My trip to PNG’s Managalas Plateau conservation area also yielded this radio documentary, produced in collaboration with ABC RN broadcaster extraordinaire Natasha Mitchell. While chasing the elusive and endangered Queen Alexandra Birdwing Butterfly, we explore the hardships facing so many forest-dwelling communities in PNG. Link here. (Image: (COPYRIGHT MUSEUMS VICTORIA; PHOTOGRAPHER BEN HEALLEY) Continue reading
When I went to Nigeria in April 2017 to research a story on the efforts there to stamp out polio, I couldn’t help but be grateful – and a bit mystified – that the disease had been absent so long from Papua New Guinea. With only a small proportion of the country having access to … Continue reading
As a serial visitor and close observer of PNG, I’ve been tuned in to the growing distress and anger of health workers at the collapse of supply lines of basic medicines and equipment to hospitals and clinics right across the country. Social media has been churning with reports of desperate and often grieving families. All … Continue reading
Today, world leaders gather in Port Moresby for the APEC Summit. It’s been a long and difficult road for the people of PNG. On a recent field trip, I took the road trip from a PNG village to APEC Haus. This is what I saw and heard. Link here to my story in The Monthly. Continue reading
ANU’s Dr Nicole Haley has been closely observing and analysing national elections in PNG for the past three polls. Her soon-to-be published findings on last year’s election provide shattering reading. I filed this news story for The Guardian out of her presentation to the ANU State of the Pacific Conference. Those interested can find a link … Continue reading
Thrilled to have been runner-up for the 2018 UNSW Bragg Prize for Science Writing. Congratulations to the winner, Andrew Leigh, and fellow runner-up Margaret Wertheim. Also to fellow shortlisters, Richard Guilliatt, Nick O’Malley and James Mitchell Crow. You can read more about the prize here. The shortlist is selected each year from Best Australian Science … Continue reading
Papua New Guinea has one of the highest rates of child malnutrition in the world, with studies indicating that one in two children is chronically stunted, a condition from which they can never recover. The reasons are complex. It’s rarely a question of hunger, rather a lack of critical nutrients in the first 1000 days … Continue reading
Thrilled and honoured to be nominated as a finalist in the 2018 Australia Museum Eureka Prizes in the science journalism category. Continue reading
Following up my longform articles for Undark and The Atlantic (links can be found in earlier posts) I filed this radio doco for ABC RN’s The Health Report on what is hopefully the end game against this devastating virus. Tragically, around the same time, vaccine-derived polio turned up right next door, in PNG, where the … Continue reading
It’s almost 10 years since I went to PNG for the first time. One of the stories I was investigating on that first trip was what ExxonMobil’s looming, massive, much-hyped PNG LNG (liquified natural gas) project would mean for the people at its highlands source, and for the country. A dozen trips older and wiser, … Continue reading
