By PNG Eco-Forestry Forum

Customary landowners across Papua New Guinea (PNG) have lost over 5.2 million hectares of their land to foreign owned companies supposedly for Agro-forestry projects through the controversial Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABLs) and have long waited for the government to decide on the fate of their land through the implementation of the SABL Commission of Inquiry (COI) recommendations.

From EMTV

Papua New Guineans have been urged not to sell their land freely. This was a topic of concern raised on land mediation in Buka.

It was discussed that “the selling customary land is the selling of birth right, which in turn creates future problems.”

The Prime Ministers failure to implement the SABL Commission of Inquiry recommendations by revoking the unlawful SABL leases and stopping the illegal logging of PNG forests was put into stark relief by the visiting head of the United Nations Development Program, Helen Clark, last week.

The Oakland Institute and /The Rules, along with other NGOs, farmer and consumer organizations from around the world have launched a new campaign, Our Land Our Business, to hold the World Bank accountable for its role in the rampant theft of land and resources from some of the world’s poorest people — farmers, pastoralists and indigenous communities, many of whom are essential food producers for the entire planet.