Independence from Australia occurred in September of 1975. A secessionist revolt which claimed 20,000 lives raged on the island of Bougainville from 1988 until it was resolved in 1997. Autonomous Bougainville recently elected Joseph Kabui as president.

First Arrivals

Archeological evidence indicates that humans arrived on New Guinea at least 60,000 years ago, probably by sea from Southeast Asia during an ice age period when the sea was lower and distances between islands shorter. For an overview of the geological history of the continent of which New Guinea is a part, see Australia-New Guinea.

Although the first arrivals were hunters and gatherers, early evidence shows that people managed the forest environment to provide food.

The gardens of the New Guinea highlands are ancient, intensive permacultures, adapted to high population densities, very high rainfalls (as high as 10,000mm/yr (400in/yr)), earthquakes, hilly land, and occasional frost. There are indications that gardening was being practiced at the same time that agriculture was developing in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Complex mulches, crop rotations and tillages are used in rotation on terraces with complex irrigation systems. Western agronomists still do not understand all practices, and native gardeners are notably more successful than most scientific farmers. Some authorities believe that New Guinea gardeners invented crop rotation well before western europeans.

Early garden crops–many of which are indigenous–included sugarcane, Pacific bananas, yams, and taro, while sago and pandanus were two commonly exploited native forest crops. Today’s staples–sweet potatoes and pigs–are later arrivals, but shellfish and fish have long been mainstays of coastal dwellers’ diets.

A unique feature of New Guinea permaculture is the silviculture of Casuarina oligodon, a tall, sturdy native ironwood tree, suited to use for timber and fuel, with root nodules that fix nitrogen. Pollen studies show that it was adopted during an ancient period of extreme deforestation.