Papua New Guinea

 See our gap year, career break and extreme expeditions to Papua New Guinea.

Culture

Papua New Guinea is one of the most diverse and undiscovered countries on Earth in terms of its culture, wildlife and geography. There are over 850 indigenous societies with an equivalent number of indigenous languages. These are all shoehorned into one of the world's most rugged, spectacular and inaccessible islands. The majority of the 6 million inhabitants of New Guinea still practice subsistence agriculture and live in small rural communities that are often extremely remote and difficult to reach. Even as recently as the late 1950s several remote tribal groups still remained undisturbed and unaware of the outside world until government patrols came across them for the first time.

Many seemingly bizarre and fascinating practices can be seen throughout Papua New Guinea - the smoked bodies of the dead in Aseki (this activity is no longer practiced), the mud men of Goroka, and Black Cat Track (a challenging jungle trail that Trekforce took Ben Fogle on earlier this year).

Wildlife

The IUCN recently rated Papua New Guinea the most biologically diverse region on the planet, and yet it is thought that many species of plants and animals remain undiscovered in the rarely travelled-to remote interior. Large scale logging and mining activities in the lowland tropical forest is now threatening many large ground dwelling species, including the Cassowary and arboreal species of tree kangaroo. Coupled with this, rapid population increases have led to the rate of deforestation doubling in recent years and the decimation of traditional hunting grounds through over hunting.

Geography

Papua New Guinea is located in the south western Pacific Ocean not far from the northern point of Australia. This spectacular, rugged and untamed country makes up the eastern portion of the island, the west of which is Indonesia's West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya). Small light aircraft are used as frequently as cars for transport, and many remote regions can still only be reached on foot, making it an ideal location for challenging treks.