Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

Great publications remain useful and relevant even many years after its first print run. One of my recent acquisitions is a book on medicinal plants of Papua New Guinea. The book is based on many years of scientific research, involving staff and students of the University of Papua New Guinea. The World Health Organization (WHO) published Medicinal Plants of Papua New Guinea (2009) four years ago. This publication is a result of a series of collaborations among several academics at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG). The scientists of the University of Papua New Guinea were able to compile their data on medicinal plants in Papua New Guinea in this glossy colored book. Professor Prem P. Rai of UPNG School of Medicine and Health Sciences, together with Professor Teatulohi Matainaho, Professor Simon Saulei, and Dr. Umadevi Ambihaipahar were responsible for the data collection and compilation. Dr. Geoffrey A. Cordell, Professor Emeritus of University of Illinoi...

Book Cover: Growing Up Gende  January was full of surprises for me. A day before the end of the month I had a yellow card from the Post Office at UPNG advising me to collect a package from Marengo Mining Limited. I collected two copies of a book entitled: Growing Up Gende (2012). Marengo Mining Limited had published the book. The author of the book is Dr. Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi, an anthropologist with long-term engagement with the Gende people of Papua New Guinea for thirty years of her life. Dr. Zimmer-Tamakoshi writes that “the work I have done writing and putting this book together has been made without any payments, my only request being that Marengo print plentiful copies to be freely handed out to local schools, individual Gende and other community organizations.” In her Facebook message to me she stressed the same point to me. This is a marvelous little book dressed with rare historical photographs captured in black and white films, more recent...

The interview I had this week was one of the important things I did this week. Caroline Tiriman of PNG Service ABC Radio in Australia sent me a Facebook message and requested an interview. I agreed to have the interview.The interview was done via mobile phone. One of the amazing thing made possible through modern electronic technology. The Interview was much better on radio than I imagined it to be. I did not listen to it on radio, but through the computer via Facebook. Wow... See link below: www.radioaustralia.net.au/tokpisin/radio/onairhighlights/.../1088256 I hope the blog entry will work.

Dr. Mange Matui It is important to have many books written by Papua New Guineans in all subjects that concern us.   In academia we are reminded again and again that we either publish or perish, a call of the highest order, which at times seems to fall on deft ears. Looking around the corridors of higher learning in Papua New Guinea I see very few Papua New Guineans teaching in our higher education institutions are publishing scholarship in international journals or books. Very few ever get a book published either based on their research for their higher degrees or from their own researches.   The question to ask is what happened to all the research funding allocated to individuals every year through their research committees? Does it not seem futile awarding funding to those who will never have their researches published at all? It beats me to think about the answer. Let’s be serious. Make those who receive government funding for their research...

Set clear specific goals to achieve and go towards them Some things were brought with us from last year. The attitudes, behaviours, unfinished businesses, mindsets, and misgivings from 2012 were also brought into 2013. It is now the second month of 2013. This is a new year. We need to think anew, discard what we don’t need, and wear new clothes. We need to leave behind the troubles of yesteryear. We need to begin the New Year on a right footing. Every year the goals I set for myself are bigger than the last. Whether I achieve them or not is not the issue. The issue is to challenge myself to do better than the last time, to do things in a totally different way from the previous approach I had taken, and to find different new ways of doing the same things, but with a better result. I need to move on in life. Instead of lettings last year’s wounds hold me down I will stand up and walk towards the goals I had set for myself. I have to aspire to a greater purpose in ...