Our photos show more illegally felled timber being shipped out of Papua New Guinea.

These images are from East New Britain where Malaaysian logging company Rimbunan Hijau is taking logs from an SABL lease area declared void by a Commission of Inquiry.

Simon Konkas | President – New Hanover Forum, Kavieng Branch

Environment Advocate and President of Lovongai Local Level Government, Hon. John Aini was arrested and charged by Kavieng Police and currently on K200 bail for threatening to kill Malaysians involved in logging and to destroy logging company machinery on Lovongai Island.

The President has admitted to the charges.

Stolen logs continue to be shipped overseas under the watchful gaze of politicians, bureaucrats and the police while landowners look on wondering what justice and the law mean for them.

The SABL Commission of Inquiry has declared 66 leases covering some 5 million hectares of land to be illegal. But the government and its agencies are ignoring the findings and allowing foreign logging companies to continue stealing valuable timber resources.

From PNGExposed

Peter O’Neill’s handling of the illegal SABL land grab shows he is impotent in the face of Malaysian logging company control of PNG politicians and officials.

Sourced from PNG EDGE

The PNG-Eco Forestry Forum has called on the Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to appoint a new and neutral chairman for the Ministerial Committee reviewing the Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) commission of inquiry report.

Having Forestry and Climate Change Minister Patrick Pruaith in charge was like “giving the keys of the blood bank to Dracula’’, the forum said.

By Pasifika Wardrobes

The Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) is still an outstanding matter before the O’Neill led government, and the much talked about delay into addressing this massive corrupt scheme has prompted the blame game.

The blame game started when there was a delay by the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the SABL, and when one of the three commissioners in the inquiry failed to produce his report.

By Pasifika Wardrobes

Since the reports of the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) were presented in parliament last October, Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill appointed a ministerial committee to look into the findings and recommendations of the inquiry.

From PNG Edge

Transparency International Papua New Guinea (TIPNG) has urged all arms of government to immediately act on the recommendations into the SABL Commission of Inquiry (COI).

Executive Director of TIPNG, Emily Taule said the COI reports from commissioners John Numapo and Nicholas Mirou contained sufficient evidence of massive corruption, mismanagement and lack of coordination by key agencies including relevant government departments.

The Chief Commissioner of Papua New Guinea's land scandal Inquiry says a whole new system of land-leasing is needed to put traditional landowners in the driver's seat for agricultural and other development.

From Radio Australia

Hundreds of thousands of landowners are waiting for the PNG government to act on its promise to cancel flawed Special Agricultural and Business Leases, or SABLs, issued for their land.

BY JACK LAPAUVE EMTV News

Community Advocacy group ACT NOW has welcomed Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s statement of revoking SABL leases however it is disappointed in the delays in implementing the process.

ACT NOW says there can be no excuses for the government to sit on the commission's recommendations, which was presented 6 months ago.