Over 400 landholders have filed a court action challenging the Papua New Guinea government's plan to build the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone on their land north of Madang.
The government plans to borrow $71 million from the Chinese government to build the PMIZ which it hope will attract up to 10 tuna canneries and 30,000 jobs. The PMIZ will be declared PNG's first Special Economic Zone under laws being drafted for PNG by the World Bank.
But the landholders claim the project is illegal and want the court to grant a permanent injunction stopping it going ahead.
This is the latest in a series of setbacks for the PMIZ project which has been rejected by international tuna companies who are choosing to invest in Lae, major donors like the Asian Development Bank and Japanese government and other Pacific Island nations, who PNG hoped would send their tuna to the PMIZ for processing.
The landholders taking the government to court are members of the Kananam and Iduwad people and Bama clan. They are being represented by Bager Wamm, President of the Kakar Local Level government, Francis Gen and Frank Kawol. Francis Gem shot to prominence earlier this month when he was captured in a YouTube video confronted government Ministers over the project, labeling them conmen.
In their court papers, the landholders claim the PMIZ project is illegal as it has not been developed in accordance with either the Free Trade Zone Act or the Fisheries Management Act. The landholders also claim the project will interfere with their land and riparian rights and the waste, emissions, noise and pollution will all cause an unlawful nuisance.
The landholders are being backed by their MP, Ken Fairweather, and have engaged prominent human rights and environmental lawyer, Tiffany Nonggorr to present their case.
Ms Nonggorr has already infuriated the PNG and Chinese governments with her successful prosecution of a case against the marine waste dumping plans of the Ramu nickel mine. In that case an interim injunction that prevents any waste dumping has been in place for 12 months.
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Way to go, show them who owns these resources.
Way to go, show them who owns these resources.
Re: PMIZ, They tried to build a similar MULTI POLARIS FUNCTION
Re: PMIZ, They tried to build a similar MULTI POLARIS FUNCTION ZONE NEAR GOLD COAST YEARS AGO, BUT IT WAS SQUASHED BY THE PEOPLE. IT COULD BE GOOD TO LOOK UP WHAT HAPPENED THERE, PEOPLE DIDN'T WANT, NOR WAS IT TRULY CONSTITUTIONAL.
RE: mADANG nICKEL mINE, they need to do what Ok-Tedi finally
RE: mADANG nICKEL mINE, they need to do what Ok-Tedi finally did, to build a 'HUGE' tailings dam, so all the murky waste water ..dirt will settle before it comes out the other end of the dam, clean enough to either go down the pipe, or back in the river. They have to spend the bucks and pay appropriate land compensation to the landowners, and provide environmental plan for the dams future at the close of the mine, into a recreational site, which could become a future tourist site for everyone in 50 years or whenever mine finishes.