This proved instrumental in the decision to conserve the area. Most clan leaders wanted to avoid becoming reliant on cash payouts and on stores. “They want to have ownership of their own land, own resources,” Pasip says, so “nobody comes and becomes the owner and the landowners become laborers.”

Under the designation, small-scale agriculture is allowed, including the cultivation of cacao, vanilla, and coffee. Cultivation is restricted to garden plots and other heavier use areas, with hunting areas and tambu areas set aside for habitat. Partners with Melanesians is beginning to train rangers, hired from within the plateau’s villages, to patrol and cite people for cutting down forests or otherwise violating the conservation agreement.

“If people don’t follow those rules, they’ll be penalized with fees and other things,” says Ase. But he’s wary of enforcement that’s too restrictive on how people use their own land. “We don’t want to create conflicts between us and local people.”

Kenn Mondiai, of Partners with Melanesians, estimates upwards of 900 tons of coffee could come off the plateau annually. If they can sell it for a high enough price to specialty coffee producers, this amount of coffee could produce the revenue that plateau residents need. Mondiai and others hope to allay fears about market fluctuations by finding a partner outside the country who is interested in a steady supply of high-quality coffee beans. But right now, the price for a kilo of coffee on the plateau sits between two to four kina, about $1.20. And even if they could get a higher price in Popondetta or Port Moresby, the condition of the road prevents them from reliably taking the crop to market.

If coffee fails, conservation leaders are discussing other options: The state has proposed stocking local lakes with tilapia to ease some of the need for outside protein sources like tinned beef. Some villages with bird-of-paradise leks or butterfly breeding areas hope to draw local and foreign tourists, making cash off guesthouses and tours. For the more remote villages, there’s discussion of developing a trail, called the Ghost Mountain Trek, that would follow the path that members of the U.S. 32nd Division took during World War II. The Kokoda Trek, which follows an Australian war march, has grown in popularity over the past several decades and some believe its success could be replicated on Managalas. But like so many things here, this, too, depends on a more reliable road.

If they are able to find a way to find a way for residents to make money, without clearing their forest or giving up their traditional ways of life, it would be a huge win for the plateau, as well as for the country. “There is the potential for it to be extraordinary,” says Paige West, an anthropologist who wrote the book Conservation is Our Government Now, which chronicles the collapse of another conservation area in Papua New Guinea. Several other large-scale conservation projects, led by international NGOs, have splintered after failing to maintain relationships with local leaders. Local groups have led small-scale conservation projects, but Managalas Conservation Area would be the largest of its kind anywhere in the country. “You have local folks saying, ‘We’re going to do this and it’s going to be big,” says West. “Something this large, this is exciting to me. I’d really like to see this work.”