An injunction issued against community advocacy group ACT NOW! to prevent publication of reports on illegal logging has been stayed by the National Court.

In July 2024, two Malaysian owned logging companies obtained an order from the District court in Vanimo preventing ACT NOW! from issuing publications about their activities and from contacting their clients and service providers. 

Image: Part of a Public Notice published in the Post Courier newspaper by the PNG Forest Authority on 29 November, 2024.

The PNG Forest Authority has recently confirmed a moratorium on issuing new Forest Clearing Authority licences is still in force while it completes its audit of existing FCA projects.

Image: Campaign Manager Eddie Tanago at a recent Global Dialogue meeting at the INTERPOL headquarters in Singapore

ACT NOW Campaign Manager Eddie Tanago has been charged by police under the Cybercrime Code Act for allegedly publishing defamatory remarks on social media about the Managing Director of the PNG Forest Authority.

Papua New Guinea is at risk of international sanction for its failure to control money laundering risks with major negative impacts on business and the economy.

According to the Bank of Papua New Guinea, the country could be grey-listed if it fails to meet the recommendations in an assessment report from the Asia Pacific Group on Money Laundering.

Three senior officers from the PNG Forest Authority have failed to provide any answer to allegations of widespread illegal logging during a 40 minute appearance on live radio.

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.

Prime Minister James Marape has spoken of the importance of preserving Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in a meeting with the United Nations General Secretary and in his address to the UN General Assembly last Friday 

Yet, his government is doing nothing to stop widespread illegal logging and in particular the abuse of agricultural clearing licences.

Marape has described PNG’s rainforests as vital to PNG and to the global community, yet PNG is the world’s largest exporter of tropical logs and most of the logging is illegal and unsustainable.