Nearly 70% of Papua New Guinea’s round log exports between 2019 and 2021 were concentrated in the hands of just ten groups of companies, all with strong links to Malaysia, according to new research by Act Now! and Jubilee Australia Research Centre.

There are a lot of important issues for the new Forest Minister, Salio Waipo, to address, especially rampant illegal and unsustainable logging.

Nine years after a Commission of Inquiry exposed the huge illegal SABL land grab, government efforts to cancel the leases have completely failed.

Last week Lands Minister, John Rosso, told Parliament that of seventy SABL leases recommended to be be cancelled only twenty have so far been rescinded. 

Just twenty leases cancelled over a nine year period is frankly pathetic.

Source: Mongabay / Rachel Donald  (7 December 2021)

Commercial banks operating in Papua New Guinea have given at least K300 million (AU$144 million) in available credit, since 2000, to the country’s five largest exporters of tropical logs, according to a new report, The Money Behind the Chainsaws, from Act Now! and Jubilee Australia Research Centre. 

Download this article as a PDF - Illegality and Human Rights Abuses

An arieal view of forest clearance for oil palm planting in West Pomio

By Paul Pavol

The people of West Pomio in East New Britain Province lost most of their land and forest under the controversial, government-backed, Special Agriculture Business Lease scheme. 

ACT NOW! has published an updated version of its sucessful short video 'SABL Scandal Buried and Forgotten' to mark the six year anniversary of the SABL COI findings.

The stain of the SABL land grab is hanging over the head of the new Marape government says Community Advocacy group ACT NOW!

“It is now six years since the Commission of Inquiry reports were presented in Parliament revealing that over 5 million hectares of land had been stolen from the local communities”, says Campaign Manager Eddie Tanago.

Source: FRANKLIN KOLMA / Post Courier

THE PNG government now has one week left to give a response to the United Nation’s third letter of concern on the issue of ill-treated SABL – special agriculture business lease.