by: John Yeld
We were like kids let loose in a candy store! That is how co-leader Dr Bruce Beehler has described a November 2005 expedition by a team of natural scientists to a "Lost World" in the great tropical island of New Guinea.
The team, from the United States, Europe, Australia and Indonesia, was flown in by helicopter to the mist-shrouded Foja Mountains in the least-explored western province of Indonesian New Guinea.
They emerged after 15 days, having made a series of discoveries and re-discoveries, that rocked their respective scientific communities.
"It's a bit of an adventure story and a mystery story and a natural history story," ornithologist and tropical ecologist Beehler told a rapt audience at the Sasol Scifest 2007 science festival in Grahamstown last week.
The vice-president of the Washington-based Conservation International explained that the remote Foja Mountains were extremely difficult to get to.
The closest community, where the scientific community had their base camp and from where they flew out into the mountains, was a small coastal village occupied by about 150 people.
"They are a forest people - virtually everything they have and use is taken from the forest which is a very rich tropical rainforest. It's not an easy life but it's a rich life, and it's a nice place to be."
It took us about 18 months to get permission from the local stewards, the people who own this forest, to be able to go in."
"They had to get to trust us, think of us as partners and not as exploiters who are going to take something away. And that's not an easy explanation for these local people because most of the foreigners who come to a place like this are there looking for something - gas, oil, gold, copper or nickel!
The forest is all they have - it's their patrimony, and they take this patrimony and any trespassing very seriously."There's not a single village above about 70m in the Foja Mountain region, Beehler explained."
So basically there's no-one living in the foothills or the uplands, and in fact we could find no evidence of any trail or hunting camp where we went, there's no human impact. "It was really quite stunning. Essentially, you have a 300 000ha virgin forest with no people, no trails, no trash and no trouble. That's what really makes it remarkable to us."They established a camp on the edge of a natural clearing - a moss bog wetland - at a height of 2 000m."
We were very happy to be there because basically we were in a place that very few people had ever seen. It was a beautiful fairyland, what we call elfin forest or cloud forest or moss forest.
They're very pleasant, interesting places to be - very peaceful, not too hot."For most of the 15 days, their camp was shrouded in mist, rain and fog, but this did not prevent them making discoveries that included what was possibly a new species of forest dragon (like an iguana) and 40 species of frogs of which 20 are new to science. "We really hit the ball out of the park with the frogs!" commented Beehler.
They also found four new butterfly species; a series of previously undescribed plants that included five new palm species; a white-flowered rhododendron with the largest flower of this genus on record.
They also came across new breeding locations for both the Golden-mantled Tree Kangaroo - described as the rarest creature in the entire Pacific region. They also encountered the giant echidna, an extremely strange egg-laying mammal known as a monotreme (similar to Australia's duck-billed platypus) that also has a pouch like a marsupial and is now also one of New Guinea's rarest mammals because of hunting pressure.
They also secured the first photographs of the previously "lost" Golden-fronted Bowerbird displaying at its incredibly complex bower - a 2m high love tower that it uses to attract a mate - and found the formerly unknown breeding ground of another "lost" bird, the spectacular Six-wired Bird of Paradise.
Both birds were originally known to science only through dried specimens sent to Europe during the 19th century plume trade when the use of exotic feathers, and even whole birds, on women's hats was all the rage.
"The male and female (Bird of Paradise) came into our camp on the third day we were there and did a display right in front is us, which really was mind-boggling," said Beehler.
Probably their most remarkable scientific find was the discovery of a new species of Honeyeater, the first new bird species for New Guinea since 1942 and which Beehler is naming after his wife Carol.
Beehler, who is planning a return expedition later this year, commented in an earlier radio interview:"It's really as close as you can get to nirvana for an ornithologist or a tropical ecologist. It's really very special."
