Source: Oakland Institute

In advance of the release of the World Bank’s 2019 Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) report, the Oakland Institute exposes the Bank’s new scheme to privatize land in the developing world.

It is one of the world’s biggest illegal land grabs, yet more than 5-years after the government promised to cancel the SABL leases and return the land to its customary owners, the people of Papua New Guinea are still waiting to hear which, if any, leases have been cancelled.

Image: Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato, Prime Minister Peter O'Neill and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC leaders summit in Port Moresby last year. PNG's PM has faced criticism for spending on the meeting. Photo: APEC Papua New Guinea Media team

Issues of corruption and land grabbing figure high in Human Rights Watch assessemnt of PNG

The United Nations has accused the Papua New Guinea government of racial discrimination against its own people over its failure to stop foreign companies using SABL leases to illegally occupy customary land.

More than 50,000 square kilometres of indigenous land has been seized using the illegal agriculture leases, as exposed in a 2015 Commission of Inquiry.

As Papua New Guinea prepares to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping, civil society, landowners and academics have written to the Chinese leader urging his help to reduce illegal logging in PNG.

China is the major importer of tropical logs from PNG most of which are sourced from illegal sources including from SABL lease areas.

The appalling human rights abuses being suffered by the victims of the huge SABL land-grab in Papua New Guinea are the focus of a new report published by ACT NOW! and UK based charity, War on Want.

ACT NOW! is calling on the Minister for Lands, Justin Tkatchenko to name the Special Agriculture Business Leases he claims have been cancelled. 

The Minister has stated on social media that of 53 Special Agriculture Business Leases reviewed, 34% have been cancelled via voluntary surrender, 2% cancelled via consent or court order and 12% have been referred for further verification. 

More than 230 leaders and other clan members from the Ibab, Tring Wau, Kamasau and Murai villages in the Turubu and Sausso LLG areas of East Sepik say they are opposing any further and logging activities in their forests. They are petitioning all appropriate authorities to completely stop what they say is continuous illegal logging activity on their land. 

Originally aired on EMTV's Olsem Wanem program, SPICES: The Forgotten Commodity is a short film on the potential of the spice industry in Papua New Guinea.

Although small now, the industry has the potential to earn the country more than K100 million a year. What it lacks though is any proper government support.

Despite this neglect, spices are a perfect example of how ordinary people can use their customary land for small and medium sized businesses that sustain their families and develop their communities.

The government has tried to bury and forget the SABL land grab scandal in which more than 5 million hectares of land has been stolen from rural communities.

It is using a well tested formula that we see employed almost every time a new corruption scandal is exposed:

1.  First a long-drawn out official inquiry that is delayed by funding and other logistical problems.

2.  Then a further delay before the inquiry findings are tabled in Parliament.