bild

Giant clam flesh on a outrigger canoes with a child playing in the background in the village of Hessessai Bay at PanaTinai (Panatinane)island in the Louisiade Archipelago in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. The island has an area of 78 km2. The Louisiade Archipelago is a string of ten larger volcanic islands frequently fringed by coral reefs, and 90 smaller coral islands located 200 km southeast of New Guinea, stretching over more than 160 km and spread over an ocean area of 26,000 km? between the Solomon Sea to the north and the Coral Sea to the south. The aggregate land area of the islands is about 1,790 km? (690 square miles), with Vanatinai (formerly Sudest or Tagula as named by European claimants on Western maps) being the largest. (KEYSTONE/CAVAN IMAGES/Christophe Launay)