The Manokwari Declaration is an unprecedented pledge by the governors of Indonesia’s two New Guinea provinces to promote conservation and become SE Asia’s new Costa Rica. This is an exciting, yet challenging endeavour that will require working on many fronts that transcend single disciplines. Because Indonesian New Guinea has the largest expanse of intact forests in SE Asia, large-scale conservation pledges like the Manokwari Declaration will have a global impact on biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.

New Guinea is the most biologically and linguistically diverse tropical island on Earth, yet the potential impacts of climate change on its biocultural heritage remain unknown. Analyzing 2353 endemic plant species distributions, we find that 63% of species are expected to have smaller geographic ranges by 2070. As a result, ecoregions may have an average of −70 ± 40 fewer species by 2070. Species with future geographic range contractions include 720 endemic plant species that are used by indigenous people, and we find that these will decrease in 80% of New Guinea’s 1030 language areas, with losses of up to 94 species per language area. To mitigate the threats of climate change on the flora, we identify priority sites for protected area expansion that can jointly maximize biodiversity and useful plant conservation.

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We describe a new species of smoky honeyeater from the Foja Mountains, an isolated range in western New Guinea (Papua Province, Indonesia). A common inhabitant of montane forest and forest-edge in this little-known north coastal range, this species possesses a fleshy pendant suborbital wattle, unique in the genus Melipotes, among other characteristics that distinguish it from all congeners. This fleshy wattle provides a morphological link between Melipotes and the monotypic genus Macgregoria, an alpine inhabitant of the Central Ranges of New Guinea, traditionally treated as a bird of paradise (e.g., Frith and Beehler 1998) but now regarded as the sister genus to Melipotes (Cracraft and Feinstein 2000). The presence of an endemic meliphagid species in the Foja Mountains highlights the biogeographic significance and conservation importance of this geographically isolated upland forest tract, which is also home to the endemic Golden-fronted Bowerbird (Amblyornis flavifrons) and Berlepsch's Parotia (Parotia berlepschi), a distinctive, recently rediscovered species of six-wired bird of paradise (B. M. Beehler unpubl. data). Una Especie Nueva de Melipotes (Meliphagidae) del Oeste de Nueva Guinea

Hutan tropis dataran rendah diketahui merupakan habitat penting bagi berbagai spesies flora dan fauna. Hutan tropis juga berperan penting untuk menjaga fungsi hidrologis dan saat diketahui memilih fungsi penting dalam menjaga gas rumah kaca, salah satu penyebab perubahan iklim global. Namun, hutan tropis banyak telah konversi ke berbagai fungsi non hutan, seperti perkebunan komersial. Sebagai negara tropis, Indonesia memiliki hutan tropis terluas kedua di dunia. Walaupun pemerintah dan penggiat konservasi telah berusaha untuk menjaga perubahan fungsi hutan, tetapi perubahan fungsi hutan terus terjadi sejalan dengan pertambahan penduduk dan kebutuhan pembagunan. Penelitian ini dirancang untuk meneliti dampak perubahan fungsi hutan ke non hutan terhadap keragaman katak di Distrik Prafi, Kabupaten Manokwari. Membandingkan keragaman katak pada 3 fungsi hutan: hutan sekunder, perkebunan sawit dan perkebunan kakao. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan konservasi hutan ke non hutan memberikan dampak negatif terhadap keragaman katak. Konversi hutan juga memberikan kesempatan pada spesies yang diintroduksi seperti Duttaphrynus melanostictus, Fejervarya cancrivora dan F. limnocharis hidup dan mendominasi habitat baru ini. Suatu hal menarik adalah bahwa tidak ada satupun spesies asli Papua yang dapat diamati di perkebunan, walaupun perubahan atau konversi hutan telah terjadi sekitar 40 tahun lalu. Penelitian ini juga memastikan kehadiran spesies introduksi baru F. limnocharis di Prafi. Spesies ini mungkin dimasukkan secara tidak sengaja ke Tanah Papua.