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.
A controversial plan by the Singapore based Powerplus Group, to mine sand along a 38 kilometre stretch of coastline in Madang has been defeated.
The government regulator, the Mineral Resource Authority, has written to mining opponents informing them that the mine exploration application has been withdrawn.
This comes after the sand mining application was met with strong opposition from local communities and environmentalists and concern from local tourism operators.
A new doodle-style video has been launched that explains how Papua New Guinea’s reliance on large-scale mining and export logging has failed to improve the lives of most people and why PNG now ranks below its Pacific neighbors on most development indicators.
The increase in duty on round log exports, introduced in the 2020 budget, is having a positive effect according to analysis conducted by the community advocacy group ACT NOW!
“The higher export duty has both increased government revenue and driven down the level of logs exports in line with government policy” says Campaign Manager Eddie Tanago.
Authors: Duncan Gabi and Vernon Gawi /Project Sepik
PROJECT SEPIK CALLS ON THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER TO REFRAIN FROM PUBLISHING FAKE UNSUBSTANTIATED NEWS AND TO APOLOGIZE TO THE PEOPLE OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA FOR MISINFORMING THEM REGARDING THE APPROVAL OF FRIEDA MINE.
A man paddles a canoe on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea Photograph: Renato Granieri/Alamy
