The Wopkaimin are a small aboriginal tribe that lives in the remote

Star Mountains The Star Mountains ( Dutch ( colonial)'': Sterrengebergte''; Indonesian'': Pegunungan Bintang'') are a mountain range in western Papua New Guinea and the eastern end of Highland Papua, Indonesia, stretching from the eastern end of Indonesia t ...

in western

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

in what is known as the Fly River socio-ecological region. The tribe speaks Faiwol. The

Ok Tedi Mine 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. The mine is ...

, the third largest open pit

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

mine in the world is located in their traditional territory. Before the coming of the mine with construction starting in 1981 the Wopkaimin lived in a

subsistence economy A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...

. The mine severely impacted the tribe, totally disrupting their traditional patterns of life. For one thing,

Tabubil 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 (where industrial equipment wa ...

a town of 12,500 to house mine workers was built in the midst of their territory. Work for wages was available to tribal members, but only at the unskilled level and not on a regular basis. The Wopkaimin along with many other ethnic groups living in the area now live on a rotating basis between the town of Tabubil, roadside villages along the Kiunga-Tabubil Highway, and in villages away from the mine as jobs are lost or become available. In 1992 a species of

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...

, Bulmer's fruit bat (''Aproteles bulmerae'') previously thought extinct was discovered to still live in Luplupwintem Cave, an enormous

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

above the Hindenburg Wall in their territory. This bat was first discovered in the 1970s by David Hyndman, who studied the Wopkaimin. However the contemporaneous introduction of the shotgun was thought to have resulted in the

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

of the species.

Notes

References

*Hyndman, David. ''Ancestral Rain Forests and the Mountain of Gold: Indigenous Peoples and Mining in New Guinea'', Westview Press (October 1994), hardcover, 208 pages, Indigenous peoples of Melanesia Papuan_people Ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea Tribes of Oceania Min peoples {{PapuaNewGuinea-stub