Каинaнту: Тарихы мен географиясы

Kainantu is a town in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It had some historical significance as an airstrip town during WWII. It functions primarily as a market town for local produce growers and cash croppers. It is located on the "Highlands Highway" approximately by road west of Lae and by road east of Goroka. It is approx from a nearby missionary station Ukarumpa and is nearby the Aiyura valley. Kainantu has basic facilities such as a school, hospital, police station, district court, and service stations.

Mr. Graham Pople was a former kiap (patrol officer) and Member of the first Papua and New Guinea House of Assembly in 1964 and in 2010 authored The Popleography, an unpublished manuscript. When describing Kainantu in the 1960s he writes:

text=Kainantu was a lovely little town in the early ‘60s and was thriving based many coffee plantations being established in the area and also of gold. It had been the centre of gold rushes in the early 1930s. The Summer Institute of Linguistics had their PNG headquarters at Ukarumpa, just over the hill from Kainantu which was also where the Aiyura agricultural station was established. There was a quite large, for a sub district office, non indigenous population in the area. Kainantu had its own airstrip, and the town had grown up around this feature, with the district office on the northern side and the hospital at the southern western end. There was a nine hole golf course with a very well frequented club house. A hotel sat on a knoll above the main township which was managed by a Dutch couple who were very hospitable. The Salvation Army were active in the area and out on the road to Okapa they had a block of land on some 200 acres where they were growing potatoes commercially and where they held Bible classes.

Probable Palaeozoic metamorphic rocks, the Bena Bena Formation, intruded by Upper Triassic Bismarck Granodiorite and Mount Victor Granodiorite, constitute the basement on which lower Miocene Nasananka Conglomerate and Omaura Greywacke were laid down. The andesitic Aifunka Volcanics of probable Pliocene age, Pleistocene lake sediments, and Recent alluvial deposits complete the stratigraphical record of the area.

A narrow south east trending dissected plateau dominates area to the south; it forms the watershed between rivers draining north to the Markham Ramu Graben, and those draining south to the Papuan coast. The plateau ranges in elevation between 7500 feet (2286 m) and 8000 feet (2438 m) above sea level, and is about 2500 feet (762 m) above the surrounding country. It is wide at its north western end, but narrows to about to the south east, where Nompia Creek cuts across it in a deep gorge East of Nompia Creek, it is about wide, and the Lamari River flows across it in another deep gorge. The streams draining the plateau are mature over most of their courses, but near its edge they are deeply incised and flow along youthful valleys.

Colbran Coffee lands is a large coffee plantation run on the Kainantu highlands run by the Colbran Family since 1962. They are one of the largest plantations and coffee processing factories in PNG. They buy local parchment coffee from locals during harvest season and process is for domestic and international use. This provides work for the nearby locals. In 2009, the Colbran Family started a primary school that educates children from around 12 neighbouring villages.

Alluvial gold was discovered near Kainantu about 1930, by E. Ubank and N. Rowlands, who were the first Europeans in the area. Compared with the Wau Bulolo Goldfields, where gold had just been discovered in the rich Edie Creek, the Kainantu Goldfields were neither very rich nor very extensive, and so never attracted large numbers of prospectors. By World War II the best patches of alluvial gold had been worked out, and the few lodes found had not proved economic. After the war the field provided a good living from both alluvial and lode mining for a small number of Europeans. Kainantu Gold Mine is an underground mine and the concentrate is trucked to Lae and shipped to Japan for processing. In January 2009 production was halted. The mine has been designed to produce in excess of 100,000 ounces of gold per year. In 2007 a decision was made by Highlands Pacific Ltd. to sell Kainantu Gold mine and licences to Placer Dome Oceania, a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation for a cash price of USD141.5 million. The mine was then sold to K92 Mining, a Canadian company, that has restarted the mine and is expanding the known resource (now about 4 million ounces) and yearly output (about 130,000 ounces). Both numbers are expected to be increased in the future. It is expected that by the end of 2022 mine production will be above 300,000 ounces per year.

The focus of the cultural centre is the pottery and it is for this that the centre has become best known. The clay for the pots is all acquired locally from different areas and until recently preparing the clay for use was a time consuming process, using only simple plaster beds. In 1994 the centre invested in a variety of new equipment such as a mixer, filter press and pug mill which has reduced the preparation time from weeks to days.

The Kainantu Golf Club was established in 1958 largely through the efforts of Neville (Robbie) Robinson, an employee of the Department of Lands, Survey and Mines and Native Mining Officer. Historically the Kainantu golf course is one of the two oldest golf courses in the country (after the Bulolo golf course).

The Kainantu course is/was a nine hole course with two sets of tees to make for 18 hole game. The course was constructed along a number of ridge crests and so over the years the course has been a challenge to play. Narrow fairways, sloping roughs, small greens and nearby roads and gardens have made low course scoring rare.

In the early 1990s, a small group of expatriates from nearby business began to make improvements to the club including planting new trees and building a new clubhouse. The new trees did not last long and were uprooted by “rascals”and over the years existing trees were “ringed” and then cut down at night for firewood. According to staff at the hotel, Sir Barry Holloway established the hotel and after his death, handed the business to the Komuniti Kaunsil Bisnis to operate and distribute profits from the hotel's operation.

Ukarumpa missionary station houses the Summer Institute of Linguistics, which aims to translate the Bible into all of Papua New Guinea's numerous languages. The base was established in the mid 1950s by Wycliffe Bible Translators. The current population is approximately 1,000.