hectares of idle land across the country that could be used to plant oil palms or rubber trees.
He said the association's members had applied the so-called roundtable on sustainable palm oil (RSOP), an international initiative promoting sustainability up and down the palm oil supply chain.
"But since many oil palm plantations are operated by farmers, many of them are still unaware about the RSOP regulations. It is the government's task to educate them," he said.
Indonesia's crude palm oil production reached its highest-ever level of 17.2 million tons last year, passing Malaysia, which produced 16 million tons.
Environmental activists have stepped up protests against the country's palm oil companies, accusing the firms of expanding their operations by clearing formerly forested land. The activists say the expansion, including in peatland forests, has killed thousands of orangutans and resulted in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.
Didiek said the palm oil business in Indonesia dated back more than 150 years.
"There have been standard operating procedures in implementing good agriculture procedures since the Dutch period," he said.
"However, the booming of the commodity encourages the new planters to neglect these standard. This is the main cause of why land burning has become extensive and erosion has taken place."
Didiek said demand for crude palm oil had accelerated with the rising popularity of biofuels in developed nations to substitute for fossil fuels. He also called on the country's oil palm producers to do more for the environment and people's welfare.
"Conflict between food and fuels must be ended by taking all necessary actions to minimize negative impacts both to the local people and the international community," he said.

 

May 21, 2008 (AFP):

Indonesia looks to Papua to expand palm oil plantations!

JAKARTA (AFP) — The government of Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, is now looking at its vast easternmost provinces in Papua to expand its palm oil plantations, a senior official said Wednesday.
"After Sumatra and Kalimantan became too dense for new palm oil plantations, the only land available is in Papua," the agriculture ministry's Director General for Plantations, Achmad Manggabarani, said on the margin of a three-day international conference on the commodity here.
He said the two provinces in Papua, the western half of New Guinea island, have three to four million hectares (up to 9.8 million acres) of land suitable for palm oil plantation.
"Several companies have already expressed interest, especially from Malaysia," Manggabarani said without giving details.
He said smaller concessions would be offered in Papua than the normal 100,000 to 200,000 hectares in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Under the country's decentralisation drive, the issuing of palm oil concessions is the responsibility of local governments.
"They should only give out 20,000 hectares" per concession, Manggabarani said.
Several environmental groups, including Greenpeace, have called for a moratorium on the expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, warning that soaring world demand is creating an environmental crisis.
Hapsoro, forest campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, condemned the governments plans for the massive expansion of plantations on Papua.
"I hope it will never happen. Learning from what happened in Sumatra and Kalimantan, without good governance it will not be sustainable," said Hapsoro, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.
Greenpeace Southeast Asia political advisor Arief Wicaksono applauded Anglo-Dutch food and consumer goods giant Unilever, which said this month it backed a moratorium on further palm oil deforestation in Indonesia and intended to use only fully traceable palm oil by 2015.
"Greenpeace calls for the industry to work together for a moratorium on conversion of peatland and forests... We call on other palm oil producers to follow Unilever's lead," he said.
Indonesia produced an estimated 16.4 million tonnes of palm oil last year.
The destruction of Indonesia's forests is seen as a major contributor to global warming and climate change.
Indonesia and Malaysia, the second largest producer, produce 85 percent of the world's palm oil which is enjoying a boom on the back of strong global demand and tight supply.

 

New butterfly from Papua on Indonesian stamps

The Papuan butterfly Delias kristianiae (Pieridae), described newly to science by Henk van Mastrigt in 2006 from the Foja Expedition material, is depicted on two Indonesian stamps in a series of four different butterflies on stamps, later the 2500 Rp stamp was overprinted with "5000" in gold. The species is named after the First Lady of Indonesia to honour her husband, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who's political views look promissing in favour of nature conservation. This is how taxonomy, philately and politics come together! Let's hope that the President and his Governors in Papua and other regions take their promiss serious and put an end to the rapid demolishing of the nature in Indonesia.

 

 

 

 

Pos Indonesia issued in 2009 celebration stamps on which the public can display their own pictures or advertisements. Henk van Mastrigt took the initiative to promote the SUGAPA magazine by stamps!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[updated on 23rd February 2010]