Three senior officers from the PNG Forest Authority have failed to provide any answer to allegations of widespread illegal logging during a 40 minute appearance on live radio.

Civil society organisations and community representatives have demanded government action on the widespread abuse of Forest Clearing Authorities (FCA).

Raggian Bird-of-Paradise in Varirata Park, PNG

Shimali Chauhan | Down to Earth 

PHOTO: This area in Bewani, north-west PNG, was logged under a Special Agricultural Business Lease. (ABC: Eric Tlozek)

Reprinted from The National, 17 October 2024

WE, the landowners of Portion 199 of Bewani in Vanimo-Green, West Sepik, want the provincial and national authorities to investigate what we see as illegal land-grabbing by a palm oil developer.

Prime Minister James Marape has spoken of the importance of preserving Papua New Guinea’s tropical rainforest in a meeting with the United Nations General Secretary and in his address to the UN General Assembly last Friday 

Yet, his government is doing nothing to stop widespread illegal logging and in particular the abuse of agricultural clearing licences.

Marape has described PNG’s rainforests as vital to PNG and to the global community, yet PNG is the world’s largest exporter of tropical logs and most of the logging is illegal and unsustainable.

While the government has been dramatically increasing the amount of funding pumped directly into each District, there is an appalling lack of transparency about how those public funds are being used.

PSB News Hour, 19 Sept 2024