Description
Known as the Ok Tedi River by the Yonggom people who live on its western bank, it was renamed the Alice River by the Italian explorer Luigi d'Albertis. [1] Ok is the word for water or river in the Ok languages family. It is a tributary of the Fly River. Tributaries of the Ok Tedi include the Birim.
The Kiunga-Tabubil Highway runs parallel with the river for the majority of its course, until just south of Ningerum where the highway veers southeast towards Kiunga, a port town on the Fly River.
The Ok Tedi is extremely fast-moving and has a massive capacity. It is situated on a sand bank, which allows for the river to change course quickly without warning. The sand conditions underneath the river and the extremely high rainfall of the catchment area make it one of the fastest moving rivers in the world. The roar from the river can be heard for many kilometres through the dense jungle of the district.
The pristine river was devastated by the Ok Tedi environmental disaster, when the enormous open-pit copper/gold Ok Tedi mine discharged massive amounts if mining waste directly into the river. Until its seizure by the Government of Papua New Guinea, the mine was owned by BHP.
The Wopkai people, or Wopkaimin, are a small aboriginal tribe of the Faiwol people that lives in the remote Star Mountains in western Papua New Guinea in what is known as the Fly River socio-ecological region. They speak the Wopkai dialect of the Faiwol language.
The Fly River is the third longest river on the island of New Guinea, after the Sepik River and Mamberamo River, with a total length of 1,060 km (660 mi). It is the largest by volume of discharge in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its catchment, and overall the 20th-largest primary river in the world by discharge volume. It is located in the southwest of Papua New Guinea and in the South Papua province of Indonesia. It rises in the Victor Emanuel Range arm of the Star Mountains, and crosses the south-western lowlands before flowing into the Gulf of Papua in a large delta. The Fly-Strickland River system has a total length of 1,220 km (760 mi), making it the longest river system of an island in the world. The 824 km (512 mi) Strickland River is the longest and largest tributary of Fly River, making it the farthest distance source of the Fly River.
The Strickland River is a major river in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. It is the longest and largest tributary of the Fly River with a total length of 824 km (512 mi) including the Lagaip River the farthest distance river source of the Strickland River. It was named after Edward Strickland, vice-president of the Geographical Society of Australasia by the New Guinea Exploration Expedition of 1885.
Western Province is a coastal province in southwestern Papua New Guinea, bordering the Indonesian provinces of Highland Papua and South Papua. The provincial capital is Daru. The largest town in the province is Tabubil. Other major settlements are Kiunga, Ningerum, Olsobip and Balimo.
Mount Hagen is the third largest city in Papua New Guinea, with a population of 46,250. It is the capital of the Western Highlands Province and is located in the large fertile Wahgi Valley in central mainland Papua New Guinea, at an elevation of 1,677 m (5,502 ft).
Tabubil is a town located in the Star Mountains area of the North Fly District of Western Province, Papua New Guinea. The town, including the adjoining relocated village of Wangabin and the industrial area of Laydown, is the largest settlement in the province, although the provincial capital, Daru is a similar size. It had a recorded population of 10,270 at the 2011 census.
The Ok Tedi Mine is an open-pit copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea located near the headwaters of the Ok Tedi River, in the Star Mountains Rural LLG of the North Fly District of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea.
Kiunga is a port town on the Fly River in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, just upstream from the D'Albertis Junction with the Ok Tedi River. It is the southernmost terminus of the Kiunga-Tabubil Highway. Local industry rests on a cornerstone of freight and haulage, particularly from the Ok Tedi Mine and provisioning for the much larger town of Tabubil. Natural rubber has been an emerging industry more recently, with a processing/manufacturing plant being built in town.
Tabubil Airport is an international airport in Tabubil, Papua New Guinea. Asia Pacific Airlines operates out of Tabubil as its hub.
Ok Tedi Mining Limited is a Papua New Guinean company that administers the Ok Tedi Mine in the northern part of the Western Province. Its main office is located in Tabubil and the building is known as the White House. Its chairman, since 2014, has been former Deputy Prime Minister Moi Avei.
The Ok Tedi environmental disaster caused severe harm to the environment along 1,000 km (620 mi) of the Ok Tedi River and the Fly River in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea from 1984 to 2013, with the damage still ongoing. The lives of 50,000 people have been disrupted by the disaster. One of the worst environmental disasters caused by humans, it is a consequence of the discharge of about two billion tons of untreated mining waste into the Ok Tedi from the Ok Tedi Mine, an open pit mine situated in the province.
The Kiunga-Tabubil Highway is an all-weather gravel road that runs from the river port town of Kiunga through Ningerum and Tabubil to the Ok Tedi Mine site, in the remote North Fly District of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea. The road is around 137 kilometres (85 mi) long, but this changes as sections are rehashed.
Mining in Papua New Guinea is an important part of the Papua New Guinea economy.
The North Fly District of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea is the northernmost, smallest, and arguably the most remote of the three districts of the province. It contains the Local-Level Government (LLG) areas of Kiunga Rural, Kiunga Urban, Ningerum Rural, Olsobip Rural and Star Mountains Rural, and the townships of Kiunga, Tabubil, Olsobip and Ningerum.
Star Mountains Rural LLG is a local-level government situated in the Star Mountains in North Fly District of Western Province of Papua New Guinea. In the year 2000, the LLG had 1691 homes, and a population of 12,114 people. The current population is more likely to now be around 15,000 people. The main population centre in the LLG is Tabubil. Finalbin and the Ok Tedi Mine are also in this LLG.
Ningerum is a small town on the Kiunga-Tabubil Highway, about equidistant between the two centres of Kiunga and Tabubil. Ningerum is the seat of the Ningerum Rural LLG, which was the second most populous LLG in the North Fly District of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea during the 2000 census. The town is served by Ningerum Airport.
The Middle Fly District of the Western Province of Papua New Guinea is a large, coastal district that forms the central area of the Fly River basin. It contains the Local-Level Government areas of: Balimo Urban, Bamu Rural, Gogodaia Rural, Lake Murray Rural, and Nomad Rural, and the population centres of Balimo, Bamu, Gogodala and Nomad. It also contains the largest lake in the country, Lake Murray.
The glass blue-eye is a species of fish in the subfamily Pseudomugilinae. It is endemic to Papua New Guinea where it is only known to occur in a few small creeks adjacent to a 15–20 kilometres (9.3–12.4 mi) stretch of the Ok Tedi Mine supply road between the settlements of Kiunga and Tabubil in the Upper Fly River system close to the frontier with Irian Jaya. This species has a mainly transparent body with silvery gill covers and belly, there are black spots on the margins of the scales and there are black markings on the fins and lateral line, with the fins being shaded with yellow, with the exception of the transparent pectoral fins. It attains a standard length of 3 centimetres (1.2 in). This species was described by Gerald R. Allen in 1983 and its specific name honours the site biologist at the Ok Tedi Mine, David Balloch, for the support and assistance he gave Allen.
The Birim River or Ok Birim in the western province of New Guinea is a tributary of the Ok Tedi River, which is in turn a tributary of the north Fly River. The Birim river joins the Ok Tedi river from the west between Ningerum and Bige. The Birim river area is inhabited by the Yonggom tribe. They practise tropical forest Swidden agriculture. Comprising about 3,000 people, the tribe speaks the Ninggerum language of the Ok group.
Roy Biyama was a Papua New Guinean politician. He was a member of the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea from 2002 until his death, representing the electorate of Middle Fly Open. He was a member of four parties: the Papua New Guinea Revival Party, the People's Action Party, the United Resources Party and the People's National Congress. He served as Minister for Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology (2003-2004), Minister for Labour and Industrial Relations (2004-2006) and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister (2006-2007) in the Somare government. He had also been Governor of Western Province since February 2017.
