Several species of pearl oysters are found in Australian waters. The main pearling industry is based on the silver lipped pearl oyster (Pinctada maxima), which produces high quality cultured pearls known as South Sea pearls.
This species is found across the central Indo-Pacific region from India to New Guinea and the Philippines, and in Australia from Carnarvon on the west coast to south of Cairns on the east coast.
Other species farmed on a much smaller scale include the black-lipped pearl oyster (P. margaritifera), the shark bay pearl oyster (Pinctada albina), the Winged Oyster (Pteria penguin), and the Akoya pearl oyster (Pinctada imbricata).
The color of Abrolhos pearls is quite different from that of the Tahitian black pearls and may prove to be a useful marketing tool
The evolution of an aquaculture industry from which the mystery, romanticism and beauty of the pearl is born, is unfolding in the sheltered, clear waters off the Abrolhos. Abrolhos Pearls, owned by Alf and Don Woodcock and Murray Davidson, are pioneering the development of the unique black colored pearl in Western Australia. Alf Woodcock started his affinity with the sea as a cray fisherman spending over 40 years fishing off and living on the Islands. Mr. Woodcock and his partners laid the foundation for the black pearls in Western Australia, seven years ago when they took the first step to survey the Islands. “To see what shell was out there, to see whether it was worthwhile starting an industry"." We searched the whole Island group for pearl shell, discovering five species, the one thought the most promising was the black,” Mr. Woodcock said. “We knew they were there from the early days when we were cray fishing, they were around the lagoon where we had our camp, but we never had the time or the finances or expertise to do any-thing about it." Using divers and looking on the shallow reefs the search took about three years, in between doing other work. Mr Woodcock said there were many challenges in getting started. “We didn’t know what we were doing in the early years". They invited visitors from around the world who had experience with black pearls and have been adapting world technology for the Abrolhos environment. After experimenting with producing black pearl from black lipped oyster shell caught from the wild, the Abrolhos pearling venture realized that to be economically viable and to increase control of the pearl quality, the oyster shell stock needed to be hatchery produced. When the juveniles reach the size of a pea they are taken off the ropes and placed in pockets in the panels. The panels are attached to long lines in the clear ocean waters at the pearl farm, located off Pelsaert Island. Only an oyster species which occurs naturally in an area can be farmed in that area. The shells need cleaning every month, using a cleaning machine to remove the barnacles and sea-grass. “One feature about the black pearl oyster is you get about five different colors of pearls – bronze ,black, silver, pink, you can even get the white ones,” Mr. Woodcock said. Every part of the oyster is usable with the meat being sold as an aphrodisiac to Asia, the shell polished and even scrap shell is used to add shine to paint and in cosmetics. Although still very much in the development stage, Mr. Woodcock said it was a very exciting project. “We have been out there for a long time and haven’t produced anything. It has taken a longtime to get the formula right to grow the spats from the hatchery and then to get the right time of the year to seed them, to find the right size nuclei –the formula has been everything.” Abrolhos Pearls has had their first pearls crafted into earnings and a necklace by Verity Jewelers. These are the first black pearls to be produced in Western Australia. They have only matured for seven months and were from experimental shell caught from the wild. Verity Jewelers’ owner Glenn Lake said they were very excited about these first black pearls from the Abrolhos. “If the color of these pearls are any indication of what’s to come then the local pearling industry shows a lot of promise. Soon, Abrolhos Pearls, one of two pearls farms at the Islands, will take an exciting leap forward, preparing to seed their first crop of 25,000 black lipped
hatchery produced pearls.
The island of New Guinea is situated south of the equator and is the world's second largest island after Greenland. It is inhabited by a variety of tribes who speak different languages until today Settlements started more than 50,000 years ago. The settlers probably came from Southeast Asia in several waves. When the first Europeans arrived in the 16th century, they encountered strange and dangerous looking natives, who still lived in a stone age environment. This remains true for several tribes even today combined with a mountain range which has a height of over 4,000 meters in some places, the humid tropical climate and the dense tropical rain forests make large areas inaccessible. On the other hand, it means that a wide spectrum of original and rare animal and plant species have been allowed to remain undisturbed.
One of the first Spanish seafarers spoke of the "Ilhas dos Papuas", the "Island of those with curly hair", and thus gave rise to a part of today's name. The European colonial powers founded settlements along the coastal areas during the 19th century. The Dutch established themselves in the west of the island after 1800 and Dutch New Guinea became a part of Indonesia in 1963, when it was named Irian Jaya. The north-eastern part of New Guinea came under German rule in 1884, when it was named Kaiser- Wilhelm-Land. Other names like Bismarck Archipelago and former names like New Pomerania and New Mecklenburg for island groups further to the east still pay testimony to former German colonial activities. In the south, the British established the protectorate British New Guinea in 1884, which later came under Australian administration. The German colonies also came under Australian rule after World War I. After the Second World War, Australia administered the eastern part of the island as a mandate of the United Nations and in 1975 the Republic of Papua New Guinea was founded in Port Moresby. It belongs to the British Commonwealth and comprises, in addition to the mainland, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Admiralty Islands, a part of the Salomon Islands Bougainville and Buka) and about 600 further small islands. In the south, there are the Louisiade Archipelago, the D'Entrecasteaux Islands and the Trobriand Islands.
Papua New Guinea is today considered a developing country, although it is one of the most important gold producers and has a number of other mineral resources. Economic power is in the hands of a few families who also own the plantations in the coastal areas. In addition to cocoa, tea and coffee, copra and other coconut products are main export items. The descendants of Chinese and Indonesian immigrants who came before World War I as inspectors on the plantations are today the most influential social class, together with the Europeans.
The London Missionary Society established itself on Kwato Island in the 19th century other Catholic Missions and the Anglican church followed later on. The missionaries founded hospitals and schools and the better educated young people were able to find work in the local administration. However, the majority of the local people still lives mainly from fishing and the production of copra.
The Milne Bay Province with its harbor town Samarai at the southern tip of the country has represented a local centre for different mining activities since the end of the 19th century. The pearling fleets also went there to anchor and to fish for the shells of Pinctada maxima, Pinctada margaritifera, Tiochus and Meerschaum. The pearling fleets came until in the nineteen fifties; towards the end, there were only two ships left. The Trobriand Islands originally had rich banks of Pinctada radiata, which the locals called "lapi shell". They produced small, mainly yellowish pearls, which Russian dealers bought during the 19th century. They sold them in their own country together with their local river pearls. The larger Pinctada species also produced natural pearls. Until today, individual, large pearls are marketed on the world market together with Australian or Pacific pearls.
Natural pearls can also be seen in the shops of the leading jewelers of Port Moresby.
Special thanks to Elisabeth Strack for permission to use parts of her book
Pearls
Ruhle-Diebener-Verlag
Papua New Guinea
The first pearl farm
The first pearl farm in what was then the "Territory of New Guinea" was built near Fairfax Harbor in the late nineteen fifties. At first, the farm was considered an Australian enterprise, but it belonged to the same Australian-American-Japanese joint venture, which had established the first pearl farm in Kuri Bay. Keith Dureaux of the Australian Pearls Pty. Ltd. was the manager in Fairfax Harbor.
The farm was not far away from Port Moresby and operated initially without the approval of the Japanese government, which originally had only allowed one joint venture per country. 70,000 to 100,000 Pinctada maxima were shipped each year from the area near Broome over a distance of 4,000 kilometers by the Arafura Pearling Fleet. High mortality rates occurred around 1970 due to similar difficulties as in Australia. In 1975, the farm was closed and the equipment went to Thursday Island, where the company had meanwhile also opened pearl farms. Before the farm in New Guinea was abandoned, the owners, contrary to all original plans, generously offered to train the local people in the method for producing cultured blister pearls.
In 1965, C. Denis George decided to establish a cultured pearl industry in New Guinea and he asked the Australian government for help Until this moment, the Japanese had systematically boycotted all of George's projects, and he was to make similar experiences in New Guinea. In the summer of 1966, he selected a suitable place on Daga Daga Island near Samarai after the administrator of the Territory and two ministries in Canberra had signaled their support. George proceeded to close down his household in Sydney, and prepared to move his family to New Guinea. Two days before his departure, when all his belongings and the whole equipment for the farm had already been in stalled on a ship, the Ministry of Agriculture in formed George that the Administrative Council would probably refuse permission. Nevertheless,
George and his wife Yulie decided to go to Samarai, although they knew that an uncertain future awaited them. C. Denis George succeeded in securing the support of the village people after a few days, and he proceeded to cut down trees and drain the land on Daga Daga Island. When the farm was established at the end of the year and a small harbor had been built, George immediately started to train the first 25 volunteers from the village. He later named his school "John Guise School of Pearl Culture" in order to demonstrate his gratitude for moral support from the Australian politician.
At first, groups of young men were trained in diving using a snorkel and diving goggles. There were extensive banks of Pinctada margaritifera, which until then the locals had fished using their traditional canoes. At the start, only black-lipped shells were used for the production of blister pearls, but Pinctada maxima (which came from only small banks), Pinctada Radiata and Pteia penguinson followed. A few men from the village were trained in scuba diving so that deeper banks could be reached in the future. Other groups were taught to build rafts and make baskets and still others learned how to supervise mollusks before and after the implantation procedures. At first, only three young men were trained as grafters and they later went to other villages in order to teach there.
It took more than a year until the administration of New Guinea gave its official approval. From that moment onwards George suffered countless acts of reprisals and intrigue from the Japanese, who operated according to the rules of their "Diamond Policy". Keith Dureaux constantly wrote letters of complaint to Canberra, among other things, he complained about the training of ignorant local people, which he believed would be a danger in the future. The disputes went so far that Sir John Guise addressed the Parliament of the Territory and asked the Australian government to support the local people in their right to make use of their own resources. Both the public and the press appreciated George's efforts. The Milne Bay Province was still underdeveloped in 1966, and more or less the same was true of the rest of the country. Samarai was the administrative centre with an international harbor, a hospital, a radio station and an airport. The majority of the local people were poor and totally uneducated, and it was extremely difficult for George to put his plans into practice in the harsh environment of a tropical cli mate. Today, one can say that his work was truly pioneering, as he gave the village people confidence in their own capabilities. In December 1967, the first blister pearls ("Mabe pearls") were harvested; they were sold in early 1968 to France and to Idar Oberstein in Germany. A jeweler in Port Moresby showed interest and later worked the pearls into pieces of jewelry for tourists, which he sold to Australia and the Fiji Islands.
By then, larger investments had become possible due to the Development Bank of Papua New Guinea granting more money in April 1970. Further grants followed over the next few years. The Dutch government provided generous support via the "Foundation for the People of the South Pacific", which was used in order to help the village people establish their own small farms. Sir John Guise, who had since become the Australian Finance Minister, also helped. Daga Daga Island had by then become the "Pearl Island" of New Guinea and further farms were established on the neighboring islands of Sariba, Sideai and Basilaki. In September 1973, the Milne Bay Pearl Farmers Association was founded, and the co-operatives of the individual villages became members. In January 1975, there were already 12 co-operatives with 250 members owning a total of 17 farms. Not one of these co-operatives was able to exist without the help of George and his nearest assistants at the end of the nineteen seventies. George also sold the pearls on behalf of the co-operatives, and he took care that the farmers did not spend the money immediately.
On May 28, 1975, the cultured pearl industry of the Milne Bay Province was for the first time officially recognized as a celebration was held on Pearl Island which was attended by government representatives.
The products from Papua New Guinea were at the time shown at exhibitions and museums and received a place at the Commonwealth Nations Exhibition Building in London. George's work was the subject of several television documentary films. The Australian Prime Minister visited in 1976, while Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip stopped off on Daga Daga Island during a state visit in March 1977.
By 1979, the cultured pearl industry was so well established that it was able to exist independently of the Japanese, who continued to take a critical view of the project, but had stopped interfering The Japanese had probably seen that there was no real danger of competition from the villagers. There were still a few Australian-Japanese joint ventures in the country, but they were no longer allowed to export their pearls at low prices and consequently gave up after 1975.
The local farmers under George produced only blister pearls ("Mabe pearls"), while George himself started a pilot project for the production of fully round pearls using Pinctada maxima, Pinctada margaritifera and Pinctada radiata. He succeeded in harvesting sizes of up to 12 mm -13 mm. The yield was not large, as there was not enough money available for investment. George and his wife Yulie developed methods for artificial propagation of the mollusks, which were confined, however, to the use of collectors.
The villagers produced jewelry from the mother-of- pearl of the shells, which they sold to tourists in the capital. At this time, George had plans for a local button industry, as the families were already producing button-shaped nuclei for the production of their blister pearls.
Twenty years later, the hopes have all but collapsed and the cultured pearl industry of New Guinea is practically non-existent. Apart from the fact that there are still a few farms with foreign capital investment in the Samarai area today, the pearls are of no
importance on the world market. Production figures are not available.
A few years ago, the Niugini Pearls Ltd. company started a new pearl farm on Ungan Island in New Ire land Province. The island belongs to the Tigak group.
The plans envisage growing 30,000 mollusks in a hatchery station and then starting with the experimental production of pearls. This is the first pearl farm without a foreign capital investment, but the approximately 3,000 inhabitants of Tigak Island are involved in the project.
A total of around 100,000 mollusks are scheduled for the next few years. The hatchery uses parent mollusks from the surrounding sea, where gold-lipped Pinctada maxima and black-lipped Pinctada margaritifera are found.
Special thanks to Elisabeth Strack for permission to use parts of her book
Pearls
Ruhle-Diebener-Verlag
|
