Malaysian Logging Sparks Land Row with Solomon Islands Locals

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PNG RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

June 5, 1995

OVERVIEW & SOURCE

The IPS provides additional details on the Malaysian logging

efforts of Pavavua island in the Solomon Islands. The new pro-

industrial logging government has granted logging rights to the

island despite protest from the people who live there and whose

land rights are not respected by law. This piece may NOT be

reprinted without permission as per the usual IPS restrictions

noted in their entirety at the end of the article. This was

posted in econet's ips.english conference. For further

information on EcoNet membership, a nonprofit online

system, send any message to <econet-info@igc.apc.org>.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

/* Written 4:11 PM Jun 3, 1995 by igc:newsdesk in

peg:ips.english */

/* ---------- "SOLOMON ISLANDS: Malaysian Logging" ---------- */

Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

*** 31-May-95 ***

Title: SOLOMON ISLANDS: Malaysian Logging Sparks Land Row with

Locals

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY, May 31 (IPS) - Logging by Malaysian companies has

marginalised local communities in their own country, but now their

activities are affecting people in the South Pacific as well.

On the island of Pavuvu, 50 km northwest of Honiara in the

central province of the Solomon Islands, local landowners have

been caught in a bitter row with the government since it granted

the Malaysian firm Marving Brothers logging rights two months ago.

The licence was given only days after the government dismissed

the premier of the central province, Nelson Ratu, a strong

opponent of logging in Pavuvu.

The non-governmental group Soltrust estimates the tiny island's

forests have more than 895,000 cubic metres of logs. It says the

local people should be able to harvest these timber resources --

worth more than 120 million dollars at current prices -- using

their own sustainable logging methods over a period of time.

If foreign logging companies are allowed to come in, it says,

local landowners will get only four million dollars in royalties

while the government will earn 40 million dollars in export levies

and the logging firms will make a profit of 35 million dollars.

But the government of the Solomon Islands has other plans for

the islanders. The environment ministry last month said the

agreement with Marving Bros includes the resettlement of thousands

of people in Pavuvu where the company is to build new villages

complete with roads, water facilities, clinics and schools.

The government is in fact presenting it as a development

project for the islands, where people from the over-populated

areas of the Russell Islands will be resettled in Pavuvu.

It says up to 200 families will be given 10 hectares of land to

be registered under their names. But it points out that the

resettlement scheme will require the clearing of the land, which

is basically the contract Marving Bros got.

And the government claims it owns the lands anyway and the

people living there are not considered the traditional owners. The

logging deal, it says, will enable them to have their own piece of

land. But the islanders insist the land is rightfully theirs and

have vowed to fight the decision to allow logging in Pavuvu.

During a fact-finding mission by an opposition and NGO team

this month, a prominent Pavuvu community member Simon Ghata said

they had formulated their own development and resettlement plan

for Pavuvu with the help of an expatriate lawyer.

Under the plan, they were to set up the Lavukal Resources

Development Company which has already been registered and includes

a majority of the Russell islanders. The plan did not include

large scale logging but focused on the resettlement of islanders.

Ghata said the government rejected the plan but adopted the

resettlement component and merged it with its logging scheme.

''They used it to make the logging plans more attractive to the

local people,'' he said.

One NGO worker in the fact-finding team said Russell Islanders

complained their government was ''turning a blind eye and a deaf

ear'' to their cries for an immediate end to logging and the

return of the islands that rightfully belong to them.

Abraham Baenisia, head of the Solomon Islands Development

Trust, told IPS that the opposition has claimed the downfall of

the government of Prime Minister Hilly Billy last year had been

engineered by logging interests.

At last year's South Pacific Forum meeting in Brisbane, Billy

and his Australian counterpart Paul Keating announced a landmark

'aid-for-nature' swap wherein Australia was to give an aid package

of 1.48 million U.S. dollars in return for saving certain areas of

the Solomon Islands from the loggers.

Baenisia says all these agreements have come to nothing. The

present government has lifted the log ban imposed by its

predecessor, so loggers continue to strip the country's forests.

Marving Bros general manager C K Ling, speaking to IPS from

Honiara, confirmed they have started logging in Pavuvu and will be

exporting logs to Japan soon. He said they plan to operate in

Pavuvu for about two and a half years and will be paying the

Solomon Islands government 44 percent of the FOB price of the logs

as royalties under the agreement.

''The island belongs to the government and we operate under

agreement with the government. (So) we log according to government

plan only,'' he said. Ling denied the deal included roads, schools

and clinics, but said they have already built a health centre.

Asked what he thought about local opposition to logging in

Pavuvu, Ling said: ''We are foreigners, we know nothing about the

local situation. Only when the government tells us to go in, we go

in. Other (matters) are handled by the government.''

But the Solomon Islands government has been tight-lipped on the

issue. The prime minister's office declined to comment and instead

referred IPS to the office of the Cabinet, which in turn said the

Department of Information was the one to ask.

A spokesman at the department said: ''If you want to talk to us

about Pavuvu, I'm afraid we are not able to help you at present.''

A report by the opposition on their mission to Pavuvu said:

''From the expressed feelings of the (local) people... reports of

support for the resettlement scheme and its logging component on

Pavuvu must now be seriously questioned.''

The report said the motive for the government's resettlement

scheme is purely based on commercialism, with very little or no

consideration to basic needs and aspirations of the people.

Local headmaster Stanley Sade said they have been fighting for

their land for 30 years not because they want to get rich but

because they need more land for their growing population.

He said they do not need development that takes away their

resources, but that which suits them and their culture. ''Pavuvu

belongs to us,'' said Sade. ''It does not belong to the white men

who took it away from us through unscrupulous means with bottles,

tobacco and pipes.''

Ironically it is these questionable land acquisitions by the

colonisers that have made it possible for the government to claim

it owns the land and provide the legal basis for issuing licenses

to foreign logging firms. (END/IPS/KS/LNH/95)

Origin: Manila/SOLOMON ISLANDS/

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