Civil society organisations and community representatives have demanded government action on the widespread abuse of Forest Clearing Authorities (FCA).

Raggian Bird-of-Paradise in Varirata Park, PNG

Shimali Chauhan | Down to Earth 

PHOTO: This area in Bewani, north-west PNG, was logged under a Special Agricultural Business Lease. (ABC: Eric Tlozek)

Reprinted from The National, 17 October 2024

WE, the landowners of Portion 199 of Bewani in Vanimo-Green, West Sepik, want the provincial and national authorities to investigate what we see as illegal land-grabbing by a palm oil developer.

While the government has been dramatically increasing the amount of funding pumped directly into each District, there is an appalling lack of transparency about how those public funds are being used.

PSB News Hour, 19 Sept 2024

PBS News Hour - 18 Sept 2024

Anti-money laundering laws don't just apply to the financial proceeds of crime; the laws apply equally to any property that is generated through criminal behaviour, including illegally felled timber.

A new logging operation in Milne Bay Province could be yet another example of a bogus agriculture project being used as cover for a large-scale forest grab.

The new logging operation began on Sideia Island earlier this year as part of the Loani Bwanabwana Integrated Agro-Forestry Project.

Operated by a Malaysian logging company with no previous agriculture experience, the project is promising 36,700 hectares of new agriculture planting, including balsa, cocoa, vanilla and rice.

David Mitchel / Eco Custodian Advocates

The idea of a tropical log export ban in PNG started in the 1990s with fifteen specific timber species.

Again in 2010 the Forest Minister Nama indicated that round logs exports to cease, in 2018 the then Prime Minister, O’Neil said no round log export by 2020, which PM Marape reiterated in 2019 and yet another Forest Minster Tomuriesa in 2020 said a ban on round log export by 2025.

Now in 2024 PNG is the greatest tropical round log exporter in the world with Malaysia’s exports decreasing, now second.