Empress Augusta Bay is a
bay on the western side of the island of
Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island (; Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. Its land area is . The highest point is Mount Balbi, on the main island, at .
The much smaller Buk ...
, within the
Autonomous Region of Bougainville in northeastern
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 ...
.
It is a
subsistence fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...
area for the people of Bougainville.
History
Empress Augusta Bay is named after
Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, wife of
German Emperor William I; the bay was first surveyed by the German
steam frigate during a major scientific expedition in August 1875. Later, in the 1880s,
Bougainville became part of the
German colonial empire
The German colonial empire () constituted the overseas colonies, dependencies, and territories of the German Empire. Unified in 1871, the chancellor of this time period was Otto von Bismarck. Short-lived attempts at colonization by Kleinstaat ...
, at first within the German protectorate over the South Sea Islands and later administered by
German New Guinea
German New Guinea () consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups, and was part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , became a German protectorate in 188 ...
.
After Germany's defeat in
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, the colony passed to Australian control as the
Territory of New Guinea.
In November 1943 the bay was the site of the
Battle of Empress Augusta Bay, between
Allied and
Japanese forces.
During the 1970s and 1980s the bay was seriously polluted by
copper
Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) 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 pinkish-orang ...
tailings from the world's largest copper mine,
Panguna, operated by
Rio Tinto Group
Rio Tinto Group is a British-Australian multinational company that is the world's second largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). It was founded in 1873 when a group of investors purchased a mine complex on the Río Tinto, in Hu ...
. This issue contributed to the formation of the
secessionist
Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a Polity, political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession (such as a declaration of independence). A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal i ...
Bougainville Revolutionary Army and a
civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
on the island between 1989 and 1997.
See also
*
*Location coordinates —
Footnotes
References
*
Bays of Papua New Guinea
Geography of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville
{{Bougainville-geo-stub