Forest Crime

THE NEW TIMBER BARONS: The Companies Logging the Forest of Papua New Guinea

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.

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Colonial era agreements still dominate the forest industry

In 1989, after chairing a two-year Commission of Inquiry, Justice Barnett described forest management in PNG as being in a state of chaos. He declared that foreign-owned logging companies were being allowed to operate as they pleased as a result of bribery and the corruption of State officials and politicians.

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Banks move to stop logging finance but gaps remain

ACT NOW! and Jubilee Australia

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New Minister Must Address Legality and Sustainability

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

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Will the next government finally ban round log exports?

FIGURE 1: Round Log Export Timeline

The aspiration to ban round log exports is now at least 15 years old, but consecutive governments have failed to meet their own deadlines. After putting aside the agenda for over a decade they now say a ban will be imposed in 2025 and the country will move finally to fully downstream processing.

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Maximising Value: Can PNG finally end the export of unprocessed tropical logs?

Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforests have enormous local, national and international importance but are under threat from a variety of sources including commercial logging.

The government has committed to drastically reduce the rate of commercial logging and increase financial returns from downstream processing by ending the export of unprocessed round logs by 2025, but a new research paper by ACT NOW shows there are serious questions over whether this target will be achieved.

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NGOs welcome progress on ending financing of logging

Research and advocacy organisations Act Now! and Jubilee Australia Research Centre have welcomed a report that the bank accounts of 30 logging companies operating in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have been closed.

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Govt claims on reducing export logging don’t stack up

Updated 18 March 2022 with the details of four further new log export operations that started in December 2021

Government claims that it has stopped issuing new log export licences to foreign owned logging companies are not borne out by the evidence.

There are twenty new foreign-operated log export operations that have started up since 2020, according to the government’s own log export data.

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