The Birim River or ''Ok Birim'' in the western province of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

is a tributary of the

Ok Tedi River The Ok Tedi is a river in New Guinea. The Ok Tedi Mine is located near the headwaters of the river, which is sourced in the Star Mountains. It is the second largest tributary of the Fly River. Nearly the entirety of the river runs through the N ...

, which is in turn a tributary of the north

Fly River The Fly River is the third longest river in the island of New Guinea, after the Sepik River and Mamberamo River, with a total length of and the largest by volume of discharge in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its cat ...

. The Birim river joins the Ok Tedi river from the west between Ningerum and Bige. The Birim river area is inhabited by the Yonggom tribe. They practise tropical forest Swidden agriculture. About 3,000 people, they speak the Ninggerum language of the Ok group. There has been ongoing controversy about impacts on migratory fish stocks and on the environment in general from dredging and other mining operations by the

Ok Tedi Mining Limited Ok Tedi Mining Limited is a Papua New Guinean company that administers the Ok Tedi Mine in the northern part of the Western Province. Its main office is located in Tabubil and the building is known as the White House. Its chairman, since 2014, h ...

at what remains of Mount Fubilan. Since 1984, the people of the area have blamed the mine for general declines in crops and fish yields.

References

Rivers of Papua New Guinea Western Province (Papua New Guinea) Fly River {{PapuaNewGuinea-river-stub