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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Papua
New Guinea Environmental Vandalism
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
4/22/96
The wonderfully
effective Individual and Community Rights Advocacy
Forum
(ICRAF), a local Papua New Guinea environmental and human
rights
NGO, reports on a local situation in Sissano Lagoon,
Sandaun
Province. There, a large oil palm
scheme, 85% owned by
the
Malaysian company Damansera, has begun the initial clear-fell
operation
on 5000 hectacres. This despite lack of
an
Environmental
Plan, failure to have had a Timber Authority
granted,
and failure to demonstrate that planned oil palm
planting,
following the "incidental" removal of all those
rainforests,
is actually going to occur.
The
entire oil palm project lies with the immediate catchment for
Sissano
Lagoon, an area of marine bio-diversity priority and also
a rich
fishery. ICRAF calls such a plan
"an act of environmental
vandalism." Clearcutting of tropical lowland rainforest
wildernesses
is continuing in PNG under the guise of "agricultural
development",
frequently promised oil palm plantation whose
economic
and environmental sustainability is unknown.
Appeals are
made
for letters of protest of this illegally occuring rainforest
conversion.
g.b.
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/**
rainfor.genera: 132.0 **/
**
Topic: Sissano Lagoon : environmental vand **
**
Written 10:50 PM Apr 18, 1996 by
bbrunton@pactok.peg.apc.org
in
cdp:rainfor.genera **
URGENT ACTION
1. Introduction
ICRAF
has been running a Forest Networking Workshop in Aitape,
Sandaun
Province, Papua New Guinea, this week, at the site of a
large
oil palm scheme. The Government of Papua New Guinea has
issued
a Timber Authority to a joint venture company, Pia-
Damansara
which is 85 % owned by the Malaysian company Damansera,
and 15%
by a local land-owning company Pia. The
area involved in
the
initial clear-fell operation is 5000 hectacres. We have
not
been able to locate an Environmental Plan for this project
yet,
and believe that there has been no plan prepared. The retoric
of the
National Forest Authority is that Damansara will not get
any
more Timber Authorities unless it actually develops the oil
palm.
But there must be grave doubts about that as Damansara has
real
political clout.Damansara is a real estate- property owning
company.
The Pia scheme is inland from Aitape. We are concerned
that
this block will be clear-felled, with no oil palm being
planted.
We are also concerned about the environmental and social
impact
of the scheme. No information is available to landowners
about
environmental and social impact. Landowners expressed
concern
that adequate trials with oil palm had not been carried
out in
the field . They were of the view that the soils may be
unsuited
for oil palm.
2. Sissano Lagoon
Sissano
Lagoon is to the west of Aitape. It is an area of marine
bio-diversity
priority. It is also a rich fishery, with prawns and
fish
breeding grounds. The local villages are dependent upon these
fisheries.
We have
found out that it is proposed to put a large oil palm
block
in the catchment area. Oil palm schemes use large amounts of
Paraquet,
known in Papua New Guinea as Gramoxone. Oil Palm also
needs
large amounts of NPK, as soils in Papua New Guinea tend to
leach
quickly, and oil palm is a hungary plant. The danger is, in
the
absence of an environmental plan that once the tree cover is
removed
in this catchment area, and oil palm planted, that the
chemical
cocktail entering the Sissano Lagoon, will drive out the
prawns
and fish
Landholders
told us that the area had small-holder cocoa. The idea
that
cocoa which has a price of K350 a tonne, should be ripped up,
and
replanted with oil palm which has a price of about K60
ffb/tonne,
is ludicrous.
It is
not an overstatement to call the move to put oil palm in the
catchment
area to Sissano Lagoon an act of environmental
vandalism.
3. What you can do.
A
Timber Authority has not been issued over the Sio/Sissano
Lagoon
oil palm which means that we are in a position to campaign
to make
sure the project does not go ahead.
*Write
letters to the Editor, The Independent, Box 1982, P.O.
Boroko,
NCD, Papua New Guinea.
*Write
letters or visit your nearest Papua New
Guinea Embassy or
High
Commission and raise this case with the diplomats. They have
to
report that kind of representation, and the Prime Minister is
also
Minister for foreign Affairs.
*Approach
your own Foreign Affairs or overseas
aid development
agency,
if you have access to one, a multilateral agency ( World
bank
etc ), and raise the issue with them.
*Help
put together a development for nature swap, which would give
the
people of Aitape an alternative to clear-fell logging and oil
palm .
Brian
Brunton
bbrunton@pactok.peg.apc.org
Individual
and Community Rights Advocacy Forum Inc.
PO Box
49
University,NCD
Papua
New Guinea
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