Papua New Guinea

The first pearl farm

The first pearl farm in what was then the "Territory of New Guinea" was built near Fairfax Harbor in the late nineteen fifties. At first, the farm was considered an Australian enterprise, but it belonged to the same Australian-American-Japanese joint venture, which had established the first pearl farm in Kuri Bay. Keith Dureaux of the Australian Pearls Pty. Ltd. was the manager in Fairfax Harbor.

The farm was not far away from Port Moresby and operated initially without the approval of the Japanese government, which originally had only allowed one joint venture per country. 70,000 to 100,000 Pinctada maxima were shipped each year from the area near Broome over a distance of 4,000 kilometers by the Arafura Pearling Fleet. High mortality rates occurred around 1970 due to similar difficulties as in Australia. In 1975, the farm was closed and the equipment went to Thursday Island, where the company had meanwhile also opened pearl farms. Before the farm in New Guinea was abandoned, the owners, contrary to all original plans, generously offered to train the local people in the method for producing cultured blister pearls.

In 1965, C. Denis George decided to establish a cultured pearl industry in New Guinea and he asked the Australian government for help  Until this moment, the Japanese had systematically boycotted all of George's projects, and he was to make similar experiences in New Guinea. In the summer of 1966, he selected a suitable place on Daga Daga Island near Samarai after the administrator of the Territory and two ministries in Canberra had signaled their support. George proceeded to close down his household in Sydney, and prepared to move his family to New Guinea. Two days before his departure, when all his belongings and the whole equipment for the farm had already been in stalled on a ship, the Ministry of Agriculture in  formed George that the Administrative Council would probably refuse permission. Nevertheless,

George and his wife Yulie decided to go to Samarai, although they knew that an uncertain future awaited them. C. Denis George succeeded in securing the support of the village people after a few days, and he proceeded to cut down trees and drain the land on Daga Daga Island. When the farm was established at the end of the year and a small harbor had been built, George immediately started to train the first 25 volunteers from the village. He later named his school "John Guise School of Pearl Culture" in order to demonstrate his gratitude for moral support from the Australian politician.

At first, groups of young men were trained in diving using a snorkel and diving goggles. There were extensive banks of Pinctada margaritifera, which until then the locals had fished using their traditional canoes. At the start, only black-lipped shells were used for the production of blister pearls, but Pinctada maxima (which came from only small banks), Pinctada Radiata and Pteia penguinson followed. A few men from the village were trained in scuba diving so that deeper banks could be reached in the future. Other groups were taught to build rafts and make baskets and still others learned how to supervise mollusks before and after the implantation procedures. At first, only three young men were trained as grafters and they later went to other villages in order to teach there.

It took more than a year until the administration of New Guinea gave its official approval. From that moment onwards George suffered countless acts of reprisals and intrigue from the Japanese, who operated according to the rules of their "Diamond Policy".  Keith Dureaux constantly wrote letters of complaint to Canberra, among other things, he complained about the training of ignorant local people, which he believed would be a danger in the future. The disputes went so far that Sir John Guise addressed the Parliament of the Territory and asked the Australian government to support the local people in their right to make use of their own resources. Both the public and the press appreciated George's efforts. The Milne Bay Province was still underdeveloped in 1966, and more or less the same was true of the rest of the country. Samarai was the administrative centre with an international harbor, a hospital, a radio station and an airport. The majority of the local people were poor and totally uneducated, and it was extremely difficult for George to put his plans into practice in the harsh environment of a tropical cli mate. Today, one can say that his work was truly pioneering, as he gave the village people confidence in their own capabilities. In December 1967, the first blister pearls ("Mabe pearls") were harvested; they were sold in early 1968 to France and to Idar Oberstein in Germany. A jeweler in Port Moresby showed interest and later worked the pearls into pieces of jewelry for tourists, which he sold to Australia and the Fiji Islands.

By then, larger investments had become possible due to the Development Bank of Papua New Guinea granting more money in April 1970. Further grants followed over the next few years. The Dutch government provided generous support via the "Foundation for the People of the South Pacific", which was used in order to help the village people establish their own small farms. Sir John Guise, who had since become the Australian Finance Minister, also helped. Daga Daga Island had by then become the "Pearl Island" of New Guinea and further farms were established on the neighboring islands of Sariba, Sideai and Basilaki. In September 1973, the Milne Bay Pearl Farmers Association was founded, and the co-operatives of the individual villages became members. In January 1975, there were already 12 co-operatives with 250 members owning a total of 17 farms. Not one of these co-operatives was able to exist without the help of George and his nearest assistants at the end of the nineteen seventies. George also sold the pearls on behalf of the co-operatives, and he took care that the farmers did not spend the money immediately.

On May 28, 1975, the cultured pearl industry of the Milne Bay Province was for the first time officially recognized as a celebration was held on Pearl Island which was attended by government representatives.

The products from Papua New Guinea were at the time shown at exhibitions and museums and received a place at the Commonwealth Nations Exhibition Building in London. George's work was the subject of several television documentary films. The Australian Prime Minister visited in 1976, while Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip stopped off on Daga Daga Island during a state visit in March 1977.

By 1979, the cultured pearl industry was so well established that it was able to exist independently of the Japanese, who continued to take a critical view of the project, but had stopped interfering The Japanese had probably seen that there was no real danger of competition from the villagers. There were still a few Australian-Japanese joint ventures in the country, but they were no longer allowed to export their pearls at low prices and consequently gave up after 1975.

The local farmers under George produced only blister pearls ("Mabe pearls"), while George himself started a pilot project for the production of fully round pearls using Pinctada maxima, Pinctada margaritifera and Pinctada radiata. He succeeded in harvesting sizes of up to 12 mm -13 mm. The yield was not large, as there was not enough money available for investment. George and his wife Yulie developed methods for artificial propagation of the mollusks, which were confined, however, to the use of collectors.

The villagers produced jewelry from the mother-of- pearl of the shells, which they sold to tourists in the capital. At this time, George had plans for a local button industry, as the families were already producing button-shaped nuclei for the production of their blister pearls.

Twenty years later, the hopes have all but collapsed and the cultured pearl industry of New Guinea is practically non-existent. Apart from the fact that there are still a few farms with foreign capital investment in the Samarai area today, the pearls are of no

importance on the world market. Production figures are not available.

A few years ago, the Niugini Pearls Ltd. company started a new pearl farm on Ungan Island in New Ire land Province. The island belongs to the Tigak group.

The plans envisage growing 30,000 mollusks in a hatchery station and then starting with the experimental production of pearls. This is the first pearl farm without a foreign capital investment, but the approximately 3,000 inhabitants of Tigak Island are involved in the project.

A total of around 100,000 mollusks are scheduled for the next few years. The hatchery uses parent mollusks from the surrounding sea, where gold-lipped Pinctada maxima and black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera are found.