Bipi Island is a flat

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

island located off the west coast of the main island of Manus in the Admiralty Group,

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. Adjacent and to the North East of Bipi Island is Sisi Island. Bipi Island consists of three villages, namely Masoh, Matahai, and Kum (the latter is also known as "Salapai") with approximately one thousand inhabitants. The name "Bipi Island" was most likely derived from the "Burns Philp" (BP) corporation's plantation colony on the island.https://shippingaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Burns-Philp-Bloody-Pirates-of-the-Pacific.pdf Bipi men were known as master woodcarvers in the 1970s and 1980s and sold carvings to supplement their meagre incomes made from

copra Copra (from ; ; ; ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted ...

production. Today, the main economic activity is fishing and the sale of bêche-de-mer to licensed buyers supplying the Asian markets. This activity is conducted on the surrounding coral islands and reefs which are owned by traditional islands, reefs and sea-owning groups of Bipi Island. Bipi Island has one primary school that also caters to the students of nearby islands.

References

Bipi Island on Google Maps
Admiralty Islands Islands of Papua New Guinea {{ManusProvince-geo-stub

See also

References