bulldozing rights

road to nowhere in papua new guinea

celcor/friends of the earth papua new guinea

Logging operations on the Fly River, Papua New Guinea.

"Now when I see my bush, I cry. In the past we had sago, pigs, cassowaries and big trees everywhere. We used traditional paint from the bush. Now Aiambak is very different, life is very difficult. I cry for my village" Jerry Iawe, Aiambak villager .

Forests provide the basis of livelihood and culture for the nearly 80 percent of Papua New Guineans who live in rural communities. By law, tribal groups own all but three percent of the country's land area and virtually all of its forest resources, and laws are in place to ensure that unwanted developments do not interfere with people's self determination. However, as the case of the Kiunga-Aiambak road project shows, laws are not always respected when profits stand in the way.

On paper, the rights of Papua New Guinean communities to their forests are well developed. The national Forestry Act provides for the recognition of customary landowners' rights to forest resources, proper royalty payments, and compensation for any damages caused as a result of logging operations. Any proposal for the use of forest resources requires the free and prior informed consent of the customary landowners, meaning that communities are able to decide according to their customary structures, through their own representative institutions, and at their own pace without external pressure. Full information has to be provided in the relevant forms and languages, and landowners must seek proper legal and technical advice before deciding whether or not to allow resource development on their land.

However, the requirements for free and prior informed consent are not usually followed in Papua New Guinea, making communities vulnerable to the companies interested in extracting natural resources from their lands . People often cannot make informed decisions as legal information and services are not readily available. High illiteracy rates and limited infrastructure further complicate matters. C onsent is often obtained through bribery, threats and other corrupt practices.

shadowy road project

One case of the imbalance between rights on paper and rights in practice is the Kiunga-Aiambak road project. In 1994, a licence was granted to the Paiso company to clear logs in order to make way for a road. Although the company was allegedly held by the landowners, it was actually owned by two individuals, a PNG national and a Malaysian businessman closely associated with the Malaysian logging company Concord Pacific. In the first of many violations of national forestry laws, Paiso illegally sub-contracted the logging to Concord Pacific.

The company later received an illegal extension to its license, making the Kiunga-Aiambak project one of the largest in the country. It also skirted its legal obligation to pay royalties to landowners. In 2001, the company was granted yet another illegal permit that allowed it to log an 830-kilometer corridor through the forest and remove a total of 5 million cubic metres of logs.

An independent review appointed by the World Bank released a damning audit of the project in October 2000. The results confirmed the illegalities of the project, and verified that landowners had been harassed and threatened with firearms by loggers and police.

In 2001, Friends of the Earth Papua New Guinea, representing 300 landowners in the Kiunga-Aiambak area, lodged a claim with the World Bank Inspection Panel. The Papua New Guinea government had been granted a loan from the World Bank, and the claim called on the Bank to withhold the second tranche of the loan until illegal logging had been stopped. In response, the World Bank absolved itself of responsibility, and recommended an action plan that did not address any of the complaints.

Meanwhile, NGOs and local groups carried out direct action to prevent the transport of illegal logs. In 2002, Greenpeace activists blocked the export of logs from Kiunga-Aiambak for three days.

In July 2003, the national court ruled in favour of the landowners and ordered all logging and road construction to be halted. The people of Kiunga-Aiambak are still in court, however, seeking compensation for their land and their livelihoods.

bougainville says no to large-scale loggers
In 2005 Bougainville will no longer allow large-scale loggers to harvest and export logs from its forests. Bougainvilleans told the National Forest Authority in Port Moresby that they would support small-scale industries and community-based forestry at a workshop organized to get feedback from the different stakeholders in the forestry sector.

more information:

read about the ‘invisible' privatization of clan lands
Friends of the Earth Papua New Guinea: www.celcor.org.pg
Greenpeace Australia Pacific: www.paradiseforest.org/paradise_lost/kiunga_aiambak_road.php