Modern Life in Papua New Guinea
Exxon Mobil's natural gas project in Papua New Guinea could be a blessing for the economy or a threat to the 60,000 people who can claim "customary ownership" of tribal lands.
Exxon Mobil's natural gas project in Papua New Guinea could be a blessing for the economy or a threat to the 60,000 people who can claim "customary ownership" of tribal lands.
Liquified natural gas exploration in Papua New Guinea has led to significant investments by Exxon Mobil, but the costs may outweigh the benefits for the local population.
Liquified Natural gas exploration in Papua new Guinea has led to significant investments by Exxon Mobil into the industry, but the costs may outweigh the benefits for the local population.
Exxon Mobil's natural gas project in Papua New Guinea could be a blessing for the economy or a threat to the 60,000 people who can claim "customary ownership."
Located 50 miles off the coast of Papua New Guinea, the Carteret Islands are disappearing into the ocean. Climate change is destroying the atoll, forcing the islanders to search for homes on Bougainville, an autonomous region of Papua New Guinea. Though this is the story of one remote community, scientists estimate climate change will displace up to 50 million people by 2050.
Produced by Jennifer Redfearn in association with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Camera: Tim Metzger
Sound: Tim Metzger
Editor: Jennifer Redfearn
We've been on the climate change awareness tour for four days. The group usually wakes around 5:30AM – when the roosters warm their vocal chords – and bathes in the nearest river or in the sea. Breakfast or kai kai in pidgin, the common language spoken on tour, is usually a plate of rice, soupy noodles with tin fish, and kaukau or sweet potato.
This morning one of the elders, John Sailik, stood at the northern tip of Han Island, whispered sacred words into a handful of stones, and cast them out to sea.
Today the community held a church service to commemorate the youth from the Carteret Islands who will travel to the mainland to discuss climate change and the relocation (the islanders plan to relocate from the Carteret Islands to Tinputz on mainland Bougainville).
The first person we met this morning on the Carteret Islands was Nicholas, a 32-year-old fisherman with an easy smile who will lead the youth tour (climate change awareness tour) to Tinputz in the northeast corner of Bougainville. Tall with short spiky hair, Nicholas speaks three languages occasionally spicing up conversation with archaisms like "drunkard fellow."
The sea was calm today.
Last night I was on edge.
It wasn't just the "ambassador." Much of what I'd read about Bougainville before arriving painted a picture of a troubled and unstable country. Ten years of fighting for autonomy from Papua New Guinea and a brutal civil war ravaged the country in the 80s and 90s.
The "crisis" as the locals call it started in 1989 when villagers in the south protested against Rio Tinto, an international mining company that destroyed a mountainside of pristine rainforest to build one of the largest copper mines in the world.
The Carteret Islands are some of the most remote islands in the South Pacific. Three days after leaving New York City and five flights later, we arrived in Buka at the tip of Bougainville, where we plan to catch a boat to the Carterets to document how climate change is impacting this low-lying atoll.
Two Pulitzer Center-supported films won honors at the 9th Annual Media That Matters Film Festival June 3. Jennifer Redfearn's "The Next Wave," a short version of "Sun Come Up," her film on the effects of climate change on the native inhabitants of the Carteret Islands, won the Jury Award. Gabrielle Weiss' "La Hoja," on coca leaf farmers and the coca industry in Bolivia, won the Unspoken Truth Award. Congratulations, Jennifer and Gabrielle!
The American Museum of Natural History will screen Jennifer Redfearn's short work-in-progress video of "Sun Come Up," a documentary that follows the relocation of a community of climate change refugees living on a chain of low-lying islands in the South Pacific Ocean. More info about the event