Paradise and oil

As the plane banked toward a dirt airstrip not far below, I looked out on a subtle palette of greens dotted with colored flowers-New Guinea's tropical rain forest, biologically one of the richest environments on Earth. Suddenly, this embodiment of beauty was shattered by a column of burning gas flaring up from an oil field. The heat withered nearby trees, a perfect metaphor for human desecration of nature.

Then something large moved near the oil field, and I was astonished to see it was a cassowary. These big, shy, ostrichlike flightless birds that depend on undamaged forest are rarely found anywhere near the disturbances people create. How could such an elusive bird survive ten feet from that searing flare? The cassowary was only one of many paradoxes I would confront in the days ahead.

I have been studying birds and exploring the biology of New Guinea for 35 years. With huge expanses of rain forest; unique birds, such as birds of pardise and bowerbirds; and a thousand tribes of native peoples who until recently used stone tools and had little contact with the outside world, the island is like nowhere else on Earth.

My most recent project took place along the Kikori River within the nation of Papua New Guinea, which occupies the eastern half of the island. The Kikori area combines extinct volcanic cones, underground rivers, innumerable waterfalls, and razor-sharp blocks of limestone with a rich landscape. A decade ago, the discovery of oil threatened the remote paradise. A consortium of oil companies, called Joint Venture Partners, runs New Guinea's largest operating oil and natural gas field along the Kikori. It is managed by a subsidiary of Chevron. From wells 100 miles inland and as high up as 4,400 feet, a pipeline carries oil to the Gulf of Papua, where it is pumped into tankers.

Oil is not the only danger to this pristine rain forest. Much of it is slated to be cut down for timber. Only isolated "islands" of forest will be set aside. Even so, conservationists have to justify every protected acre by documenting its biological value.

I was wary before I left for this trip, expecting at best a lot of arguing and little to show for it. At...