“It’s our Heartbeat”

This is a story of exploration and discovery; where going somewhere with one goal is interrupted by curiosity and the spirit of adventure. Plans and ambitions are uprooted as a bigger picture comes into view.

On Papua New Guinea’s remote island province of New Britain, british climbers @waldo_etherington @leo_houlding and @tom_winterton travel into the mysterious depths of the Lamo Auru Caldera - an extinct volcano containing a dense, untouched rainforest and a wealth of spectacular biodiversity.

Entering the rainforest with guides from the indigenous Naccanai communities, Waldo and the team are on a mission to find and climb enormous "giant strangler" fig trees that are endemic to this region. Their mission is a simple one: Ground up, first ascents of these inspiring living structures, in a completely unexplored area of the world.

While spending time in the caldera the team form close bonds with the local guides and feel compelled to explore the surrounding region and learn about the threats New Britain’s forests, and the communities dependent on them, are facing.

The 'Lamo Auru' Caldera is truly extraordinary. Biologically it’s a landscape of incredible natural beauty and unparalleled biodiversity. Culturally it’s a place of profound cultural significance to the local indigenous communities, who claim it as their ancestral home and a place to be with the spirits of the forest - the heartbeat of their community.

But the Caldera is also in the crosshairs of agribusiness development, resource extraction and global trade, forces that move in from all sides. This film hears from the voices that wish to stand up against and speak truth to those powerful global forces.

Importance.

Lamo Auru is an adventure film but with a journey that finds a deeper level than just embarking on an expedition to do something cool. Exploring this tropical forest and climbing its giant trees was just the catalyst to discovering and telling a story that deserves and desperately needs to be told.

Sharing this story is the first step to making real change.

PNG is the eastern part of the island of New Guinea, the western part of the island, known as Papua, is Indonesian. PNG has been an independent country since 1975. It’s considered a developing country with a population of over eight million people. Most of these people still depend directly on the land they hold for their sustenance, livelihood and cultural traditions.

PNG is a green country, a colossal 70% of it’s land mass is covered by forest environments - that’s 278,000 km2! These forests vary from mangroves to alpines but the majority is tropical rainforest. This is the third largest tropical rainforest on earth and stores an estimated five gigatonnes of carbon, serving as a major player in the fight against climate change.

Besides sequestering an immense amount of carbon, these forests are also home to a wealth of biodiversity, much of which is endemic to the PNG.

Papua New Guinea

‘one of the largest land grabs in modern history’.

Papua New Guinea is a country where most citizens live on the bread line yet are surrounded by wealth. Rural communities (which make up most of the country’s population) are incredibly cash poor but are, or at least should be, asset rich.

Wealth in PNG is driven primarily by the sale and export of natural resources as well as agriculture coming largely from deforested land.

These natural resources should make PNG a wealthy county, however this wealth is lost partly to corruption within its government and major governing bodies, and mostly to large international corporations whose greed cares very little for the communities that hold the land.

Natural resource exports:

• Timber trades.

• Oil and natural gases.

• Gold mining and other mineral extractions.

Agricultural exports:

• Palm oil.

• Coffee.

• Cocoa.

The international value of these exports is huge, however profits are rarely felt in PNG especially by the land owners. Corrupt governing bodies and foreign powers often request indigenous land owners to sign documents giving consent for companies to take their land. Sadly the circumstances of these requests are commonly pressured by confusing and or abusive tactics. If these tactics fail, documents are fraudulently signed or land is simply taken without consent or warning.

In PNG the greater powers have incredible negligence to the wealth of the country’s land if it’s left intact. Not to mention there’s systemic failure to protect the rights and best interests of the indigenous communities despite the countries constitution holding these in great importance.

For more details please following image links below to read reports by Global Witness and to watch the award winning 2011 film ‘BIKPELA BAGARAP (BIG DAMAGE)’ by David Fedele.

Waldo spent the next few years obsessing over satellite imagery of the Lamo Auru caldera and planning to return. His hunch was that the caldera’s topography and geographic position might just make it the perfect breeding ground for trees to grow into giants. What’s more there’s a strong possibility that species found here may be endemic to the caldera, let alone to New Britain. This place it truly exciting!

Once afoot the expedition was an absolute success and thrilling goals for tree climbing and canopy exploration were achieved, however the adventure took a twist where following their befriended indigenous guides, the team meet the local communities and learn more about the politics and cultures that surround New Britains forests.

This took our team on a journey through vast deforested areas, meeting farmers at a smallholder cacao plantations, and encountering colossal oil palm plantations that surround and encroach on the Lamo Auru caldera.

It became clear very quickly that our time in the caldera was a rose tinted glimpse into a land that is in turmoil.

Conclusions.

Returning to Britain with bags of inspirations and weeks of footage to go through, it felt certain that the film to represent our expedition had to be far more than a climbing film with a quirky twist (climbing trees not rocks!). What we had encountered and learned during this relatively brief exploration of just a small part of New Britain, had far surpassed what we’d anticipated or hoped for. We found a paradise island that is unfortunately surrounded by disaster and the potential for total destruction. As Leo Houlding says in the film “it’s on a knife edge”, and sadly that’s the truth. So our film had to of course be a representation of that.

The people we met and their deep emotive message to the world deserved the best story telling platform we could offer, or at least aim to offer. Not to mention that the visual beauty of the caldera and surrounding forests needs to be shown to the world as proof and for elevation of this message. This project gives us an opportunity to not just tell their story ourselves, but to hand the microphone over. Their experiences and wishes from their voices.

What now?

LAMO AURU - Old Forest, New Lines, will be screening at film festivals and various events through 2025, in the UK as well as Europe and North America. Throughout this screening process we hope to:

• Spread the messaged told by our friends in New Britain.

• Educate people on the cultural and biological wonders of PNG as well as the troubles surrounding it.

• Work towards next steps - A second expedition with a motivation to make practical longterm change that benefits the indigenous landholders and forest landscapes of Papua New Guinea.

Next Steps.

In 2025 Waldo plans to embark on a second expedition where he’ll lead a delegation of scientists back to New Britain, PNG. Their plan is to begin mapping the biodiversity of this greatly under-explored forest island.

By travelling the length on the island on a longterm expedition, Waldo and his team will perform an in depth research program on route through the various environments they encounter. This part of the world is vastly unexplored and new to science, for this reason it is likely the team will discover a myriad of new flora and fauna species. In doing this the team can begin building the strong case for areas of New Britain to be granted UNESCO World Heritage inclusion. This will include areas of special interest such as the Lamo Auru Caldera.

All support for this project will be greatly received. That can be as simple as following our progress online, coming to a film screening, or liking our Instagram posts - Every little bit helps! The more interaction we have, the more momentum our project will gain, and that momentum is what we need to gain both financial and practical investment for our next expedition.

For more information on how you can help or if you have any questions please contact us at info@lamoauru.com

From the team at CineWanderer Productions, Remote Ropes Ltd, and our friends in New Britain, PNG,

Thank you!