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ALL
OF IRIAN JAYA TRIPS ARE OPERATED BY :
ADVENTURE INDONESIA WEST PAPUA ( IRIAN JAYA ) LICENSED
BRANCH
-- NO BY OTHER THIRD PARTY --
What
an amazing crew !!. They made our life so comfortable - and contributed
so much to the shoot - we were talking amongst the crew about giving
our guide a producer credit on the show that's how on it he was,
and knowing of what we needed to have for a successful shoot in
Irian Jaya after the first day on the job - it's hard to
find that sometimes in LA.
Overall
i would give your outfit a 10 out of 10, can't say enough about
how well we were all taken care of and the knowledge of the area
we traveled was unbelievable. Your guys turned out to be some of
our best assets on the team out there.
The
episode airs in november on the travel channel. I'll send you a
copy of the show when we finish cutting it and there is going to
be an article in the october issue of outside magazine based on
the expedition - will include some of those as well
Thanks
again for all of your help
Jeff jenkins
Executive Producer -OUTSIDE TELEVISION
40 rose avenue, suite 8
Venice, ca. 90291
West
Papua Province somewhere in the southern pacific. There have not
probably many people known the Papua very well except for those
who like adventures. This
Province comprises the western half of the huge island of New Guinea
situated just northern tip of Australia. The eastern half of the
island is another country of Papua New Guinea.
Located
in the most eastern part of Indonesia, Irian Jaya is the country's
most spectacular region for tourism where whole great swaths of
earth can still be accurately as totally wild; thousand of kilometers
of jungle with unknown and unclassified flora and fauna, ice capped
mountains, swamps, isolated and primitive cultures; all are waiting
to be explored
The population
of West Papua province is about 2 million. About 10 percent of the
population live in the cool central highlands of Baliem Valley.
Almost half of this province - was once
base of the American and Allied Force during the Pacific War led
by General Douglas Mc Arthur - is hilly or mountainous and about
ten major peaks reach over 4,000 meters. The tallest is Carstensz
Pyramid (4,884 meter above sea level/16,023 feet from which flows
a glacier.

IRIAN
JAYA WEST PAPUA PEOPLE AND WAY OF LIFE
The
indigenous people of this province are Melanesians with black skins
and curly hair. They generally have a root crop subsistence agriculture
based on sweet potatoes and taros.
The people
of Irian Jaya obtain their starch from the sago palm which gives
and extremely generous yield for remarkably little effort. Feral
and domesticated pigs on the island is originally came from Southeast
Asia was an event which has had vast cultural and ritual significance
for its people. Pigs are often treated as members of the family
and are sometimes suckled by women.
While many
other people of the world were still hunters and gatherers, Papua
people had begun to garden. After fairly recently, many of them
lived with a simple Stone Age Culture wearing little clothing and
decorating their bodies with paintings, shells, pig tusks, feathers
and skins. There is a plethora of language in the province, perhaps
some 250 in all, each representing a tribal group which mixes little
with the others. Some of the more remote groups still have virtually
no contact with the outside world.
FLORA
AND FAUNA
Papua island may
have the richest wildlife and concentration of plant life in all
of Indonesia, or perhaps the world. No other islands in the archipelago
can match its various kind of Birds of Paradise, Parrot families,
pigeons and Flightless Cassowary.
This province
is also home of 150 species of lizards, 30,000 species of beetles,
200 frogs and 800 spiders. A high percentage of the island's 100
snake species are poisonous, including all 17 species of sea snakes.
There are
altogether some 2,700 species of orchids found in Papua Province,
600 species that are medicinal importance and over 124 endemic genera.
The lush vegetation of the province is in fact a deceptive cover
over poor soils badly leached by heavy rain and containing no rich
volcanic materials. Mangroves and Nipah Palms ensnare the brackish
estuaries of the coast.
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