Bougainville Island

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Bougainville Island

Politically

Political geography

Political geography is the field of human geography that is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures....
, Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, part of Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands ....
(PNG). This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 (2000 census). It includes the adjacent island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls are called islets....
of Buka

Buka Island

Buka Island is the second largest island in the Papua New Guinean province of Bougainville Province....
, and assorted outlying islands including the Carterets

Carteret Islands

The Carteret Islands are Papua New Guinea islands located 86 km north-east of Bougainville Island in the Oceania....
. (The nation of the Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

For the group of islands rather than the nation, see Solomon Islands .The Solomon Islands is a country in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands....
is a separate state.)

Geographically

Physical geography

Physical geography is one of the three major subfields of geography. Physical geography focuses on understanding the processes and patterns in the natural environment, as opposed to the cultural or built environment, the domain of human geography....
and ecologically

Ecology

Ecology is the science study of the distribution and Abundance of life and the interactions between organisms and their nature environment ....
, Bougainville is the largest island in the Solomon Islands archipelago in Melanesia

Melanesia

Melanesia literally means "islands of the black-skinned people". It is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western side of the West Pacific to the Arafura Sea, north and northeast of Australia....
.

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History

Louis Antoine de Bougainville

Louis-Antoine, comte de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer....
named the island after himself.

In the 1970s, Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto may refer to:*Rio Tinto Group, a multinational mining company** Rio Tinto Alcan, the mining company's aluminum division** Rio Tinto Stadium, a football stadium in Sandy, Utah, USA sponsored by the above company...
) began exploiting the island's huge copper reserves. Resentment over the negative effects of the company's activities on the area and the lack of any tangible benefit to the islanders erupted into conflict in the 1990s. Attempts at proclaiming the independence of Bougainville (Republic of North Solomons) have occurred twice, once in 1975 and the other in 1990. In the second case the government of Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands ....
moved to put down what became a secessionist movement led by Francis Ona

Francis Ona

Francis Ona was a Bougainville Island secessionist leader who led an uprising against the Government of Papua New Guinea motivated at least initially by his concerns over the operation of the Panguna mine by Bougainville Copper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group....
, a former surveyor for BCL. The PNG army received military aid

Military aid

Military aid is aid which is used to assist an wiktionary:ally in its defense efforts, or to assist a poor country in maintaining control over its own territory....
from Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
and enlisted the support of Sandline International

Sandline International

Sandline International was a private military company based in London, established in the early 1990s. It was involved in conflicts in Papua New Guinea in 1997 causing the Sandline affair, in 1998 in Sierra Leone and in Liberia in 2003 ....
, a [private military company]. The island was embargoed to weaken its people's resistance. However, they proved much more resilient than expected, designing their own weapons and fueling engines with vegetable oil. Peace talks brokered by New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
began in 1997, leading to autonomy for the island.

Languages

There are several indigenous languages in Bougainville Province. These include both Austronesian and Papuan languages.

The most widely spoken Austronesian language is Halia and its dialects, spoken in the island of Buka

Buka Island

Buka Island is the second largest island in the Papua New Guinean province of Bougainville Province....
and the Selau peninsula of Northern Bougainville. Other Austronesian languages include Petats, Solos, Saposa/Taiof, Hahon and Tinputz, all spoken in the northern quarter of Bougainville, Buka and surrounding islands. These languages are closely related. Banoni and Arawa are Austronesian languages not closely related to the former, which are spoken in the coastal areas of central and south Bougainville. In the nearby atolls of Mortlock Islands, a Polynesian language.

The Papuan languages are confined to the main island of Bougainville. These include Rotokas

Rotokas language

Rotokas is a language spoken by some 4000 people in Bougainville Province, an island to the east of New Guinea, part of Papua New Guinea. There are at least three dialects of the language: Central Rotokas , Aita Rotokas, and Pipipaia....
, a language with a very small inventory of phonemes, Eivo, Buin, Keriaka, Nasioi, Motuna, Usiai and several others. They constitute the North Bougainville

North Bougainville languages

The North or West Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable....
and South Bougainville

South Bougainville languages

The South or East Bougainville languages are a small language family spoken on the island of Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea. They were classified as East Papuan languages by Wurm, but this does not now seem tenable....
language families.

None of the languages are spoken by more than 20% of the population, and the larger languages such as Nasioi, Motuna, Buin, and Halia are split into dialects that are not always mutually understandable. For general communication most Bougainvilleans use Tok Pisin

Tok Pisin

Tok Pisin is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea; in parts of Western, Gulf, Central, Oro and Milne Bay Provinces the use of Tok Pisin has a shorter history, and is less universal, especially among older people....
as a lingua franca

Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues....
, and at least in the coastal areas Pisin is often learned by children in a bilingual environment. English and Tok Pisin are the languages of official business and government.

In popular culture

Bougainville and its 1990s struggle for independence is the setting for the 2007 novel Mister Pip
Mister Pip

Mister Pip is a novel by Lloyd Jones , a Wellington-based New Zealand author and brother of Bob Jones . It is named after a character in, and shaped by the plot of, Charles Dickens's novel Great Expectations....
, by New Zealand author Lloyd Jones

Lloyd Jones (New Zealand author)

Lloyd Jones is a New Zealand author who currently resides in Wellington.He is a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington. In 1988 he was the recipient of the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship....
.

A documentary about the struggle of the indigenous population to save their island from environmental destruction and gain independence, was made in 1999, called Coconut Revolution.

Bougainville Island

History

Languages

In popular culture

See also

Further reading