The environmental campaigners, Act Now!, say there are currently more than 20 Forest Clearing Authorities logging operations in eight provinces across PNG. Photo: RNZI/Johnny Blades
Civil society groups and community representatives from across Papua New Guinea have gathered in Port Moresby to demand government action on the widespread abuse of Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs).
More than one-third of all logs exported from PNG come from logging operations authorised under an FCA permit.
These permits are meant to facilitate land clearance for agriculture or other land use changes, but the civil society groups and organisations like the Institute of National Affairs can point to a large body of evidence that they are being systematically abused to allow large-scale logging of huge tracts of forest.
The environmental campaigners, Act Now!, say there are currently more than 20 FCA logging operations in eight provinces across PNG which are contributing to widespread illegal and unsustainable logging.
A lawyer for the Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights, Evelyn Katu Wohuinangu, said "FCA permits issued under the Forestry Act are a vehicle being used to facilitate massive clear-felling of large tracts of tropical hardwood timber species by foreign-owned logging companies. Allegations of routine ignorance of our forestry laws and the lack of free prior informed consent by forest communities has become a major concern."
"In most cases, the large-scale agricultural activity which is supposed to be established is never implemented or if it is, it is not economically viable and does not benefit the customary resource owners," Wohuinangu said.
PNG's Institute of National Affairs executive director, Paul Barker, said the abuse of FCAs has been ongoing since the mechanism was introduced, sidestepping due process for forest management through proper resource planning, landowner consent and use of FMAs.
He said there needs to be action by multiple different agencies to stop the ongoing abuse, "the government must order an independent and transparent public inquiry into the legality of these FCA licences, which have continued to be rolled out, even after the SABL process was halted; the Forest Board should impose a moratorium on issuing any new licences and the fraud squad, or ICAC should investigate some of the more questionable FCA applications."
Sem Vegogo from Wanigela in Oro Province said his community was devastated to learn a foreign logging company has been given permission to log their forests without informing his people or obtaining their consent.
"The people of Collingwood Bay have been fighting against illegal logging for decades. But despite numerous court victories we see the PNG Forest Authority continually siding with Asian companies to try and steal our forests," Vegogo said.
David Mitchell from Eco-Custodian Advocates in Alotau has made a detailed study of the Loani FCA logging project and says the company's agriculture plans are fanciful.
"They are proposing a ten-fold increase in PNG's balsa production but have not submitted any market analysis or costed business plans. They say they will establish 10,000 hectares of new cocoa planting but their own plans show most of the soils in the area are only marginally suitable and instead of clearing forest in the lowland areas that could be suitable for planting, they are building logging roads along the ridge lines".
Pamela Avusi from the PNG Environmental Alliance said "PNG has already suffered from too many decades of illegal and unsustainable logging and timber harvesting. The government needs to call a halt to unsustainable logging if it wants to have any credibility on the international stage."
In September PNG Prime Minister James Marape told delegates at the UN General Assembly that PNG has up to seven percent of the world's biodiversity much of it housed within its vast tropical rainforest.
"We sustainably manage our forests, land and sea, because our livelihood depends on them," he said at the time.
"My country has been contributing to the public or global discourse over the last two decades in as far as environmental management is concerned and matters relating to climate change, unfortunately, this has been met with very little return of action.
"However, we continue to stand ready to assist the United Nations family in this area," Marape said.