Journalist Johnny Blades has covered the Pacific Islands for more than twenty years, much of it with Radio NZ Pacific. He has written extensively about the region of Melanesia, its political crises, elections, coups, natural disasters, resource industries, human rights abuses, conflicts, and independence struggles. He is also one of the few foreign journalists to ever get into West Papua, and has forged a widely published body of written work on Melanesia. Blades lives in Wellington with his wife Siri and their daughters, Nina and Anna.
