Violence, an earthquake and the rebirth of an historical Journal.

The good citizens of Lae and PNG in general are very excited at the moment because of the approaching 50th anniversary of Independence.  Mostly this involves lots of flags and banners on cars, shops, streets, our offices and people wearing flag-themed hats, shirts, dresses as well as school kids in traditional tribal dress.  

Sadly and possibly not coincidentally, there have been several violent incidents in town in recent weeks.  A group of men held up a store and took off in a van.  The police caught up with them and six of the thieves were killed.  A man was speared in town yesterday and our security company thoughtfully shared grisly photos of the poor chap dying in a wheelbarrow as people tried to get him to hospital.  Last night a fight broke out between some soldiers and others who were gambling together.  A soldier was stabbed to death so his mates set fire to several houses.

We've been told by our managers to avoid crowds until all the festivities are over.  We are unclear if this includes the Morobe Show to which we have been looking forward.  My potential birding day has been put on hold until things settle down as well.  I'm so glad we are out here at 12 Mile and not in town.  That said, we went into town this morning for our weekly shop without incident.  

Last Sunday night we were sitting watching TV with dinner and the house started to shake - gently at first then quite strongly.  This lasted 10-15 secs.  It was a 5.0 earthquake some 60 km to our north-east.  Our driver the next morning said he thought it was an average one.

Birding is proceeding slowly.  I still have no access to forest birds but once the festivities are over I'll resume my efforts to get something happening.  There's a tour company that does kayaking in the mangroves.  Bound to be some birds there, right?  Locally I've added Chestnut-breasted Mannikin, Rainbow Bee-eater, Metallic Starling, Black-capped Lory and Orange-bellied Fruit Dove.

Work progressed well this past week. The Department of Agriculture had a scientific journal.  

It started in 1935 when the Australians were administering the Territory of New Guinea from Rabaul on New Britain.  The Agricultural Gazette ran until December 1941 when Vol 7 No. 4 was issued with a suitable seasons greetings message. 

Starting on Jan 4 1942 the Japanese began bombing Rabaul and took over the city on 23rd January. The next volume of the journal was Vol 8 No 1 in July 1953 and was now the Papua and New Guinea Agricultural Gazette.  It led with an editorial that included the following:

The previous Director, Mr. G. H. Murray, was lost in Rabaul at the time of the Japanese invasion with many of his staff and that was a serious loss to the Territory. Only four members of the pre-war Department are still here in their official capacity. So in the special presentation of this issue special thought is given to past contributors.

The Journal continued until June 2013 with the last issue (Vol 54) was published. By that time it had evolved into the Papua New Guinea Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. I don't know why it ceased.

NARI has been given the job of resurrecting the journal with other interested parties and this will be a significant part of my work here over the next 11 months.  Last week we found and installed open-source journal-hosting software and have begun to add all the back issues, item by item.  As of yesterday it is now possible to download the first 9 volumes.  We have started to add the individual items but this is not yet working properly.  The plan is to have a meeting with all parties in a few weeks, set up an editorial committee and then start calling for papers.  It will be open access.