Lester Seri speaking at the SABL petition presentation in 2017
Two customary landowners have been served with a defamation lawsuit and a gagging order application by Malaysian owned logging company, Northern Forest Products Limited.
Today we are besieged. The so called elites in power who do the bidding of the pirates that control our resources are fast selling PNG off, neither protecting nor promoting PNG interests.
Just walk into any business and ask yourself how is PNG protected here? A few genuine businesses and investors struggle while a many are merely here as vultures to take what they can while they can.
Melanesians have great respect for our land. it is the core of our livelihood. Selling of land in our communities has caused rural-urban drift, many people have become displaced and cannot maintain a subsistant living becuase there is no land to cultivate. A great number of people have lost their land to SABL schemes and land grabbing, thus have come town to earn a monetary livelihood. Question is, who is (really) causing this problem?
SABL forest clearance in Pomio, East New Britain. Image: Greenpeace
Source: The National
Northern Governor Gary Juffa has called on Forest Minister Douglas Tomuriesa to explain the findings of the special agriculture business lease (SABL) inquiry.
A government report on logging operations in the Yema Local Forest Area (LFA) in Ioma sub-district, Northern Province, has highlighted shortcomings in the implementation of forestry, environment, water resources and logging practices.
Although preliminary, the report said there were indisputable and undeniable evidence of inconsistency and negligence in the management of the Yema forest project.
ORO Governor Gary Juffa has appealed to police to arrest and charge those who broke into the provincial assembly building last week in Popondetta.
A formal complaint has been laid with the police and only the accomplices of self-proclaimed governor David Arore have been arrested, said the Regional MP as the political crisis in his province entered its second week.
