Scientist helps New Guineans

Press, 20 October 1980, Page 7

Scientist helps New Guineans

PA Wellington A Taupo research scientist, Mr A. B. Viner, 'has begun a one-year aid assignment in Papua New Guinea to help with environmental studies associated with major hydroelectric , development in the Gulf of Papua .region. The stqdies are being done in the Purari River basin, which drains 26,300 sq km of Highlands and delta area.

At' Wabo, 200 km upstream from the sea and 350 km north-west of Port Moresby, hydro-electric .potential is estimated at 1800 MW. Damming of the river at this site is planned and the impact of such a project on the environment and ecology is the subject of a four years and a half study programme which is due to be completed in August, 1981. Dr Viner will implement, co-ordinate, and monitor all scientific work and supervise the administrative side of the programme. The area around Wabo is sparsely' - populated, densely-forested, and difficult of access. Of prime importance in the studies is the impact of hydro-electric. development on the subsistence fishing and agriculture and the health of the people there. The programme has already produced nary findings, which are to be confirmed by a final report. The first two years of studies, up to last year,

concluded that the damming would cause “relatively small negative effect on the ecology compared with similar schemes in existence elsewhere in the tropics and sub-tropics.” Dr Viner began his year-long assignment attached to the Office of the Environment and Conservation last month, according to a statement from the External Aid Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Wellington. For the last four and a half years he has worked with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research at Taupo, specialising in water-quality studies in the Taupo and Rotorua areas. He has also worked as a scientist in Malaysia (three years and a half with the University of Malaya), Uganda (five years and a half on lake and river-water quality), and Ghana (two years on water-resource studies). In. 1978, Dr Viner was seconded to the Purari environmental study programme as an adviser for about three months, also under New Zealand’s aid programme in Papua New Guinea.