Source: CIVICUS Monitor

Source: Post- Courier January 31st 2025

Joseph Ketan, Anthropologist ad Social Scientist

THE Year 2025 marks the 50 Anniversary of Constitutional Independence for Papua New Guinea. No doubt, many of you are thinking of ways to celebrate this significant milestone in the history of our country.

The 2025 National Government budget has seen an increased of budget allocation for district support improvement program (DSIP).

This is despite the fact that DDAs are lacking transparency and accountability in their operations and expenditure.

ACT NOW! analysis has shown that there is lack of DDA contact details, DDAs lack proper development plans and bad records of acquitting funds.

Prime Minister James Marape has spoken of the importance of preserving Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in a meeting with the United Nations General Secretary and in his address to the UN General Assembly last Friday 

Yet, his government is doing nothing to stop widespread illegal logging and in particular the abuse of agricultural clearing licences.

Marape has described PNG’s rainforests as vital to PNG and to the global community, yet PNG is the world’s largest exporter of tropical logs and most of the logging is illegal and unsustainable.

We the Nzera Clan of Sio Village and Levo Clan of Karangan Village are TOTALLY AGAINST the current logging operations in the Wasu area in Tewae- Siassi District in Morobe Province.

The logging is done by Lucky Logging (PNG) Limited, a foreign owned Malaysian Company, under two Forest Clearing Authorities (FCA 13-02 and 13-03). The FCAs were supposedly issued for Cattle farming, Hunting and Forestry.

By Eddie Tanago Paine

Forest Clearing Authorities are being unlawfully used to facilitate large-scale logging operations by foreign-owned logging companies according to a new report published today by ACT NOW!, in collaboration with Jubilee Australia Research Centre. 

The new report, which focuses on the Wammy logging operation in West Sepik Province, reveals how a Malaysian logging company has used a Forest Clearing Authority (FCA), intended to allow land clearing for agriculture or other land use projects, as a front to export hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of round logs. 

Rimbunan Hijau (RH) Group (From"The New Timber Baron Report")

Eddie Tanago, Campaign Manager

While we celebrate 47 years of political Independence, we must acknowledge the fact that as a Nation we have failed to fulfil our development aspirations and we should reflect on the reasons why this is so.

Why have our social and economic development outcomes fallen so short of what we dreamed was possible, despite the fact that our Nation is so richly blessed in natural resources?

The answer is that our failures have mainly been caused by successive governments choosing to follow the wrong development model.