Government fails to answer UN concerns on illegal FCA logging and land abuses

The Papua New Guinea government has failed to answer questions from the United Nations over the misuse of Forest Clearing Authority (FCA) logging licences and controversial land leases.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) sent a public letter to the PNG government in January this year requesting information on the cancellation of Special Agriculture Business Leases (SABL) and the misuse of FCA logging licences.

The letter set a deadline of April 17 for the PNG government to respond but enquires with the UN have confirmed that no information has been provided to the Committee.

The UN letter citied the 2011 SABL Commission of Inquiry (COI) that found almost all SABL leases, covering almost 5 million hectares of customary land were unlawful due to corruption and mismanagement. In June 2014 the National Executive Council endorsed the COI recommendation the leases should be revoked.

However, since then there has been a complete lack of transparency over which leases have been cancelled and which remain and affected communities have been denied any effective remedies including fair and just compensation for land and resources illegally occupied or damaged.

Meanwhile, the abuse of Forest Clearing Authorities by privately owned Malaysian logging companies has flourished. Over the past three-years, one-third of all log exports have come from FCA areas, with 50 such licences issued, the largest covering more than 250,000 hectares.

The UN’s letter said it is concerned these FCAs have been issued without the informed consent of local resource owners and the permits are being unlawfully used as cover for the logging of large-areas of forest in breach of Forestry Act rules.

This echoes the recently published findings of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Public Sector Reform. The Committee report into its inquiry into independent log export monitoring states ‘large-scale logging is often concealed under the pretext of Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs), which were intended for agriculture. This is a mechanism to bypass legitimate forestry permitting and environmental regulations and warrants close scrutiny by enforcement agencies’.

The UN letter also raised the lack of public information about the Forest Authority’s promised audit of all FCA logging operations and the implementation of a moratorium on new FCA projects.

The UN says the delays in the cancellation of SABL leases and abuse of FCAs threaten the rights of Indigenous Peoples, particularly their right to own, develop, control and use their communal lands and resources and their rights to justice, effective remedies and fair and just compensation.

The governments failure to provide a response to the UN is just the latest example in a pattern of behaviour that dates back fifteen years. The government has previously failed to respond to earlier letters sent from the UN in 2011, 2016 and 2018 that raised similar issues.

In November this year it will be the turn of the PNG government to appear before the United National Human Rights Council in Geneva to defend its record on human rights under the five-yearly Universal Periodic Review process. The issue of SABL leases and abuse of FCA logging licences are likely to be a focus in those hearings.

ACT NOW is calling on the PNG government to immediately implement a full independent audit of all FCA logging projects as recommended by the Special Parliamentary Committee and to provide a full public response to the questions from the United Nations.