The Asia Pacific Rainforest Summit being hosted this week by the Australian Government, must address the serious problems of land grabbing and illegal logging in Papua New Guinea and the rampant corruption that underpins them, says community activist group, ACT NOW!

Australia is the largest single beneficiary of rampant and unsustainable logging and land grabbing in Papua New Guinea, according to leading community activist group, ACT NOW!

Source: Post Courier

Letter of the Day

SABL stands for Special Purpose Agriculture Business Lease.

The acronym SABL speaks for itself.

Any educated person would reason, without having any prior knowledge of the concept, that such a lease has something to do with agriculture, and not forestry.

Source: Post Courier

The National court has declared two agriculture and business leases of SABLs covering over 38, 000 hectres of land in Northen Province null and void, and further ordered the State to cancel thier titles.

Effrey Dademo

Moves by the government to review the Lands Act and introduce revised legislation* are premature and focus attention away from the real problem - corruption, says community activist group, ACT NOW!

Changes to the law ignore the corruption which is at the root of most of the current problems with land administration and any changes will do nothing to stop the ongoing abuses.

Source: ALERT

October 22nd, 2014 

Both the SABL land grab and the growing number of violent urban evictions in Papua New Guines are the symptoms of a misguided and destructive model of development.

The Papua New Guinea Forest Authority (PNG FA) will not cancel the Forest Clearance Authorities it has granted allowing logging inside Special Agriculture and Business Lease areas and thus is not defending the rights and interests of customary landowners.

This was made clear in a recent meeting of NGOs with the PNGFA. 

Source: The National

A NATIONAL court judge has cautioned landowners to be wary of land hijacking.

Stephen Oli highlighted this during a court user forum in Kokopo last Friday.

He said with due respect, the Special Agriculture Business Leases (SABL) were a hotspot for corruption.