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PAPUA NEW GUINEA RAINFOREST CAMPAIGN NEWS

NGOs Picket Forestry Office Demanding Inquiry into Timber Industry

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

7/15/97

OVERVIEW & SOURCE by EE

Controversy surrounding the current batch of timber area approvals

continues to mount, as PNG NGOs take to the street in protest against

environmental and legal irregularities in timber area allocation. They

are demanding that the government investigate the timber industry in light

of some 1,000,000 hectares of lowland forests having recently been

approved for industrial logging under questionable circumstances.

Allegations are made of police pressure on landowners to sign, landowners

signing papers they did not understand, and allocations made for political

gain prior to the elections.

There are a number of troubling aspects to the recent poorly conceived and

implemented logging areas. Recent actions are counterproductive to the

spirit of new forest reforms, are setting bad precedents and undermining

the integrity of the forest authority. The ability of the forest

authority and the PNG government to effectively implement forest

legislation is in doubt. Additionally, several of these new projects fall

right on top of existing communities organizing conservation and

sustainable development projects--the government, and multinationals bent

on logging anywhere they can, must recognize local wishes to not pursue

industrial forestry. This means removing conservation, high biodiversity

and small-scale development lands from potential production forest--to

insure that insidious and continuing pressure to log doesn't undermine

those striving to develop a community based, Melanesian development

paradigm.

g.b.

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ITEM #1

Title: NGOs picket forestry office

Source: Post Courier

Status: Copyrighted, seek permission to reprint

Date: July 14, 1997

NON-GOVERNMENTAL Organisations on Friday picketed the Forest Authority

Headquarters to press the new Government to urgently conduct a commission

of inquiry into timber concessions and logging practices in the country.

Representatives from NGO groups including Melanesian Environment

Foundation, Green Peace and ICRAF also handed out leaflets on

irregularities in the awarding of timber concessions.

Poor environmental planning and irregularities in applying forestry laws

have been targeted. MEF's Stanley Iko said there were also questions of

several forest plans being used "and we think that it would be very

important for a new inquiry into forestry in the country to be called and

the facts made clear."

The NGOs want to bring attention to the need for a new inquiry and to show

that there are people in the country who are very concerned about what is

happening. The NGOs have identified some of the recent timber concessions

awarded to logging companies by NFA which are "flawed environmentally and

legally".

These include Tapila Wipim, East Awin, Semabo and Hekiko (Western

province), April Salumei (East Sepik), Asengseng and Rottok (WNB), Makus

Tolu (ENB) and Buhem Mongi (Morobe).

He said all of these projects have bad environmental plans and the forest

areas are too small to be logged because there are less timber species to

be cut.

Mr Iko said: "We believe that certain policy legislations and

environmental laws have been breached in the process of issuing or

granting logging concessions to areas considered as high biodiversity

value."

An NGO statement said: "We are alarmed by the announcement that tenders

are to be called in areas of high biodiversity priority . . . putting

logging interests before those of future generations.

"These projects show that the planning and implementation of forest

acquisitions by Forest Authority and the allocations of concessions are

gravely defective.

"These are serious breaches of the legislative intent and raise serious

questions about the role of the Forest Board.

"We call for a new Commission of Inquiry into logging to establish how

these acquisitions were made, why the projects have been allowed to go

forward and we call for a full and wide-ranging investigation into the

driving forces and motivations behind these blatant misallocations."

The NGOs group supports sustainable development and at the same time is

committed to stopping reckless industrial logging and devastation of

forests, rivers and marine systems.

ITEM #2

Title: NGOs to demand inquiry

Source: The Independent (PNG)

Status: Copyrighted, seek permission to reprint

Date: July 7, 1997

Byline: Harlyne Joku

NGOs TO DEMAND FOR INQUIRY INTO FOREST CONCESSIONS

PORT MORESBY: Members of non-government organisations will picket outside

Papua New Guinea's National Forest Authority offices this morning,

demanding a new commission of inquiry into the awarding of nine new forest

concessions to certain developers, the Independent reported today.

The groups include the Individual and Community Rights Advocacy Forum Inc

(ICRAF), Conservation Melanesian, melanesian Environment Foundation (MEF)

and Greenpeace.

Spokesman for MEF Stanley Iko said the NGOs will be calling on the new

government to establish the inquiry.

"The aim of our demonstration is to draw attention to our demand for a new

commission of inquiry into the logging industry and to encourage the

public servants to come forward and report irregularities.

"We believe certain policy legislation and environmental laws have been

breached in the process of issuing and granting of logging concessions to

areas considered high biodiversity areas," Mr Iko said.

He added that logging in PNG had experienced a seven-year period of change

In relation to:

* The National Forest Plan.

* Amendments to the 1991 Forestry Act.

* The appointments of representatives to the National Forestry Board.

* Process and procedure mechanisms for the issuing of logging concessions.

The concessions in question are Tapila Wipim (Western province), East Awin

(Westermn), Semabo (Western), April Salumei (East Sepik), Asengseng (West

New Britain), Rottock Bay (WNB), Mukus Tolo (WNB) and Buhem Mongi in the

Morobe province.

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