Woodlark Island
| Native name: Muyua, Muyuw | |
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 Woodlark Islands |
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 Woodlark Island (Papua New Guinea)
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| Geography | |
| Location | Melanesia |
| Coordinates | 9°7′35″S 152°48′20″E / 9.12639°S 152.80556°E |
| Country | |
| Province | Milne Bay Province |
Woodlark Island, known to its inhabitants simply as Woodlark or Muyua, is an island in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. It is called Murua by the inhabitants of some other islands in the province. Muyuw language, one of the Kilivila–Louisiades languages and part of the Austronesian language family, is spoken on the island.
The wider Woodlark Islands group also consists of Madau and Nusam to the west, Nubara to the east, and the Marshall Bennett group to the southwest.
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[edit] Conservation
A plan by the Malaysian company Vitroplant to use 70% of the island for palm oil production was scrapped after opposition from the islands inhabitants.[1][2][3] The project was seen as a threat to endemic organisms on the island.[3] As of 2009, a full wildlife survey of the island had not yet been carried out.[1]
[edit] History
An Italian missionary order of Catholic clergy, the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (P.I.M.E.), sent five priests and two brothers to Woodlark Island in 1852. Giovanni Battista (John) Mazzucconi was killed there in 1855 by an islander called Avicoar who opposed the missionaries and their religion.[4]
Today about one third of the population of Papua is Catholic.[citation needed]
Operation Chronicle was the name given to the landing of Allied forces on Woodlark Island and Kiriwina on June 30, 1943, during World War II. Within a few months of the landing U.S. Navy Seabees had constructed a major airbase at Guasopa Bay, known as Woodlark Airfield (later Guasopa Airport).
[edit] References
- ^ a b Gascoigne, Ingrid. Papua New Guinea (Cultures of the World). 2009-03. Benchmark Books. p. 54. ISBN 978-0761434160.
- ^ "70% of rainforest island to be cleared for palm oil". Mongabay.com. 2007-12-13. http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1213-woodlark.html. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
- ^ a b [Biofuels versus Native Rights: "Biofuels versus Native Rights: Planned logging of Woodlark Island for biofuels opposed by islanders and scientists"]. Mongabay.com. 2007-11-12. Biofuels versus Native Rights:. Retrieved 16 September 2010.
- ^ Thomas Mary Sennott (14 January 2009). "Blessed John Mazzucconi and the New Guinea Battlefield". catholicism.org. http://catholicism.org/new-guinea-battlefield.html.
[edit] External links
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