EEP Crowned pigeon number 4

EEP STUDBOOK CROWNED PIGEONS
Logging might also be introduced into the area indirectly, by establishing an oil palm
plantation organisation into a series of small-holdings, although the residents of the basin
have already rejected such a proposal (Makamet and Sengo in CIRAP, 1996). The residents
still are divided about the prospect of logging projects on their land.
Lately, with support from organisations like CI and the FSP-PNG, the landowners are
developing three tightly integrated enterprises based on scientific, recreational a non-timber
uses of forest resources. Major components of this integrated conservation development
project include the establishment of a rainforest centre for research. A walking track between
the Wan Ecology Institute and the basin (which includes the famous Bulldog-track, used in
WW II by the Australians, where still a lot of remaining equipment can be found) and the
construction of guest houses for tourists and research use (Miller and Sekhran, 1995). In this
project, the inhabitants of the villages can serve as guides, translators, carriers, cooks and so
on. Furthermore they can sell their forest product to the tourists.
Traveling
Transportation out of the basin is expensive and unreliable. The plane to Wau costed K 50
each way in 1997. Although scheduled to arrive twice a week (Wednesday and Saturday),
these flights are often postponed because of the fog that block the mountain gap to the
northeast of Kakoro. Even in clear weather, charters to other airstrips may be given
precedence over regularly scheduled flights to Kakoro and Tekadu. Less frequent, one may be
able to fly in or out of the basin on the provincial charter for Kerema, which is supposed to
deliver paycheques and transport government transport personnel every fortnight. It is also
possible to reach POM by travelling south along the Lakekamu River by (motor-) canoe to its
junction with the Tauri River, where a road links the settlement of Iokea to the city. In 1997,
this canoe trip costed K 40, with a surcharge of K 5 per large bag of betelnut. Passage along
the road costed an additional K 10.
Health
The major sicknesses which affects the people in the Lakekamu Basin are malaria, asthma,
dysentery and other lung related diseases such as TB. Other minor diseases are also common
in the area, such as cough, fever, headache, scabies and sores (Pupang, 1996). Furthermore, in
extremely dry periods, typhus is also a major problem. There are two health-centers (or aidposts)
in the Basin (in Kakoro and Tekadu), but they are not well equipped and not well
manned; most of the time nobody is present or otherwise the only medicine they can give is
"advice".
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