overview
There has been a slow-down in the export of logs from Papua New Guinea over
the past eighteen months, due to changes in the export market, and
difficulties loggers have experienced in Papua New Guinea, with a protracted
wet season in 1995 and landholder resistance. Government activity is centred
around the continuation of export logging, with close alliances between
politicians, administrators and loggers. Forest regulation is politicised,
with honest and professional administrators too frightened to speak out.
Information and statistics are hard to come by. The sole concern of the
government is logging and planning future logging. No attention is being
paid to conservation needs, biodiversity priority, and non-timber use of the
forests.
forest policy
A recently produced National Forest Policy, which will be laid before
Parliament in late July is really a business brochure to tell everybody what
remains to be logged. The maps attached to it are inaccurate confusing and
misleading. The plan fails in any way to address the needs of women, and it
does not comply with the Forestry Act, because section 47(2)(b) of the Act
says that the Plan is to be based upon "a certified National Forest
Inventory", which has never been done.
NGOs have competed The Alternative NGO Forest Policy which calls for the
major emphasis to shift to small and medium scale community-based forest
projects, and emphasises the need for women to be involved in all aspects of
forest related development.. The Alternative Policy stresses conservation of
biodiversity, community control and community negotiated land-use management,
environmental monitoring, project regulation, and the promotion of non-timber
forest products.
logging is still the main activity in the forests. Francis Tiong the head of
the Papua New Guinea subsidiaries of Rimbunan Hijau, now sits on the Forest
Board. Landholders are desperately trying to re negotiate the unfair
colonial contracts that deprive them of most of the value of the logs taken
from their forest. So far landholders at Open Bay, (East New Britain) have
held firm in their negotiations to get a better deal. But the Japanese
logging company is being supported by the Minister for Forests. A similar
struggle is going on with WTK, and the Vanimo landholders, in the Sandaun
Province.
Landholders in high biodiversity priority areas of the Hunstein Ranges in
the East Sepik Province, and Mount Bosavi in the Southern Highlands are
under intense pressure from loggers to open up their lands to logging.
clear felling (oil palm, agricultural schemes, and road schemes).
A major threat to marine resources is posed by an oil palm clear-fell
operation at Aitape, in the Sandaun Province (West Sepik). In particular, an
important fisheries resource, in the mangrove-ringed Sissano Lagoon stands
to be damaged by clear-felling in its water-catchment. There are also fears
of the effects of other parts of this massive clear-fell operation on the
reefs and fisheries along the unique coast. There is no environmental plan,
and so this project can properly be described as state-sponsored
environmental vandalism. Another lear-fell opeartion is occuring along the
Aenbak-Kiunga Road in the Western Province. One piece of good news is that
the National Forest authority has conceded that lands owned by the Uiaku
people of Collingwood Bay, Oro Province, will be excluded from future forest
development. Uiaku lands had been threatened by a so-called coconut-sap
project that involve over 100,000 hectares of clear-fell.
royalty system
Landholders in Papua New Guinea are locked into a set of colonial contracts
which put most of the surplus of logging into the hands of the loggers and
the government. As of the 1 July 1996 landholders will receive K10m3 for
logs whose average price is about K160m3. (of this K10m3 15% goes to the
provincial government and 5% to the National Government in withholding tax).
New projects will pay an extra K13m3 on current prices, but this money will
not go directly to landholders, but will be paid into a fund for "develop-
ment" purposes. What this ignores is that the landholders are entitled to be
paid for their property-rights, and not have the money controlled by
officials. Because the graduate royalty announced in the budget has not been
implemented, landholders have lost about K26 million. On the other hand the
government has collected its inceased graduated log tax which was announced
at the same time.
Brian Brunton
Greenpeace Forest Specialist
3rd July 1996
Individual & Community Rights Box 155,
P.O. University,
Advocacy Forum Inc. N.C.D.,
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
PH: (675) 326 2469
FAX: (675) 26 0273
REF: {filename |BRIAN1.DOC}
Date: {createdate \@ "d MMMM, yyyy"|3 July, 1996}