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1971 with a long line of porters was still the only way
5
World population: 3.7 billion that anyone could do so. Such an expedition
Carbon in atmosphere: 326 parts per million would surely make a fascinating film.
Remaining wilderness: 58 percent At the time, the eastern half of New Guinea
was administered by Australia. I got in touch with
Narrative
When I had accepted the administrative job at the friends in Australian television. They found out
BBC in 1965, I had asked that I be allowed every that a mining company had asked for permission
two or three years to leave my desk for a few weeks to go into one of these unknown areas to pros-
and make a programme. That way, I maintained, pect for minerals. Government policy, however,
I would be able to keep up with the ever-changing stipulated that no one was allowed to do such
technology of programme-making. And in 1971, a thing before it had been established whether
I thought of a possible subject. or not there were any people living there. Aerial
Until the early twentieth century, European photographs had not revealed any huts or other
travellers, venturing beyond their continent into buildings, but there were one or two tiny pin-
distant unexplored corners of the Earth, had to pricks in the carpet of forest that might indicate
travel on foot. If the country ahead was totally man-made clearings. None were big enough to
unknown, they recruited porters to carry all the allow a helicopter to land. The only way to dis-
food, the tents and other equipment that would cover what they were was to send in a patrol on
be needed if they were to be self-sufficient far foot. And I together with a camera team could
from civilisation. But, in the twentieth century, accompany them — if I really wanted to do so.
the development of the internal combustion My plan was simple. The nearest European
engine put a stop to that. Explorers now used settlement to the area in question was a small 5
Land Rovers and jeeps, light aircraft and even government station called Ambunti on the Sepik,
helicopters. I knew of only one place where great the great river that runs roughly eastwards, paral-
discoveries were still being made by explorers lel to the north coast of the island before empty-
travelling entirely on foot — New Guinea. ing into the Pacific. The government officer who
The interior of this thousand-mile-long would lead the expedition, Laurie Bragge, was
island lying north of Australia is filled with steep based there and he would recruit some porters.
mountain ranges covered with tropical forest. We would charter a float plane that would land
Even in the 1970s, there were still patches of it on the river alongside his station and join him.
that no outsider had yet entered, and walking

This is a contemporary photograph of the
Sepik River in New Guinea near where
Attenborough’s expedition explored.
Describe the geography of the area as seen
in this image and locate words or phrases
from Attenborough’s narrative that might
relate to what this photograph captures.

Brent Stirton/Getty Images Reportage

156
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