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PAPUA NEW GUINEA RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS

Environment Groups Call for Inquiry into Logging

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

6/12/97

OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE

PNG environmental groups are increasing their campaign activities in

response to the 17 new timber operations which are in the pipeline,

including the 5 new timber areas announced recently. Greenpeace

Pacific Limited has lead the call for a Commission of Inquiry into

alleged environmental and legal irregularities in timber area

conception and tendering. This is an important time for the future of

biodiversity and sustainable livelihoods in PNG.

g.b.

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Headline: Environment groups call for inquiry into logging

Source: The Post Courier

Date: Thursday, June 12, 1997

Author: By Brian Tobia

INSET:

"There are indications of breaches of the law and questions about the

role of the Forest Board and the Provincial Forest Management

Committees" -- Greenpeace rep Brian Brunton

THE Government was urged by environmental non-government organisations

yesterday to set up a commission of inquiry into logging.

Non-government organisations led by Greenpeace Pacific Limited said in

a state that they had identified some of the recent timber concessions

awarded to logging companies by the National Forest Authority which

were flawed either environmentally or legally, or both.

Greenpeace representative Dr Brian Brunton said new concessions

planned by the authority or already granted were defective in that

"there are indications of breaches of the law and questions about the

role of the Forest Board and the Provincial Forest Management

Committees that urgently need to be addressed."

According to Dr Brunton, many concessions are in areas that are

considered to have high biodiversity value. An example was the

authority calling tenders for concessions in the Hunstein Ranges of

Ambunti, East Sepik Province.

World Wildlife Fund representative Peter Hunnan said non-government

organisations had immense practical knowledge in conservation and

sustainable forest management all over the world, including PNG, and

believed that what the National Forest Authority was doing was unjust.

He said each of the groups supported sustainable development and at

the same time were committed to stopping reckless industrial logging

and devastation of forests, rivers and marine systems.

He added that the Hunstein Ranges concession made a mockery of the

fact that PNG became a member of the World Heritage Convention in

February 1997.

He accused the board of putting short term logging interests ahead of

the long-term interests of future generations.

The non-government organisations were calling for a new commission of

inquiry into logging to establish how these acquisitions were made and

projects allowed to proceed despite legal or environmental defects.

Mr Hunnan said PNG forests were too important to present and future

generations and to the country's economy as a whole.

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