2017-11-26 Amazonas

FOR SOME REASON, I AM CAPTIVATED by the area around Timika, even though it is a prime example of

human greed. In a very short time, environmental pollution and palm plantations have turned

an intact and barely explored primary rainforest into desolate monoculture plantations of sugar

cane, oil palms, industrial tree crops, and other large-scale farms. The effects of the world’s larg-

est gold mine have turned the once beautiful Sungai Ajkwa and its eastern tributaries into poi-

soned waterways devoid of life. The rainforest has been destroyed and the people who once lived

there have been displaced, catapulted from the Stone Age into modern times within a few years.

A major new road is being built that will run westward from Timika, across the mountains to

Nabire in northwestern New Guinea. When this road is completed, it will certainly cross many

rivers that contain important fishes—some of which we don’t even know of yet. That thought

has brought me back every two years, hoping to push a little further west into new areas on every

trip. Thus, I have a fairly good overview of the various habitats west of the city of Timika, as well

as the Ajkwa and its eastern tributaries, which have been declared restricted areas by the pow-

erful Freeport-McMoRan mining company. In the following pages I will present the blue-eyes

species of the region and their habitats.

Clear water

Shortly after leaving the city center of Timika, on the way north to the Kuala Kencana labor-

ers’ camp, our jeep crosses various small clearwater streams that are heavily polluted due to the

dense population. Because Kuala Kencana is part of the restricted area and strangers like me are

not welcome there, we take a road that heads west toward the nearby Sungai Iwaka. The Iwaka

belongs to a different river system than the Ajkwa. This large clearwater stream flows about 12.5

miles (20 km) further south into the Kamora. The rivers west of the Iwaka (Wataikwa, Nugure,

Kamora, and Mayak) also flow into the large Sungai Kamora, which eventually ends in the Ara-

fura Sea.

These are all clearwater rivers with crystalline water (except during the rainy season). The

pH values are neutral and the electrical conductivity between 120 and 250 μS/cm. In these large

The clearwater

rivers in the

Mimika Regency

flow over beds of

rubble. Calm areas

with sandy bottoms

and sites with

lots of driftwood

form additional

microhabitats.

AMAZONAS