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FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY

Papua New Guinea - Wilderness Laid Waste by Corruption

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal

http://forests.org/links/ -- Forest Conservation Links

05/02/01

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org

Following is the full script of SBS's Dateline Australian Television

documentary that "details the corruption and violence which underlie

every aspect of logging operations in PNG." Several weeks ago the

draft World Bank review on logging disclosed that 1/3 of the proposed

projects were outright illegal, and almost all are unfit to proceed

for one reason or another. Now this media bombshell alleges logging

without landowner consent, rapes and gathering of landowner "consent"

at gunpoint, misappropriation of donor environmental aid money,

police officers being paid to stifle dissent, and corruption in

granting logging areas by top government officials.

It is clear that the PNG forest sector is a quagmire of corruption,

deceit and violence. Under such circumstances, the PNG government

and donor community must be called upon to immediately pledge to:

1. Maintain the moratorium on new logging, or donors must

discontinue lending as had been the agreement.

2. Complete the review of new and existing logging operations, and

implement its recommendations.

3. Establish a Commission of Inquiry with broad discretionary power

to investigate all aspects of the logging industry and make necessary

recommendations, including possible criminal prosecutions.

4. Establish a timeline to permanently end industrial log exports,

and a process to transition the industry to small and medium scaled

community and certified forest management.

5. End donor subsidies to industrial log export. Redirect donor

funds to transitioning the industry to sustainability and community

based production, cushioning the economic impact upon the government

and landowners of doing so.

Papua New Guinea's rainforests, and its people's human rights, are

being trampled upon. Demand that the moratorium be maintained and a

meaningful reform effort away from industrial log exports commenced

at http://forests.org/emailaction/png.htm . Once again it has been

updated - bookmark the site, it will be updated regularly until this

situation is satisfactorily resolved.

g.b.

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Item #1

Title: PAPUA NEW GUINEA - WILDERNESS LAID WASTE BY CORRUPTION

Source: SBS Television, Dateline Program, Press Release

Date: May 2, 2001

The World Bank is due to release its final report on the state of

logging in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The Bank has made the release of

$160 million dollars in structural adjustment loans conditional on

the report's recommendations being followed. A draft report found

that one third of current logging projects in PNG are illegal and

most are unfit to go ahead in their current form.

On May 2, DATELINE reporter John Bennett details the corruption and

violence which underlie every aspect of logging operations in PNG.

Included in his report -

* The logging of the Western Province area of PNG, home to the third

largest untouched rainforest in the world and the Demeta people.

Despite the Demeta never making, or signing any agreement allowing

access, the area is being logged by Rimbunan Hijau, a Malaysian

logging company. The PNG government gave their consent without

notifying the Demeta who have relied on the rainforest for their

survival for centuries. The Demeta are now fighting their case in

court, as are many other clans in PNG. Currently 7 million hectares

of rainforest are being logged across the country.

* The existence of legal statements claiming that landowners have

been forced to sign agreements allowing logging at gunpoint.

* The claim that no accurate record of timber exports from PNG is

being kept. Bennett's camera caught a Malaysian boat being loaded

with timber on a day when no official record of that event had been

made. The boat stopped being loaded when the crew became aware that

Bennett was filming

* Documents which reveal that in 1999 senior bureaucrats in PNG spent

167- thousand kina at a part-owned Malaysian restaurant. The money,

earmarked for environmental protection, was from aid donors,

including the Australian government. The minimum wage in PNG is 27

kina.

* Allegations that PNG police have become private enforcers for

logging companies and are on the payrolls of those companies.

* Forestry officers and ministers are continuing to share in the

profits of the logging companies. Allegedly, the Deputy Prime

Minister and Forestry Minister, Michael Ogio, has illegally granted

new logging areas to a Malaysian company in addition to giving the

company huge tax concessions.

* The systematic human rights abuse of logging workers including rape

and physical punishment.

For more information please contact SBS publicist Verity Leatherdale

on (02) 9430 3784.vvv

ITEM #2

Title: Draft Script: PAPUA NEW GUINEA - WILDERNESS LAID WASTE BY

CORRUPTION

Source: SBS Television, Dateline Program

Date: May 2, 2001

Music/aerials

In Papua New Guinea the sad legacy of the country's forestry industry

must be lived with every day..

West of Madang township is the Trans-Gogol Valley.....

It's an area which saw large scale industrial logging begin in the

1970's.

And it's here that an old man has a terrible lesson in history for

his youngest grandchild.

Asikai Dominic is 5 years old.

He's reached the age when, in Papua New Guinea, a boy must learn

about his birthright.

By his grandfather, Dobon Turkop, he'll be taught the customary

tribal boundaries of his people, the Juam clan....

But Asikai is too young to understand the tragedy of what he is to

learn.

Tape 6. 31:46 Now the few trees that you see - it was not like this

before. There was a huge jungle that covered these hills - you would

never have been able to see through that jungle. That's where all the

animals lived, all the different kinds of animals - the giant pigeon,

the wild pigs, the cassowary, and the wallabies - they were all

plentiful here.

Dobon Turkop knows with the sad certainty of personal experience that

his grandson's future could be as barren as the hills before them.

If Asakai stays on his tribal lands he will become a part of the tale

of exploitation and misery that began in the Valley thirty years ago.

Tape 6. 31:17 Until 1970, 1971 - up until that time everything was

untouched. Now all you see before you, this bush, it's become like a

desert. There were trees that once grew from the soil all the way to

the mountain range. 31:46 But today if you go around here and look

into the rivers and the bush it's not a good sight. That's why all

this time we have been suffering - there's nothing here, absolutely

nothing. I don't know what to say. 32:30

It was Dobon Turkop's own father who naively sold logging rights to

the Juam traditional lands when PNG's industrial logging industry was

beginning to boom.

A Japanese company paid the government for huge tracts of rainforest

here and then pulped the hardwood for paper.

The clear-felled land was planted with non-native eucalypts and has

since been through three harvests.

The Juam people have been paid annual royalties they claim amount to

little more than one kina per person......

A sum which won't buy a loaf of bread.

For three decades they've been forbidden to use their own land.

Even untouched areas surrounding waterways are out of bounds for the

hunting and subsistence farming on which Dobon's people traditionally

rely.

Tape 15 26:08 I am very sorry for the damage to the river and the

bush. Now we are suffering, within my family and the rest of the

landowners here. All the small creeks that we tried to save are

almost gone too. That's why at this point of time we cannot find any

relief or any happiness.

Tape 15. NATSOUND - SONG CONTINUED

350 kilometres away is PNG's largest and least developed region, the

Western Province.

Here, the Bamu River runs through dense forest.....

The third largest stand of untouched rainforest in the world.

And it's here that another tribe is beginning to feel the bitter

injustice of forestry, PNG style.

Tape 16. NATSOUND - BULLDOZER

This is Kelaye Kima's home.

For centuries the lives of his people, the Demeta clan, have depended

completely on this environment.

They've relied on the forest for everything..... food, shelter,

clothing, and medicines.

But intruders are threatening to destroy it all.

The bulldozer belongs to Malaysian logging, Rimbunan Hijau.

Its a home invasion with the blessing of the PNG government......

Neither the company nor the government asked the Demeta's permission

to take the trees.

Tape 16 28:35 I feel angry when I see the Malaysians cutting the

trees because I did not sign the TRP (Timber Rights Purchase)

agreement with the company or with the government. I feel angry when

I see the destruction of my bush. 29:00

Tape 17. NATSOUND - CHAINSAW, TREE FALLING.

When the chainsaws started here, the Demeta had no idea their land

had been signed away by the government......

Part of the massive Wawoi Guavi forestry concession to Rimbunan

Hijau.

All up, three quarters of a million hectares are at the mercy of

loggers here.

Tape 17. NATSOUND - TREE FALLING

The Malaysians call this selective logging......

They select the tree they want for timber, and then destroy

everything in their path to get it.

The PNG Forest Authority admits 16 smaller trees die for every tree

which makes it to milling......

Tape 16. NATSOT - BULLDOZER

But the real figure may be closer to 60 which are left to rot......

Including once magnificent giants which are killed, but go unused

because they are not a valuable species.

For the Demeta, all trees are valuable, and this destruction is like

murder.

Tape 17. 29:55 When the company is finished all of the trees will be

gone, and in the future my children will be starving for food. So I

want the lawyers to stop the company from logging. 30:15

Tape 16. NATSOT - OUTBOARD

Port Moresby lawyer Annie Kajir is the weapon Kelaye's people are

using to fight the company's invasion.....

Tape 17. 10:30 His is a typical example - he's just there and he

doesn't know that the company is going to go onto his land at this

particular time to take out so many logs at that particular time.

It's actually a sad situation. 10:46

While other clans talk of waging war against the loggers, the Demeta

want to fight for their forest in court.

That means bringing a team of environmental lawyers and scientists to

the isolated Bamu River......

To document traditional boundaries, and plot the places where loggers

are at work.

TAPE 16. NATSOT - MAP MEETING. Like I said it is about 32 kilometres

on this side, then later we'll go down this road.

It's a massive area, and a massive job.......

The lawyers work on a tiny budget in a race against the companies

which employ vast resources to push further into virgin forest.

Natsot - Annie. Tape 2. 8:36 They're supposed to be building roads,

but they're supposed to be within certain boundaries, but they've

gone outside those boundaries and that's what we were afraid of. 8:43

The Demeta clan is just one of Annie's landowner clients fighting a

David and Goliath battle against foreign loggers in PNG.

She claims that as landowners are becoming more aware of their

rights, companies are increasingly using intimidation and violence to

get what they want.

Tape 2. 40:32 Allegations where you have landowners forced to sign

papers with a barrel of a gun at their back. Those are the kind of

allegations that we get. Q. So, people being forced to sign

agreements? A. Yes, In the presence of police and company officials,

without proper legal advice, with guns pointed to them - we have

statements from these people. 40:58

The Papua New Guinea Police Force says it's investigating numerous

complaints that its police officers are acting as private enforcers

for logging companies.

Annie Kajir, who documented many of those complaints, says police are

accused of threatening and brutalising landowners......

Even forcing some people into acts of bestiality.

Tape 2. 39:30 Getting on their knees crawling with the gun at their

back. Telling them to crawl so many distance. 39:39 Being shot at in

the presence of families, they haven't dome anything wrong, these

are peaceful people living there with guns being fired... 39:48 Guns

being carried around by un-uniformed policemen, what else is

there?..39:57 telling people to carry dogs on their backs and to walk

and to, you know, suck the dog's, you know? Those are some of the

allegations we have. Q. So serious abuses of human rights? A. Serious

abuses of human rights. 40:16

Galeva Sep is a police officer.

He claims many of his colleagues are effectively on the payrolls of

logging companies.

Tape 2. 27:20. The company pays police travel allowances, airfares

and accommodation, and all that. Q. So how does that effect the way

they act? A. It effects in a way that when they go to an area they

would only protect the interests of the company, they do not go in

there to be a neutral people. 27:53 Q. So in a way they are bribing

the police to act for them? A. That's right, yes. 28:00

Sep has helped many people from his Western Province clan make

complaints against other officers.

28:25 My people told me there was a lot of inhuman treatment, like

hanging people upside down from a mango tree, or telling people to

climb coconut trees and jump down, which one of these guys ended up t

Port Moresby General Hospital. 28:40

Paul Singi claims he was tortured by police.

He challenged the logging company he worked for, suggesting

traditional owners be compensated for activity on their land.

His punishment was three days locked in a steel shipping container in

the Western Province's forty degree heat.

Tape 2. 21:29 The time was about 10pm on a Monday, I was locked in

there without being fed, without food or water or without being

allowed to have a bath or go to the toilet until Wednesday which was

the third day. While I was in there on the first entry into the

container, a policeman came who has been mentioned earlier, name

which is known as Alex Vokendro who is a task force sergeant, a

police commander, he kicked me here and on the elbow and told me to

pushups and sit-ups and later on to get out of the container and look

at the sun. And there was the scissors that was brought by the

policeman and he shaved my hair off without any concern for me. I was

told you criminal, and I was shaved. 22:36

More disturbing are the allegations about the treatment of female

workers.

They are recruited into camps so isolated the only way in or out is

by plane.

Once in the camps, many women claim they're forced to have sex with

company officials and the police who work for them.

Natsot - Union Meeting Tape 24

National and international unions have been investigating human

rights abuses of PNG logging workers for more than six months.

Tape 24 9:02 These workers are living there under the threat of their

jobs being terminated. They have no choice when the company, when the

management approaches them they just go along and do what they are

told to do, and that is sexually exploiting them, especially the

young ones who are employed in the companies. 9:27

In secret meetings, union officials have taken dozens of statements

from women and girls who say they're routinely threatened with guns

and that shots are fired to scare them into having sex.

Woman No 1:

During the night police come and try and wake the girls from their

sleep. If the girls don't pay attention to them they fire shots in

the air.

Woman No 2:

Police would normally go to the girl's dorms and threaten them and go

to sleep with them.

Women who become pregnant must have abortions or face ejection from

the camps, with no way to travel the hundreds of kilometres home.

Woman No 3:

If a girl is pregnant it is likely to be terminated. Company

regulations don't allow pregnant ladies to work so the only way to

stay is to get rid of the baby.

For decades logging in PNG has been a business defined by the abuse

of power.

A succession of cash-strapped governments has sold off whatever

natural resources could be sold.....

Seven million hectares of forests are currently in the hands of

loggers, with another five million promised.....

A total area twice the size of Tasmania.

Even with timber prices low since the Asian economic crisis, logging

companies here are a law unto themselves.

Tape 23. 11:23 I remember we described them as being like "robber

barons", just roaming the countryside doing whatever they wanted to

because they had the power. 11:37

Tos Barnett, now head of the West Australian Administrative Appeals

Tribunal, ran an inquiry into PNG's forestry sector more than ten

years ago.

His revelations of widespread high level corruption brought down one

PNG government, and threatened the successors.....

towards the end of the inquiry, he was attacked in Port Moresby and

stabbed almost to death by an unknown assailant.

Tape 23. 7:47 5:50 Not only were the Forestry Officers and the

ministers in government and the other leaders who were meant to be

controlling this not controlling it, but they were sharing in the

profits because they were being corrupted in many cases by these

foreign timber companies. 6:10

Foreign logging companies continue to operate largely as they see

fit.

At this remote port on the island province of East New Britian, the

crew of a Malaysian vessel stopped loading logs when they noticed

they were being filmed.

They only started again after a silent standoff lasting nearly four

hours.

There was no government-employed inspector present for the loading.

However official records for the day showed the Malaysian company

reported no loading of timber took place....

Only adjustments to the ballast of the vessel.

18:47 If those who are given the task of enforcing the conditions are

being paid on the side or getting other benefits then there's no hope

of stopping it. 18:59 I don't suppose I'm surprised that the

ignorance of the landowners and the greed of some of the landowner

leaders and the greed of the timber companies and the corrupted greed

of some of the officials involved in administrating the system have

combined to allow the same things to happen. I don't suppose I'm

surprised but I'm disappointed. 19:25

Tape 15 15:49 Quite a number of people say that after the Inquiry

things have changed.

A decade ago, Silas Boas gave evidence before Tos Barnett, as the

Forestry Officer in charge of the massive Western Province logging

concessions.

15:55 Nothing has changed - the practice, the malpractice and the

corruption still goes on. It's done under the table. Most of our

resources are being mortgaged especially by decision-makers at the

political level. We are still losers at the end. 16:16

Over the past decade, many of the people charged with protecting

PNG's forests have displayed open contempt for Barnett's

recommendations.

These documents reveal that in 1999 senior bureaucrats in the Office

of Environment and Conservation spent an extraordinary amount of

government money entertaining themselves.

167 thousand kina was spent at this Port Moresby restaurant, which is

part owned by Malaysian interests.

In a country where the minimum weekly wage is 27 kina, OEC officials

spent 47 thousand kina here in just four nights.

Much of the money was from aid donors, including the Australian

government, and was earmarked for environmental protection.

Tape 1 39:19 There certainly is corruption going on - very difficult

to prove at the highest levels - but that's not our biggest problem,

our biggest problem is that these organisations do not run

effectively. Q So the OEC is effected by corruption, ineptitude, and

lack of resources? A Yes, and if I was going to rank those I would

rank corruption probably at the bottom. 39:47

Dr Tom Wagner, pro vice chancellor of the University of Papua New

Guinea, has reviewed some of the work done by the Office of

Environment and Conservation.

He says the corrupt squandering of funds means even those who do want

to protect the country's environment, have their hands tied.

26:40 What we don't have is the equivalent of an Australian or US EPA

that can review these proposals in detail and say "wait a minute,

there are some very important guidelines and specs that need to be in

here, or there are some very important environmental concerns you

have not taken into account", and because of that the environment

loses out in PNG. 27:03

Allegations of corruption go to the second highest office in PNG.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Forests, Michael Ogio, has a

special relationship with one Malaysian logging company......

Illegally granting it new areas to log, along with huge tax

concessions.

His actions, regarded as beyond the pale even by PNG standards, have

led to demands in the media he be sacked.

Mr Ogio ignored repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.

TAPE 12 NATSOT - REVIEW TEAM MEETING WITH LOCALS

The forests of PNG may have one last chance.

NATSOT

That chance is an investigation by the World Bank......

A review of plans to let loggers loose in the last remaining

accessible forests.

It's an attempt to force the PNG government to clean up its act.

Tape 13 4:28 Some of our timber has already been cut. There was all

kinds of money coming in but we haven't seen any of it. Then the

company disappeared and we don't know what has happened to it. 4:41

Last year the World Bank effectively threatened to withhold a one-

hundred and sixty million dollar loan......

Forcing the government to place a hold on new logging projects.

Not surprisingly, some logging companies have ignored the moratorium.

Tape 13 6:27 They made roads all over Rottock Bay, and they took the

timber by road and loaded it onto ships. Now all the timber's

finished. 6:37

Over three months, these world bank investigators found widespread

evidence of fraud and corruption.

They also found the rights of landowner's had been consistently

abused.

Tape 12 Lucis - 15:52 It's not just you watching. There are outsiders

watching. Once you've sold your trees that's it... The ones who have

already sold theirs - you go and see how they live. 16:05

Tape 12 Tony - 16:32 A lot of countries have put together a fund - a

lot of money - to look after the rainforest that's left in the world.

PNG's the third biggest rainforest left in the world. There's plenty

of interest now - the whole world is watching. 16:54

The review's draft report damned many of the projects, deeming one

third to be illegal, and most unfit to go ahead in their current

form, if at all.

But environment groups and aid donors fear the PNG government will

only pay lip service to any recommendations, grab the World Bank's

cash and go back to business as usual.

Tape 11 19:05 If you do a review obviously you are acknowledging that

there is something serious going on and something serious going

wrong. And you do a review and you spend a lot of money getting

experts out there - people who know the situation in Papua New Guinea

really well and have been involved in forestry a long time - if they

come up with a report and recommendations, those recommendations

should be taken seriously and should be implemented. 19:31 And I

think the moratorium shouldn't be lifted until those recommendations

are in place and everybody is satisfied that the situation has been

improved. 19:44

The signs aren't good - Forestry Minister Michael Ogio has already

given the go-ahead to one project condemned by the review.

Natsot - Tape 15

The story that will be told to the next generation of Papua New

Guinea's children about their rainforests is still being written.

NATSOT DANCING

Unless changes are made, at the current rapacious rate of logging one

of the world's last great wild areas may be destroyed in under

fifteen years.

MUSIC AND CHILDREN

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