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PNG RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS
New Ireland Landowners Choose Sustainability-Loggers Issue Threats
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
August 6, 1995
OVERVIEW & SOURCE
The Conservation Resource Centre reports that the Lak people of
New Ireland province have chosen to expel the foreign industrial
loggers operating in their area and instead opt for sustainable
development. The area is the site of the pioneering "Integrated
Development and Conservation" (ICAD) program sponsored by the PNG
Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP). In the stop press, despite
the landholders voting to pursue their own small scale,
sustainable development options; the removed logging operator and
its associates are attempting to undermine the Agreement reached
by the resource owners to terminate conventional logging. Some of
the few individuals who have received any benefits at all from the
operation have threatened ICAD project staff and proponents of
conservation activities amongst the landowner community. These
threats have included death threats, and threats to destroy the
recently constructed conservation base. The Press Release ends
with a short action alert asking for support of Papua New Guinea
local conservation activities. Please take the time to write in
support of the many individuals who are bravely taking a stand for
biodiversity and meaningful local development within a
conservation framework.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
PRESS RELEASE
LANDOWNERS RESCIND LOGGING AND MARKETING AGREEMENT WITH GIANT
TIMBER COMPANY: LAK PEOPLE OPT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OVER
SOCIALLY AND ECOLOGICALLY DESTRUCTIVE LOGGING
On Saturday, 22 July,1995, the Board of the Metlak Development
Corporation (MDC), a local landowner company serving the people of
the Lak area in southern New Ireland formally served notice on
Niugini Lumber Merchants to cease industrial logging in the Lak
Timber Rights Purchase (TRP). The landowners have decided to
replace industrial logging operations with a sustainable
development and conservation initiative, with the support of the
PNG Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) and the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
The Lak TRP area, which is rich in commercially sought after
timber species, covers an area of some 80,000 hectares, a third of
which is suitable for commercial logging operations. The timber
permit for the Lak forest concession is currently held by the MDC.
In 1990, the company entered into a Logging and Marketing
Agreement (LMA) with Niugini Lumber. Under the Agreement, the
contractor was delegated responsibilities for harvesting
operations and marketing. In the 5 years since logging commenced,
more that 160,000 cubic meters, equating to some 80,000 trees have
been taken.
The negative social and ecological consequences of the operation
have been tremendous. Resource owners have captured only a
fraction of the net income from logging, but in environmental
terms, have been impacted severely. The severe damage to the
natural environment was attested to by a number of independent
observers including the then editor of the International Tropical
Timber Organisation's journal, the Tropical Forest Update, Dr
Frans Arentz. Dr Arentz, on visiting Lak in 1994, claimed that
"the logging operation ranked amongst the worst examples of rape
and pillage style operations" he had ever observed. Soil erosion,
resulting from poorly planned skidding operations, logging in
buffer zones, including alongside waterways, amongst other things
has been substantial. This has caused siltation of streams and
platform reefs, affecting communities who rely on these resources
for subsistence.
Additionally, operations caused unnecessary damage to the forest
system, damaging residual trees that should form the basis of the
future harvest. This has likely critically affected the forest's
resilience and regenerative capacity. The danger to the local
communities, who depend on the forests for subsistence and to
provide income, is that short term exploitation would have
severe future costs. By eroding the forest's service provision
capacity, operations were foreclosing options for alternative uses
of the forest resource base, including ecotourism and non timber
products extraction.
In 1994 a review conducted by the Department of Environment and
Conservation to gauge compliance with the requirements of the
Environmental Plan found that 80% of the conditions had been
flouted. Indeed only 10% of the conditions had been complied with
(10% of the conditions were unchecked). Transgressions include
logging within restricted zones abutting watersheds, poor waste
disposal practices, logging on steep slopes, and poor roading
practices. Moreover, in 1993 and 1995 operations were suspended by
the PNG National Forest Authority for failure to adhere to Permit
conditions, particularly with regard to infrastructural provision.
The impacts of the said logging operation on the area's
biodiversity give cause for considerable concern. The Lak area
forms an important storehouse of species endemic to the Bismarck
archipelago. Many of these species are under threat elsewhere in
New Ireland and on the island of New Britain from conversion to
permanent agriculture and by the application of ecologically
devastating logging methods. A number of species are found only in
the Lak area; in 1994, a scientific expedition to S. New Ireland
discovered several new faunal species. The ecosystem requirements
of these species are unknown and there is a danger that un-managed
logging, by affecting interspecific relationships in the
rainforest, could threaten their survival. The Lak area was
specified under the PNG Conservation Needs Assessment (undertaken
by the DEC in conjunction with Conservation International and the
Biodiversity Support Network of the USA) as a site of critical
conservation importance.
Another, poorly understood ecological impact of logging operations
such as these, involves the release of greenhouse gasses. Tropical
forests form an important repository of carbon, which is stored in
plant tissues. Poor logging practices, by causing needless damage
to standing biomass causes excess biomass mortality- leading to
the release of greenhouse gasses as plant tissues decay. Given the
potentially damaging effects of global warming and sea level rise,
the entirely preventable release of excess greenhouse gasses from
logging, is a major concern.
The termination of the logging agreement, followed a 90 day
period during which the Contractor was served notice to remedy
transgressions, but failed to do so.
Mr Ezikiel Waisale, chairman of the Lak Community Government, has
played a pioneering, and pivotal, role in promoting sustainable
development and conservation in the Lak area. In 1990, he made an
approach to the DEC to establish a conservation area in Lak. With
the support of UNDP, which has provided funding and technical
assistance, the DEC has responded by establishing a pilot
integrated conservation and development project in Lak.
The DEC aims to establish a conservation prototype by drawing
linkages between development, to meet local resource owners'
welfare aspirations, and the objectives of biodiversity
conservation. It is hoped that the Lak project will help establish
some of the features of successful conservation initiatives in
PNG, so that the ICAD process may be moulded to meet the socio-
economic needs of given area's in PNG. A number of NGO's,
including the Research and Conservation Foundation, the East Sepik
Council of Women and the World Wide Fund for Nature are also
supporting ICAD type initiatives elsewhere in PNG. The DEC
networks closely with these project's to share experiences.
The Lak ICAD project was initiated in early 1994. In the ensuing
period, the DEC had focused on raising conservation awareness,
identifying the social needs of the local populace and
establishing an operational presence in the area. A conservation
base, to serve as a focal point for activities in the proposed
conservation area, is nearing completion. The DEC and UNDP, as
part of a compact with the Lak people have agreed to assist in
leveraging finance, providing technical assistance and mobilising
other support for sustainable development. The first major
development intervention being advanced is a sustainable
forestry project. The project will support development of an
internationally certified, reduced impact harvesting, processing
and marketing enterprise aimed at maximising value added from
timber production in Lak. The DEC/ UNDP are also investing in
social service provision to meet community needs during the
transition period between industrial logging and the onset of
sustainable development activities.
END
STOP PRESS: The logging operator, Niugini Lumber is, we are given
to understand, attempting to undermine the Agreement reached by
the resource owners to terminate conventional logging. Though this
agreement was made in a majority vote, a small group of
disaffected landowners continue to support industrial logging, and
refuse, with prodding from Niugini Lumber, to accept the landowner
decision. Niugini Lumber has established a small constituency
amongst the landowners by offering handouts and making promises.
The champions of industrial logging amongst the landowners are
mostly individuals who in the past have captured significant
income from logging operations and who place their own short term
interests over collective, long term community interests. These
individuals, some of whom are employees of Niugini Lumber, have
threatened project staff and proponents of conservation activities
amongst the landowner community. These threats have included death
threats, and threats to destroy the recently constructed
conservation base.
Please write the Chairman of the Metlak Development Corporation
registering your support of their actions, and voicing concern
over the actions of Niugini Lumber. The address is :
the Chairman
Metlak Development Corporation,
Box 328, Kavieng, Papua New Guinea
FAX 675 942243
Please send any copies of correspondence to:
the National Project Director,
The Conservation Resource Centre
Box 165, Waigani, Papua New Guinea
FAX 675 3259192
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