Stolen logs continue to be shipped overseas under the watchful gaze of politicians, bureaucrats and the police while landowners look on wondering what justice and the law mean for them.

The SABL Commission of Inquiry has declared 66 leases covering some 5 million hectares of land to be illegal. But the government and its agencies are ignoring the findings and allowing foreign logging companies to continue stealing valuable timber resources.

The Commission of Inquiry described how the illegal scam is operating with the connivence of government officials and law enforcement agencies:

With corrupt government officials from implementing agencies riding shotgun for them, opportunistic loggers masquerading as agro-forestry developers are prowling our countryside, scoping opportunities to take advantage of gullible landowners and desperate for cash clan leaders… 

Our jails are fully of petty criminals many of whom were simply trying to make ends meet on the streets of our cities or trying to provide for their families, but it seems there is no justice when it comes to the theft of land and millions of dollars worth of timber and the illegal destruction of our forests.

Each week the foreign log ships, like the one shown above in the Pomio District of East New Britain, pull up to our shores to be loaded with stolen timber. But the politicians, forestry officials, customs officers and police sit back and do nothing to stop this illegal trade.