The
Foja Mountains or
Foja Range is located just north of the Mamberamo river basin in
PapuaPapua is the largest province of Indonesia, comprising a majority part of the western half of the island of New Guinea and nearby islands...
,
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. The mountains rise to 2,193 meters (7,195 ft), and contain more than 3,000 square kilometres of old growth tropical
rainforestRainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1750–2000 mm . The monsoon trough, alternately known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating Earth's tropical rain forests.From 40 to 75%...
in the interior part of the range.
The entire Foja forest tract covers some 9,712 square kilometers and is the largest unroaded tropical forest in the Asia Pacific region.
The mountains are sometimes spelled "Foya", and are located approximately 60 to 70 kilometers south of the coastal town of
SarmiCount Ferdinando Sarmi was the head of the Sarmi fashion design house in New York City.-Early years:Ferdinando Sarmi was born into a wealthy Italian family. He expressed interest in fashion as a youth but was discouraged from pursuing a design career by his father...
.
The Foja mountains are cooler than the lowlands below because of their elevation, but January and July temperatures still average 20 to 30 °C (68 to 86 °F).
The
Foja Mountains or
Foja Range is located just north of the Mamberamo river basin in
PapuaPapua is the largest province of Indonesia, comprising a majority part of the western half of the island of New Guinea and nearby islands...
,
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. The mountains rise to 2,193 meters (7,195 ft), and contain more than 3,000 square kilometres of old growth tropical
rainforestRainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions setting minimum normal annual rainfall between 1750–2000 mm . The monsoon trough, alternately known as the intertropical convergence zone, plays a significant role in creating Earth's tropical rain forests.From 40 to 75%...
in the interior part of the range.
The entire Foja forest tract covers some 9,712 square kilometers and is the largest unroaded tropical forest in the Asia Pacific region.
Geography
The mountains are sometimes spelled "Foya", and are located approximately 60 to 70 kilometers south of the coastal town of
SarmiCount Ferdinando Sarmi was the head of the Sarmi fashion design house in New York City.-Early years:Ferdinando Sarmi was born into a wealthy Italian family. He expressed interest in fashion as a youth but was discouraged from pursuing a design career by his father...
.
The Foja mountains are cooler than the lowlands below because of their elevation, but January and July temperatures still average 20 to 30 °C (68 to 86 °F). The rainy season occurs from December to March, but the area can receive rain throughout the year. In a typical year, the range receives more than 2,032 mm (80 in) of
precipitationIn meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that is deposited on the Earth's surface. The main forms of precipitation include rain, snow, ice pellets, and graupel...
. Relative
humidityHumidity is the amount of water vapour in the air. In daily language the term "humidity" is normally taken to mean relative humidity. Relative humidity is defined as the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapour in a parcel of air to the saturated vapour pressure of water vapour at a prescribed...
ranges from 73 to 87%. The nearest villages include: Sragafareh, Jomen, Beggensabah, Aer Mati, and Dabra.
History
The mountains have no record of visitors prior to 1979 (Stattersfield et al. 1998), and are dominated by
Araucaria cunninghamiiAraucaria cunninghamii is a species of Araucaria known as Moreton Bay Pine, or Hoop Pine. Other less commonly used names include Colonial Pine, Richmond River Pine, Queensland Pine, Alloa, Ningwik, or Pien, the wood is sometimes called Arakaria). It is named after botanist and explorer Allan...
,
Podocarpus neriifoliusPodocarpus neriifolius is a species of conifer in the Podocarpaceae family.It is found in Brunei, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam....
,
Agathis labillardieriAgathis labillardieri is a species of conifer in the Araucariaceae family.It is found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.-References:* Conifer Specialist Group 1998. . Downloaded on 10 July 2007....
,
CalophyllumCalophyllum is a plant genus of around 180-200 species of tropical evergreen trees in the family Clusiaceae. Its members are native to Australasia, Madagascar, Eastern Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific islands, the West Indies and Latin America...
, and
Palaquium at the 1,200 meter level. Much of the area around the Foja Mountains and nearby Van Rees Mountains are too steep for traditional
loggingLogging is the process in which certain trees are cut down for forest management and timber.In forestry the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard. In common usage...
, and are considered unsafe due to their inaccessibility. Some atlases show only the Gauttier Mountains in the area, but the Foja Mountains lie at the eastern edge of that range at about
139° eastThe meridian 139° east of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, Australasia, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole....
longitude.
2005
In December 2005, a group of scientists, from the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
IndonesiaThe Republic of Indonesia is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands. With an estimated population of around 237 million people, it is the world's fourth most populous country, with the world's largest population of Muslims.Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, and
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
spent nearly a month in the Foja Range documenting
floraIn botany, flora has two meanings. The first meaning, flora of an area or of time period, refers to all plant life occurring in an area or time period, especially the naturally occurring or indigenous plant life...
and
faunaFauna is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g...
from the lower hills to near the summit of the range. The expedition team was co-led by Dr.
Bruce BeehlerDr. Bruce Beehler is an ornithologist and vice-president of Conservation International's Melanesia Center for Biodiversity Conservation ....
and Dr. Stephen Richards and included scientists from the
Indonesian Institute of SciencesThe Indonesian Institute of Sciences is the governmental authority for science and research in Indonesia.It is called Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia, or LIPI, in Indonesian...
,
Cenderawasih UniversityCenderawasih University is a university in Jayapura, in the province Papua, Indonesia. The university is the leading educational institution in the province....
, the
Smithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazines...
,
Conservation InternationalConservation International is a nonprofit organization headquartered in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, that seeks to protect Earth's biodiversity "hotspots," high-biodiversity wilderness areas as well as important marine regions around the globe...
and other institutions. In February 2006, the expedition team released details of newly discovered
speciesIn biology, a species is:* a taxonomic rank or* a unit at that rank ....
including:
- One bird, a honeyeater
The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family of small to medium sized birds most common in Australia and New Guinea, but also found in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Samoa and Tonga, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea...
with scarlet wattles, officially described in 2007 as the Wattled Smoky HoneyeaterThe Wattled Smoky Honeyeater is a species of honeyeater with a sooty-grey plumage and a black bill. The most distinctive feature is arguably the extensive reddish-orange facial skin and pendulous wattle...
(Melipotes carolae).
- 20 frogs
- Four butterflies
- Five palms
- A rhododendron
Rhododendron is a genus of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. It is a large genus with over 1000 species and most have showy flower displays. It includes the plants known to gardeners as azaleas...
with a white, scented flower 15 cm across
The scientists also documented the following notable species:
- The first photographs of Berlepsch's Six-wired Bird of Paradise and the Golden-fronted Bowerbird
The Golden-fronted Bowerbird, Amblyornis flavifrons is a medium-sized, approximately 24cm long, brown bowerbird. The male is rufous brown with an elongated golden crest extending from its golden forehead, dark grey feet and buffish yellow underparts...
, both of which were only known from a minute number of trade skins previously.
- A Golden-mantled Tree-kangaroo
The Golden-mantled Tree-kangaroo, Dendrolagus pulcherrimus is a species of tree-kangaroo native and endemic to montane forests of northern New Guinea. It has chestnut brown short coat with a pale belly, and yellowish neck, cheeks and feet. A double golden stripe runs down its back...
(Dendrolagus pulcherrimus), believed to be near-extinct.
- Western Long-beaked Echidna
The Western Long-beaked Echidna is one of the four extant echidnas and one of three species of Zaglossus that occur in New Guinea. Fossils of this species also occur in Australia...
s that allowed scientists to pick them up, evidence that the area has had no human presence
The human population of the Foja Range is about 300, all of whom live in the 7,500 square kilometres of low-lying forest. The 3,000 square kilometres of mountainous jungle appear to have been untouched by humans until the 2006 scientific expedition. There are no roads in the mountains, so scientists had to travel by
helicopterA helicopter is an aircraft that is lifted and propelled by one or more horizontal rotors, each rotor consisting of two or more rotor blades. Helicopters are classified as rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft to distinguish them from fixed-wing aircraft because the helicopter achieves lift with the...
, landing on a boggy lakebed. Six permits were needed before the 11-member team could legally fly in.
2007
In December 2007, a second scientific expedition was taken to the mountain range. The expedition led to the discovery of two new species: the first being a 1.4kg giant rat (
MallomysMallomys is a genus of rodent in the Muridae family. The name of the species derives from the Greek μαλλός, mallós, wool, and μῦς, mȳs, mouse/rat.It contains the following species:* De Vis's Woolly Rat...
sp.) approximately five times the size of a regular
Brown RatThe brown rat, common rat, sewer rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Norwegian rat, or wharf rat is one of the best known and most common rats. One of the largest muroids, it is a brown or grey rodent with a body up to long, and a similar tail length; the male weighs on average and the female...
, the second a pygmy possum (
CercartetusThe genus Cercartetus is a group of very small possums known as pygmy possums. Four species comprise this genus, which together with the genus Burramys make up the marsupial family Burramyidae....
sp.) described by scientists as "one of the world's smallest marsupials."
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