By Luana Paniu



People of remote Special Purpose Agriculture and Business Lease sites have the opportunity to air their grievances over proposed projects with potential environment risk but judging from the number of environmental issues surfacing, this has not been happening, reports the Post Courier.

Acting Secretary for Environment and Conservation, Dr Wari Iamo, clarified the processes and procedures within his department when appearing before the Commission of Inquiry last week.


By Luana Paniu

THE Commission of Inquiry has made a shocking discovery – that Land Titles filing is so bad there is no guarantee whatsoever for titles issued under the Special Purpose Agriculture and Business Leases (SPABL) have been saved and protected.

Chief Commissioner John Numapo and Commissioners Alois Jerewai and Andy Mirou were clearly unimpressed when Registrar of Titles for the Department of Lands and Physical Planning, Henry Wasa told them the filing system is so poor and outdated, it is like a library card system.

By Luana Paniu

A landowner was surprised to learn about certain procedures and processes in the Special Purpose Agriculture and Business Leases (SPABL) after attending the Commission of Inquiry which began three weeks ago.


David Kura, a landowner from Rikau village and a rep-resentative of the Rigula Oil Palm Estate which covers his village and two others, Gule and Levege. His village shares a common border with these villages.


By Eva Kuson

By Luana Paniu

The Department of Lands and Physical Planning has been given seven days to reconstruct 18 more title files to be submitted to the Commission of Inquiry into the Special Purpose Agriculture and Business Leases.

The files, which are part of the 75 SPABL cases now under investigation by the CoI, were reportedly destroyed or misplaced.

By MT

THE people in the rural areas want the government to thoroughly investigate the issuance of Special Purpose and Agricultural Business Leases (SABL).
 This issue affects more than 90% of the silent majority who live in villagers and remote communities.


These people do not even know that their customary land has been given to corporations with the backing of foreign-owned multi-national corporations. 
I was shocked to learn that over than 300,000ha of customary land in my area was given to a corporate entity.