Senator Patrick Leahy is the most senior member of the United States Congress

Two United States Senators, Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Jeff Merkley, have written to Prime Minister Peter O’Neill calling for action to end the SABL land grab and illegal logging.

On November 4th, the Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, stood in Parliament and told the nation the SABL land grab was at an end, the unlawful leases were being cancelled and the illegal logging stopped.

SOURCE: GRACE AUKA SALMANG - POST COURIER

THE proposed tax increase on log export announced in the 2017 Budget has been described as a big win for the people of PNG.

Source: PNG Exposed blog

The Prime Minister has again announced the government is cancelling controversial SABL leases and returning the land to its customary owners.

“I am pleased to say that all the SABL leases to be cancelled, instruction has now gone to the Lands Dept and as of today (last Friday) I can assure you that leases are now being cancelled” – see story below.

Police stationed at logging camps in the Pomio district of East New Britain are continuing to intimidate and threaten landowners protesting against illegal SABL leases and wide spread logging.

Logging on New Hanover: "This is our customary land. Why would they do this to us?" 

New Ireland Provincial Government has sent in armed police to defend illegal logging and road clearing operations on New Hanover island. Local people have been engaged in a long struggle to defend their land and reclaim what is rightfully theirs from the foreign logging companies.

Paul Pavol, with MP Gary Juffa, at a protest outside the Rainforest Summit in Sydney

Mr. Paul Pavol, from the Pomio District of East New Britain, has been awarded the Alexander Soros Foundation Award for Environmental and Human Rights Activism at a ceremony in New York city.

Ninety-nine year SABL leases issued to logging and oil palm companies have been condemned as "oppressive" and unfair by the Supreme Court.

The comments came in a decision endorsing the findings of the National Court that the SABL lease over Portion 144C in the East Sepik Province was null and void and all logging and oil palm planting was illegal.

RH Consultant and ex Managing Director of the PNG Forest Authority, Kanawi Pouru, addresses villagers in the Pomio district

SABL Story Project*

PNG’s largest logging company and multi-sector business group is telling rural communities that human rights and sustainable business principles impede rural development and should be ignored if people want to get rich.

The oil palm mill at Dirina in Pomio

SABL Story Project*

Who would think that a responsible government, whose income is dependent on tax revenue would allow one of our major export crop to be smeared with more dirt?