European Tourists visit Remote Keltiga - Mount Hagen

Since Independence there has been hardly any real tangible development in the last 28 years for Keltiga village situated 5 minutes drive west of Mount Hagen city on the main Highlands Highway.

The local villagers are still subsistence farmers and have missed out on many opportunities to earn income from agriculture, business ventures and tourism from their land but this will change if this young enterprising man, Robert Tiki, has his way.

Robert is a young energetic leader from the Mogei Kiligium clan who wants to bring real development into his village in partnership with the Donor Agencies, the Provincial Government, Non Government Organisation and his local member of Parliament and Mount Hagen Open Member William Duma.

Robert is one of a very few well educated men from this village who is very disappointed with his local leaders who continue to mislead the illiterate villagers for their own personal gain. The village has not seen any real development compared to other villagers situated around the Mount Hagen city.

Recently, Robert was in his village playing hosts to 2 young tourists, Alexandra van Boetzelaer and Sandra van Wersch whom he had arranged with a local tour operator to visit his village. Both tourists were in their 30s and travelled all the way from the European Scandaniva country, Holland to visit Papua New Guinea.

Their visit to the country was the first of a kind after they had heard many stories from friends and travellers who had been to PNG.

The tourist couple...up in the Highlands

Alexandra and Sandra are great travellers and have visited many countries in the world.

They were both touched by the beauty and friendliness of the people of PNG upon their arrival in the country.

Their only disappointment was the cost of internal air travel within the country which is quite expensive.

They stated that if the Government is quite serious about tourism then they should provide special incentive to tour operators to reduce costs of air travel between the Provinces which will encourage more tourists to visit many places in PNG resulting in more money spent at the grassroot level benefiting the large rural community.

Preparing Kaikai (feast) to welcome the tourists..

Their visit started off in Alotau before they travel to Mount Hagen where they were billeted at Keltiga village for 3 days prior to attending the Mt Hagen show.

The couple later travelled to Goroka by road and observed the large untouched rainforest that PNG has to offer to tourists. Both said that they really enjoyed their stay at Keltiga village.

During their stay they learned about the village culture, way of living in a typical highlands village, participated in various village activities and did mountain climbing, visited the forests and wildlife in the bushes.

The villagers also learn from the tourists about the depletion of their natural resources in the meaning of development and the loss of opportunity that the young Hollanders missed out from their forests and bushes which were cleared to build towns and cities.

The money paid by the tourists to visit the village was shared amongst the local villagers who looked after the tourists during their 3 days stay.

On the last day, Alexander and Sandra visited the Kelowagi Primary School near Keltiga village to donate some school materials as their token of appreciation.

Robert’s vision now is to turn his village into an eco-tourism spot blending the local village with its existing natural and beautiful forests, rivers and waterfalls.

Currently, many trees from the village have been fell to make houses, fire woods, fences and gardens and this has led to the diminishing of rainforest in the village and the pollution of the rivers.

The consequence has seen birds, insects, wild animals, flowers and faunas slowly disappearing from the village. But all is not lost because the village still has abundance of forests, river fountains, waterfalls, bushes, mountains, flower & fauna surrounding the village which Robert plans to protect and preserve for future generation. The villagers have agreed to provide their land to Robert to promote this activity.

His first and foremost aim is to educate the villagers on the importance of protecting their environment from unnecessary cutting down of trees, burning of bushes to make gardens and polluting the river from cultivation of land. Re-forestation is another solution to encourage the growth and sustainability of trees and forests in the village. Robert plans to arrange with the local NGO groups, Donor Agencies and other stakeholders to help achieve his objective.

To put words into action, Robert visited the Non Government Organisation in Mount Hagen called FORD Inc. (Foundation for Rural Development) established since 1997 and received encouraging support from its staff. FORD is involved in community development in the Western Highlands Province and has spread its program to support community activities in other Highlands Provinces as well. Its program activities include Eco-forestry and Low cost housing, Literacy, Water Supply and Rural Electrification, Small Enterprise Development Scheme, and Media & Public Relations.

Robert’s long term vision is to register an Association on behalf of the villagers with its own objective and constitution which shall pave the way for the villagers to work together to promote, educate and preserve their traditional culture, environment and develop their land to benefit their children and themselves.


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