The people of Collingwood Bay in Oro Province are in a real celebratory mood after the Department of Lands conceded to giving back their customary land after 20 years of court battles.

The people have reclaimed their land – a total land area of 38,350 hectares, given away by the Department of Lands in two Special Agriculture Business Leases (SABL) for 50 years.

Source: OurLandOurBusiness

WHOSE LAND IS IT ANYWAY? Right now, millions of people are being thrown off their land because large corporations are being given special rights. The World Bank is driving this destructive trend with its Doing Business rankings, which force countries to compete with each other to do away with things like environmental protections, workers rights and corporation taxes. Sign on to demand the abolition of the rankings.

Follow Link to sign;http://ourlandourbusiness.org/#home

A new billboard with a clear message for the Prime Minister has been erected in central Waigani, right under the noses of Papau New Guinea's MPs.

The billboard is on the busy roundabout outside the Somare Foundation Building on Sir John Guise Drive - right in the path of everyone travelling to Parliament and infront of the offices of the Department of the Prime Minister and NEC.

Source: PNG Loop

Parliament sits at 10:00 am today starting off the second week of sessions for the three weeks assigned in the May Sitting, and one important thing  is the Land Grabbing Issue that hit the PNG and International news headlines in recent weeks.

Source: Radio New Zealand

The sustainable forestry organisation FORCERT in Papua New Guinea says developers and government players should consult more in communities where they set up logging projects.

A Technical Advisor to FORCERT, Peter Dam, says that due to rampant logging, only a few small parts of forest remain intact on the whole of New Britain.

This and other parts of PNG have been heavily clear-felled by logging projects, including those under the guise of Special Agricultural Business Leases.

Source: Peiley Lau

The Prime Ministers failure to implement the SABL Commission of Inquiry recommendations and revoke the unlawful SABL leases and stop the illegal logging has again been put into the spotlight, this time by a new report on illegal logging in PNG from the influential Chatham House group in the United Kingdom.

Source: The National

The Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is backing non-government organisations in demanding for the World Bank to end its support for land and resources grabbing in Pacific communities, under the pretext of making customary land more productive.

PANG said the terrible outcomes of such business environments include the illegal land grab taking place in the country, with over five million hectares of customary land taken from local people without their consent for commercial use.

PANG supports demand for World Bank to end its support for resource grab

Source:The National

SPECIAL Agricultural Business Leases (SABLs) which are not genuine will be cancelled, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill says.

He said Cabinet had set up a ministerial committee to look into the recommendations in the SABL inquiry report.

He said the committee would recommend to the Government what actions to take.

“We are now going as far as trying to cancel many of the leases,” he said.

“I want to assure the nation that most of the leases that

are not genuine have taken