By Oala Moi*

THE National Court has quashed a decision by the National Lands Board and the Minister for Lands in awarding a company, Vitroplant,three agriculture leases to plant palm oil on Woodlark Island.


Goodbye April 2012, we shall miss you- there will never be another April 2012 (thank goodness)!

Take a deep breath now Papua New Guinea…nine months is a long time to be lugging around a weight that seems to grow ever heavier with each passing day. Nine months since we somehow, whether we like it or not conceived the O’Namah government, that has been our burden to bear. Only we can change this burden come June 23^rd and hopefully the next government we bear is a lighter, more compliant burden then this current one.

THE Umi-Atzera and Onga-Waffa people in Markham Valley, Morobe, are urging the government to repeal the Special Agricultural Business Lease (SABL) policy because it “regards landowners as mere slaves”.

“In Markham district, we will never invite and entertain government’s SABL policy,” provincial agriculture chairman and Umi-Atzera president, Daki Mao said.

More than 5,000 people gathered at Mutzing station to witness the launching of pioneer Morobe palm oil project last Friday.

via The National

SOME landowners want all logging operations in the Turubu log pond area in East Sepik province to stop until the Special Agriculture Business Licences (SABL) report is completed and the government makes its recommendations.

They want to know why the report into SABLs is still pending and logging operations going on in areas not consented to.

Thursday. The second last day of the working week and the political situation in this awe inspiring nation of ours is ever turbulent, yes we are truly a vibrant democracy.

O’arise all you children of this land…otherwise *bai yu kisim pen!

Sound familiar? In our uniquely Papua New Guinean way, law is something that we learn (more like taught to us) at a very early stage in our lives. We are taught the boundaries of acceptable behavior almost from the moment we are aware and can decide our actions.

Fifty years ago in Papua New Guinea, knowledge or save as we call it in Tok Pisin would have meant how well you can foresee the weather, how well you can fish, hunt or gather. How well you could dance and chant and sing those customary rites. 

Our knowledge was practical, there were rules and regulations that kept some semblance of order in the complicated myriad of relationships in our traditional society.

via Our Pacific Ways

A few questions niggled in the back of my mind a few days ago after a long discussion with friends. We talked about the expectations that the Papua New Guinea education system embeds in our minds.