Dear Minister Benny Allen,

RE: ENDORSING THE SABL LAND GRAB

Thank you for your response through the media [copied below] to the demands of affected landholders and the Prime Minister for answers on the SABL land grab. 

PM confirms cancellation of all licenses to thwart illegal land grabbing

By BARNEY ORERE, POST COURIER

PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill has confirmed that the National Executive Council has cancelled all licences and SABLs are illegal.

He said this in response to a community advocacy group Act Now which had been vocal about the land grab issue in relation to SABL – special agriculture and business leases.

Lands Minister Benny Allen is blocking the implementation of government decisions to end the SABL land grab and return stolen land to its customary owners.

Since 2013, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has repeatedly promised the unlawful SABL leases will be cancelled, and in June 2014 the National Executive Council endorsed the recommendation from the Commission of Inquiry that the leases be revoked.

The Minister for Lands has re-stated his plan to convert unlawful SABL leases to another form of land tenure using Incorporated Land Groups. The Minister was speaking in response to a 10,000 signature petition calling for the cancelation of the unlawful SABL leases.

The media listening attentively as Anna Maria explains the human rights abuses and impacts on women and children of the SABL land grab

A 10,000 signature petition is today being presented to the government calling for action on the SABL land grab. 

The petition is being presented by Paul Pavol, who was last year awarded the international Alexander Soros Foundation Award, in recognition of his communities efforts to oppose four unlawful SABL leases over their land.

Fifty two thousand square kilometres of customary land has been stolen in the SABL land grab.

52,000 square kilometres is the same as 5.2 million hectares - but what does that amount of land really look like?

Pomio MP Elias Kapavore has defended an illegal land grab in his electorate in which four SABL leases have been granted to logging company Rimbunan Hijau. Kapavore claims the company has built roads, provided jobs and made ‘a massive economic investment’ in oil palm. He says the company should remain and local people should stop voicing their complaints and exaggerating the negative impacts.

Source: EMTV, 23/12/2016

Many customary landowners in Papua New Guinea are still fighting to reclaim the title to their land leased out under Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABLs).

The people of Collingwood Bay in Tufi, Oro Province have been battling in court for years to reclaim the title to their land which has been leased under two separate SABLs.

In 2014 the National court declared this SABL as null and void.

Police officers working on behalf of Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau are continuing to intimidate, attack and detain landholders trying to protect their land against illegal logging in the Pomio District of East New Britain, according to reports from the area.

This is despite an order from Police Commissioner Gari Baki that police should not be permanently deployed to logging camps.