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[NicoleRussell]

Foggy mountain hides lost Garden of Eden
Robin Mcdowell in Jakarta
08feb06- from Brisbane Courier-Mail
AUSTRALIAN and other scientists have found a "lost world" in a remote
Indonesian mountain jungle.

The tract of remote forest is home to exotic species of birds, butterflies,
frogs and plants as well as mammals unafraid of humans, whom they have never
seen.

"It's as close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on Earth," said
Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the US, Indonesian and Australian expedition to
part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the province of Papua that
covers the western half of Papua New Guinea.

Indigenous peoples living near the Foja range, which rises to 2200m, said
they have never ventured into the trackless area of 3000sq km.

The team of 25 scientists took helicopters to fly over vast bogs in the
pristine zone.

"We just scratched the surface," Mr Beehler said. "Anyone who goes there
will come back with a mystery."

Two long-beaked echidnas, the egg-laying species similar to those found in
Australia, simply allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back to
their camp to be studied, he said. The animals were probably unwary because
they never had seen people before.

The expedition found a new type of honeyeater bird with a bright orange
patch on its face, known only to locals and the first new bird species
documented on the island in more than 60 years.

They also found more than 20 new species of frog, four new species of
butterfly, and plants including five new palms.

And they took the first photographs of Berlepsch's six-wired bird of
paradise, which appears in 19th century collections but whose home had
previously been unknown.

The bird is named for six fine feathers about 10cm long on the head of the
male which can be raised and shaken in courtship displays.

The expedition also took the first photographs of a golden-fronted
bowerbird, in front of a bower made of sticks, while he was hanging up blue
forest berries to attract females.

It also found a rare tree kangaroo, previously unsighted in Indonesia.

The naturalists said there was a strong possibility there was a new species
of kangaroo living at higher altitudes.

Papua, the scene of a decades-long separatist rebellion that has left an
estimated 100,000 people dead, is one of Indonesia's most remote provinces,
geographically and politically, and access to foreigners is tightly
restricted.

The scientists visited in the wet season, which limited the numbers of
flying insects that were seen.

"Any expedition visiting in the dry season would probably discover many more
butterflies," Mr Beehler said, a Washington-based conservationist who added
that the area was probably the largest pristine tropical forest in Asia.

"I suspect there are some areas like this in Africa and am sure that there
are similar places in South America," he said.

Mr Beehler said the Indonesian Government was doing the right thing by
keeping the area off limits to most people, especially loggers and mineral
prospectors.

The scientists cut two trails about 4km long, leaving vast tracts still to
be explored.