"If you want to be a party animal, you have to learn to live in the jungle."

In an earlier incarnation of my life, I was a full-time conservation professional. "Huh?", you say? 

Ok, how's this: I worked for 4 years for one of the big conservation organizations (Conservation International), focusing on their Indonesia and New Guinea program. I helped organize big protected areas meetings and biological surveys to places that no scientist had ever visited before.

"Where is New Guinea?" I hear you say. It's the world's largest and highest tropical island, located just north of Australia. Very wild country, still - and one of the most biologically and culturally rich places on the planet. I loved it. 

From 1992-1994, I worked on New Guinea stuff for the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution. One of the projects I worked on there was a documentary film about the Korowai people who live in very tall treehouses and were still - at that time, though probably not anymore - still practicing ritual cannibalism as a form of criminal justice. (Long story - watch the film, which is called either "Lords of the Garden" [original title] or "Treehouse People / Cannibal Justice" [title as it aired on the A&E Network in 1994].) 

After working at Conservation International (based in Washington DC) from 1995-1998 - also working on New Guinea and Indonesia - I started my own non-profit organization, Indo-Pacific Conservation Alliance (IPCA). I helped organize more biological surveys (and actually have a plant named after me), but mainly I oversaw a deeply rewarding (and very hard!) project with the Asmat people in southwest New Guinea. The Asmat are some of the most famous woodcarvers in the Pacific, and a very large display of their artwork hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  

And yes, I really did have a brush with a 5-meter (or so - we weren't measuring but rather trying not to get eaten) crocodile. For that matter, I was also in a plane crash in the same part of New Guinea. Fortunately, no one died or was seriously injured, but it was about as close as you want to come. It was definitely a weird experience.

Here are some photos from that era of my life: 1991-2005.

Mock battle near South Gap, Baliem Valley, Papua, Indonesia, 1991.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Pirien village, Asmat, Papua, Indonesia. November 1991.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Asmat man, Syuru village, 1991.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Dani men, Baliem Valley, 1991.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Korowai treehouse, Dayo village, Papua, Indonesia. 1993.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Organizing biological expedition from Siewa Basecamp, Wapoga Mountains, Papua, Indonesia, 1998.
Photo © Michael Moore.

Hanging out with the dudes at Syuru village, Asmat, Papua, Indonesia. Circa 2001.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Working with the Asmat people to map their forests, 2002.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Inter-village travel by boat, Asmat, Papua, Indonesia, 2003. My brush with a man-eating 5-meter crocodile happened on the same trip, not far from here. (No photos of that moment - I was busy trying not to be eaten!).
Photo © Burke Burnett.

This was the plane I was in that crashed on takeoff from a jungle airstrip at Ewer village in Asmat in 2000.
Photo © Burke Burnett.

Men from Syuru village, Asmat, Papua, Indonesa. 2002.
Photo © Burke Burnett.