A Road to Nowhere

A Road to Nowhere kaft (1 van 1)    Engelse vlag  vlag nl      photobook A ROAD TO NOWHERE

The Trans Irian Road (Trans-Papua Highway) intends to open up the whole jungle-covered interior of Papua, Indonesia. In 1992 we followed the rough course of the road as plotted out on some maps, to see the present and the possible future of the Papuans.

workers plantation in truck woman in transmigrant shed transmigrants in front of house woman with trees in potatoe field woman with 2 children in garden woman washing sago transmigants alongside plantation two man and plane woman and child in garden_1 wamena market place street next to market wamena selling bundles of firewood ronde hut (1) palm oil plantation with distant village palm oil factory Palm oil landscape left_1 military control post man with bibit sago palm trees burned tree mashing sago man with smoke man with shovel man with digging stick man digging with hands man and children in potatoe field group with pig father and son in potatoe field chopping the jungle Children at airstrip wamena child in river a village in Pass Valley a transmigrant family with deers woman with trees in potatoe field woman with 2 children in garden woman in transmigrant shed woman and man and pig woman and child in garden_1 woman 2x children corr wamena market place two man and plane transmigrants in front of house transmigants alongside plantation street next to market wamena selling firewood in Wamena selling bundles of firewood Sago palm tree ronde hut (1) palm oil plantation with distant village Palm oil military control post man with bibit sago palm trees mother washing child mashing sago man with smoke man with shovel man with digging stick man digging with hands man and children in potatoe field landscape left_1 group with pig father and son in potatoe field chopping the jungle Children at airstrip wamena child in river burned tree a village in Pass Valley a transmigrant family with deers Arso kebun Arso kebun (1) 35 34 2 palm oil plantation labourers workers plantation in truck woman with 2 children in garden woman washing sago woman in transmigrant shed woman and child in garden_1 wamena market place two man and plane transmigrants in front of house transmigants alongside plantation selling firewood in Wamena selling bundles of firewood Sago palm tree ronde hut palm oil plantation with distant village palm oil factory

 

The book consists of three parts. The first part deals with the relatively unchanged traditional  food system that is based upon  the cultivation of the sweet potatoe in the Central Highlands.  The second part shows the surroundings of Waris close to the PNG border. The staple diet of these lowland tribes  is primarily  based upon the wild sago in the jungle, on hunting and food gathering.

The last part shows the situation between the recently finished part of the Trans Irian Road and the border of PNG, where the Workwane tribe lives around the town of Arso. The Workwane suddenly found themselves surrounded by a huge palm oil plantation.  For their livelihood they have become solely dependent on selling palm nuts to a factory, to obtain money for food.

Papua is a province of the Indonesian archipelago, that stretches almost 6000 kilometres from Sabang in the north of Sumatra to Merauke in the south  of  Papua, close to the border of Papua New Guinea. Until 1962  Papua was a colony of The Netherlands, until that time named Dutch New Guinea. The Indonesians changed its name into Irian Jaya, and in the year 2000 rebaptised it into it’s current name:  ‘Papua’.  Papua is the western part of the second largest island in the world. Together with its independent neighbour Papua New Guina  it almost forms an entire and unique continent: New Guinea.

This photo-documentary explores some recent changes in Papua while it was still named Irian Jaya.  During our stay, in the year 1991, we documented some recent influences that modern development schemes  meant for the traditional way of life of the Papuan tribes. We compared the more or less untouched food system of Central Highland tribes, such as the Dani and the Jali, with the changed food security of the Workwane tribe, a northern lowland tribe living close to the border of Papua new Guinea.

In 1991 these different locations shared a relation to a road- in-construction: The Trans Irian Road (Trans-Papua Highway). On some maps the future track of this road was plotted out to connect the three areas.

While the Central Highlands still remained unconnected in 1991, still in:  ’the Middle of Nowhere’ , the rainforest of the Workwane tribe around Arso changed drastically after the arrival of that road into a huge palm oil plantation. By means of the Trans Irian Road, the Workwane are now said to be connected to the 21 th century,.

At that time the little village of Waris was still just outside the far end of the plantation, a few miles from the point where the troublesome construction of the  Trans Irian Road came to a stand still…

 

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