Eddie Tanago, Campaign Manager

Source: Radio New Zealand

A widespread Pacific civil society call for a global ban on deep sea mining activity has been launched.

The Pacific Regional NGO Alliance of church and civil society groups kickstarted their campaign to stop deep sea mining yesterday in Fiji.

 _{^{A man paddles a canoe on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea Photograph: Renato Granieri/Alamy}}

Source: The Guardian

Entire villages would be wiped out if a natural disaster hit dam on PNG mine, critics say. 

A controversial plan by the Singapore based Powerplus Group, to mine sand along a 38 kilometre stretch of coastline in Madang has been defeated.

The government regulator, the Mineral Resource Authority, has written to mining opponents informing them that the mine exploration application has been withdrawn.

This comes after the sand mining application was met with strong opposition from local communities and environmentalists and concern from local tourism operators.

A new doodle-style video has been launched that explains how Papua New Guinea’s reliance on large-scale mining and export logging has failed to improve the lives of most people and why PNG now ranks below its Pacific neighbors on most development indicators.

The increase in duty on round log exports, introduced in the 2020 budget, is having a positive effect according to analysis conducted by ACT NOW!

The higher export duty has both increased government revenue and driven down the level of logs exports inline with government policy.

Papua New Guinean, Australian, and New Zealand civil society welcome ban on seabed mining in the Northern Territory

Papua New Guinea’s international corruption rating has slipped a further one-point, from 28 to 27, in the latest figures released by Transparency International. 

This is bad news for the economy and a sad reflection on the state of our democracy.

By Grace Lima (Post Courier, 14 January 2021)

The campaign against deep sea mining in the Bismarck Sea by the Alliance of Solara Warriors (ASW) still continues.

Government plans to investigate public servants who are living extravagant lifestyles beyond what they should be able to afford on the salaries they are paid are welcome, but the Prime Minister will be judged on the results rather than his promises.