PRESS RELEASE JANUARY 2006. TAMESIDE MAN TO LEAD EXPEDITION TO LOST WORLD

David Gill from Droylsden, Manchester sets off this Wednesday to lead an expedition into the remote uncharted territory of New Britain, an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Dave spent 10 years in the Borneo rain forest working as a National Park and Wildlife Officer with special responsibility for cave exploration, mapping and conservation. He succeeded in establishing a new National Park and obtaining World Heritage status from UNESCO for the Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak.

Dave told our newspaper that the expedition intends to explore a high rain forest covered plateau which is riddled with giant underground rivers. Many large cave entrances can be seen from satellite photographs, some with giant rivers at the bottom of 1000 foot holes in the jungle. The area was last visited during his expedition to the Nakanai Mountains in 1984 when he sent out a party to conduct a reconnaissance of the area. No one has been back in 21 years. There are many hundreds of square kilometres of unexplored limestone mountains covered in dense tropical jungle awaiting exploration, Dave said.

The expedition named The Untamed Rivers of New Britain is supported by the National Geographic Society USA and the Royal Geographical Society, London.

Conservation

One of the main aims of the expedition is to protect the area as a National Park with World Heritage status as the region is under severe threat from logging companies and the pristine rain forests are fast disappearing. Over a quarter of a million people live on the 300 mile long island and their lives will be severely effected by widescale logging operations.

Dave has assembled a group of twelve top cave explorers, four are from the USA, one from France and seven from the UK.

The party will travel to Port Moresby on the main land of Papua New Guinea, then fly out to the island of New Britain. From there a boat will be hired to transport them around the coast to a small village. Then comes a long 80 kilometre trek to reach the plateau where a base camp will be established. Sixty porters will be hired to carry all the specialised cave exploration equipment and their supplies which will last them two months. The expedition plans to return to the UK in April 2006.

David. W. Gill
103 Lewis Rd,
Droylsden,
Manchester. M43 6WR.
UK
Tel No 0161 355 5589.