Fifty two thousand square kilometres of customary land has been stolen in the SABL land grab.

52,000 square kilometres is the same as 5.2 million hectares - but what does that amount of land really look like?

Pomio MP Elias Kapavore has defended an illegal land grab in his electorate in which four SABL leases have been granted to logging company Rimbunan Hijau. Kapavore claims the company has built roads, provided jobs and made ‘a massive economic investment’ in oil palm. He says the company should remain and local people should stop voicing their complaints and exaggerating the negative impacts.

Police officers working on behalf of Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau are continuing to intimidate, attack and detain landholders trying to protect their land against illegal logging in the Pomio District of East New Britain, according to reports from the area.

This is despite an order from Police Commissioner Gari Baki that police should not be permanently deployed to logging camps.

On November 4th, the Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, stood in Parliament and told the nation the SABL land grab was at an end, the unlawful leases were being cancelled and the illegal logging stopped.