Aru Islands

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Aru Islands
NASA Geocover 2000 satellite image
NASA Geocover 2000 satellite image
Waters Arafura lake
archipelago Moluccas
Geographical location 6 ° 10 ′  S , 134 ° 30 ′  E Coordinates: 6 ° 10 ′  S , 134 ° 30 ′  E
Map of Aru Islands
Number of islands 95
Main island Tanahbesar
Total land area 8563 km²
Residents 34,000
Map mosaic of the Aru Islands
Map mosaic of the Aru Islands
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The Aru Islands ( Indonesian Kepulauan Aru ) are an Indonesian group of islands about 150 km south of New Guinea in the Arafura Sea . The archipelago consists of around 95 flat islands with a total area of ​​8,563 km², the main islands of which are only separated by narrow waterways. The islands have around 94,000 inhabitants (2014 estimate), the main town is the port city of Dobo (also spelled Dobbo) in the west of the archipelago. Politically include the Aru Islands to the Indonesian province of Maluku , geographically they are, however, in the Arafura base that is part of Sahul - continental shelf is. Therefore, the sea between the Aru Islands and New Guinea in the north and east and Australia in the south is usually less than 100 m deep, while it reaches a depth of 2,000 m to the Kei Islands, which are only 120 km to the west .

Flora and fauna

The flora and fauna of the islands, which are largely covered by tropical rainforest as well as savannah and mangrove , are similar to that of New Guinea. Some species are only found on the Aru Islands. It is also home to the white- naped pheasant pigeon , a subspecies of the pheasant pigeon .

history

The Aru Islands have a long history as a trading post in eastern Indonesia. Before the colonial era, there were close trade ties with the Banda Islands , Bugis and Makasar. The islands were colonized by the Dutch from 1623. The Dutch East India Company was responsible for the trading post . In 1857 the natural scientist Alfred Russel Wallace visited the islands. He initially stayed in Dobo, but was dissatisfied with this location because he did not find enough animal species here that he wished to collect. He eventually settled on Maikoor, an island further inland in the archipelago. The animal species he found here later led him to conclude that the Aru Islands must have had a land bridge with New Guinea during the last Ice Age. His collection included the king's bird of paradise , which otherwise only occurs in New Guinea, as well as four falcons , twelve pigeons , thirteen flycatchers , ten parrots , a tree swallow , three species of stranglers , two pittas , five nectar birds and eleven species of grass . He had also observed cockatoos and cassowaries . The bird fauna of the Aru Islands thus had a species population that was absent west of the Aru Islands. The absence of other animal families was also striking. There was a lack of predators , rodents , primates and ungulates . Except for bats and pigs , all the mammals in the Aru Islands were marsupials .

Dobo, the trading post on the small island of Wamma in the northwest of the archipelago, developed into an important regional trading center in the course of the 19th century. Dobo was accessible through a canal that gave arriving boats a safe passage through the adjacent coral reefs. The water channel on which Dobo lay also provided a quiet anchorage when the monsoon winds blew. Due to the constantly blowing wind, the settlement was relatively free from malaria. In the period from 1880 to 1917, however, the indigenous population increasingly resisted this external influence.

Islands

The largest islands from north to south are:

  • east of the main group
    • Penambulai - 125 km²
    • Workai - 152 km²

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerhard Rösler: The wild pigeons of the earth - free life, keeping and breeding , Verlag M. & H. Schaper, Alfeld-Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7944-0184-0 , p. 242
  2. ↑ David Quammen: The song of the Dodo - A journey through the evolution of the island worlds . List Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-548-60040-9 , p. 126 and p. 127.
  3. ↑ http://islands.unep.ch/IHB.htm#662

Web links

Commons : Aru Islands  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files