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West Papuans in the Global Community


West Papua, the western half of New Guinea island, Click To enlarge in a new window termed "Irian Jaya province", or, more recently, "Papua" under Indonesian control, is just under five times the size of the island of Ireland, and is immense in its tribal and ecological diversity. It has some 240 different tribal peoples, each with its own language and culture. Indigenous Papuans in West Papua and Papua New Guinea speak some 15% of the world's known languages. West Papua together with the rest of the island of New Guinea, are the lungs of the Asia-Pacific, containing the last great surviving virgin rainforest after the Amazon.