Biodiversity is eroding with Unsustainable forestry

Oil palm plantations contributes to deforestation (Photo: Gilton Alimaka)

Papua New Guinea is one of the ancient lands with incredible range of diversity of both non-human and human cultures. Unsustainable forestry practices by multi-national logging companies are spreading and intensifying across the nation yet, there are still huge areas of rainforest wilderness that remain untouched by the influences of the industrial and post-industrial age. However, with an increasing human population and a huge onslaught by resource-extracting companies, these troubled islands face an uncertain future. This is leading to extensive habitat loss, with grave and irreversible consequences for biodiversity.
According to a report commissioned by the Australian Government, "the total forested area of Papua New Guinea is estimated at 34 million ha. Of this, an estimated 7.0-7.5 million ha is now widely regarded as commercial or productive forest" (Duncan, 1994). It has been estimated that at current levels of logging, all of this available forest will be gone within one generation. In 1990, the former director of the Forest Research Institute, Dr. Simon Saulei, estimated that between 2.3 and 3 million hectares of all accessible forests had been logged over (Saulei, 1990a and 1990b). In 1991 the total area of forest for which permits and licences had been granted was 4.52 million hectares (Nadarajah, 1993).
Current unsustainable industrial logging practices are stripping PNG of its rainforests, upon which the majority of indigenous land holders rely for part of their food, shelter, medicine, and spirituality. By exploiting the naivety and inexperience of remote village people, who sometimes cannot read the contracts they sign, these transnational corporations are selling a version of development that is neither sustainable nor desirable in the long run.
"Current unsustainable industrial logging practices are stripping PNG of its rainforests."

clearing rain forest (Photo: Gilton Alimaka)

There has been much written on the situation in PNG, both by government and non-government organisations (NGOs). In 1990 the Barnett Report, headed by former judge Thomas Barnett, found overwhelmingly that the timber industry was both unsustainable and corrupt. The report caused a furor both in PNG and abroad, and an urgent government response to its findings is clearly required. In Barnett's words, "There is a fog which is casting its cloud over forestry in this country. It is a mixture of meandering intellectual neglect, bureaucratic inefficiency and lack of honest political commitment." There are ample reports and evidence that the timber companies are breaking many (if not all) environmental protection laws, and that they have scant regard for the rights of the local landholders.
The 1994 Duncan Report, "Melanesian Forestry Study", showed clearly the absurd economics of the current logging situation, which the PNG government is both allowing and complicit in. "Because tropical timber is a semi-non renewable resource (if not non renewable, as there is some doubt over the regeneration of some species), then it's sale is in the nature of the disposal of an asset." (Duncan, 1994)
"This is not so much a plan, as a timetable handing out huge areas of forest in the shortest possible time"
To date, however, there has been little concrete action taken to put an end to the theft of land, resources, and traditional ways of life. In fact, the PNG remains locked into the view of "development" so prevalent in the North, and is seeking this development without any regard for the future. When commenting on the National Forest Development Plan, Thomas Barnett stated that, "This is not so much a plan, as a timetable for handing out huge areas of forest in the shortest possible time." (Barnett,1990, page 12)
Despite the chaos that is current PNG government policy, there is, however, much positive work being performed by PNG NGOs. Small scale forestry, and "eco-timber" projects are becoming stronger in their strategies. Training in sustainable forestry, and awareness patrols to remote areas by local NGO's has been spreading the message of what exploitative logging will do to rural communities. The recent screening on PNG television station EMTV of the Rainforest Information Centres documentary Mama Bilong Olgeta on the PNG logging industry was a great success. There has since been increased interest from PNG NGOs to distribute this video and other information on the logging crisis. There is still, however, a dire need to increase Australian aid funding to the NGO community in PNG, who are currently not being supported by their misguided government.
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), supported financially and politically by the Australian Government, are attempting to enforce harsh changes in PNG, under their 1995 Structural Adjustment plans. Amongst these are plans to allow greater access to PNG resources for overseas companies, and cutbacks in public spending, both of which would heighten the deforestation crisis. But perhaps the biggest threat to the preservation of PNG's rainforests is the plan to introduce registration of tribal/customary land. Such registration of communal land will only open further opportunities to multi-national corporations in their bid to extract the countries resources.
Source: http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/background/png.htm

subsistance gardening contributes to deforestation (Photo: Gilton Alimaka)