EEP Crowned pigeon number 4

EEP STUDBOOK CROWNED PIGEONS
Also young birds are taken out of the nest, shortly before fledging, and kept as pets. This is
mostly done with Blyths hornbills, sulphur-crested cockatoos and eclectus parrots.
Source of income
Residents of the Lakekamu Basin sell garden and forest products to government personnel at
the bi-weekly market held in Kakoro. Peanuts and betelnuts are also sold in urban markets in
Kereman, Wau and Port Moresby, where a large bag of betelnut is worth up to K 200. The
Lakekamu Basin is said to be one of the few areas in Papua New Guinea where a year-round
harvesting of betelnut is possible. Harvests of coffee and cacoa, planted throughout much of
the area, have been limited because of transportation problems (Filer and Iamo, 1989).
While avocados and pineapple grow well in the basin, they have not been exploited
commercially for the same reason. Okari nuts (in season), meat from wild pigs, crocodile
skins and feathers (from birds of paradise, sulphur crested cockatoos, crowned pigeons and
cassowaries) are also sold in the markets of Port Moresby. Much of the money earned on such
trips to urban markets is spent on travel and other expenses, although people usually return
home with some durable goods, such as kerosene laterns, cooking pots, transistor radios (with
batteries) or clothing. A few residents of the basin earn small sums of money by farming and
selling colourful beetles and butterfly larvae to the insect-marketing program sponsored by
the Wan Ecology Institute (Orsak, 1991, Hudson, pers. comm.). The Wan Ecology Institute
also trains farmers in growing plants for the insects and in managing their own farm. They
start planting plant species, which are common, and are a habitat for those highly demanded
butterfly species around their houses and at other appropriate sites. In this way, the plants
attract the insects, and the villages do not have to catch the insects through the whole forest.
Some of the residents of the Lakekamu Basin are involved in small-scale alluvial gold mining
in the creeks that run through the hills north of Kakoro (Filer and Iamo, 1989). The Biaru
have panned for gold in Nowi creek for more than a decade. The residents of a settlement
known as Bundi Camp, located just north of Kakoro on the Biaru River, migrated into the
basin from Goroka (Eastern Highlands Province) to work at local gold deposits. The Kurija
residents of Mirimas village pan for gold in the eastern tributaries of the Oreba River (Filer
and Iamo, 1989). Some of the residents of the Kamea village of Iruki migrated to the basin to
work the gold at Omoi Creek (also known as Cassowary Creek). In the late 1980s, the Biaru
invested in dredging equipment, but this angered the Kurija, who claim ownership of the land
beside Nowi Creek. With support from the Kovio, the Kurija raided the Biaru mining camp,
destroying their equipment and causing a number of injuries. More substantial gold reserves
have been located near the Olipai River, a western tributary of the Lakekamu River. Several
mining companies continue to prospect for additional deposits in the mountains north of the
Lakekamu Basins (Makamet and Sengo in CIRAP), 1996).
Timber is another potential resource. The government has not granted any logging
concessions in the Lakekamu Basin, although a proposed timber project in Gulf Province
would encompass the Southwest corner of the basin (Werner in CIRAP, 1995). Several
Malaysian timber companies have expressed their interest in obtaining logging rights for the
remainder of the basin (Beehler in CIRAP, 1995) but so far without any success.
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