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Papua New Guinea: Large-scale Logging and
Human Rights Abuses
PNG’s social,
political and economic histories have been moulded by its tropical
forests. Covering 60 per cent of the PNG land mass and largely
impenetrable, the forests have limited trade, defined customary
laws and delineated life and culture. When the world thinks of
PNG, they see its forests.
Now, the
logging of these incomparable life systems is corroding PNG’s
society and politics, with only trivial economic benefit, and
with alarming flow-on effects in the region.
The PNG
logging industry is dominated by a handful of Malaysian companies,
the largest of which is Rimbanan Hijau. It is an industry that
is synonymous with political corruption, police racketeering and
the brutal repression of workers, women and those who question
its ways. Its operations routinely destroy the food sources, water
supplies and cultural property of those same communities. They
provide a breeding ground for arms smuggling, corruption and violence
across the country. In return, the industry generates no lasting
economic benefit to forest communities, considerable long-term
cost and a modest 5 per cent contribution to the national budget.
This record
is a far cry from fulfilling PNG’s Fourth National Goal – set
upon its independence in 1975 – that its “natural resources and
environment … be conserved and used for the collective benefit
of us all, and be replenished for the benefit of future generations”.
The logging
industry wields influence in PNG through political donations,
public sponsorship, lobbying and media ownership. Or, companies
simply ‘buy’ the rights to logging areas outright. Government
ministers interfere with logging projects on their behalf. The
industry’s leverage over the PNG government extends well beyond
forestry. One company – Rimbunan Hijau, controlled by billionaire
Malaysian Hiew King Tiong – has interests in the finance sector,
the media, information technology, property, retailing, commercial
printing, travel and shipping. These interests span beyond PNG.
The Tiong family holds media assets in China, Malaysia, Cambodia,
Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, Canada and the US, as well as a radio
station in New Zealand. In Australia, Tiong investments include
the Harbourside shopping complex at Darling Harbour in Sydney,
and companies that account for 10 per cent of Australia’s mango
crop.
The reform
of the PNG logging industry is a distant prospect without concerted
international action. Within PNG, corruption has stifled the will
to uphold existing laws against the interests of logging companies.
Where legal action has been taken, those involved have been attacked,
physically and commercially.
In PNG,
the capacity and political will to uphold legal and human rights
is being undermined, not least by the logging industry itself.
Disturbing instances of human rights abuse include:
-
Denial of due process in appropriating property. The process by
which the PNG Government buys timber rights from landowning communities
and then issues ‘extraction’ licenses to logging companies is
seriously flawed and amounts to the illegal appropriation of forest
lands by loggers.
- Arbitrary
detention and physical brutality by police against landowners.
Attempts to restrain this appropriation are being dealt with brutally,
sometimes by police ‘moonlighting’ for logging companies. The
documented atrocities include the bashing of villagers taking
legal action, incarceration without charge, the torching of homes
and crops, the shooting of domestic animals with M16s, and men
forced at gun point to commit homosexual acts with each other.
- Intimidation
and abuse of women. Women suffer the next round of this violence.
Community ‘big men’ handle dealings with logging companies, and
some regard logging royalties as ‘free money’ to be spent on alcohol
and weapons. Sexual abuse by logging employees is documented,
as are marriages of convenience between expatriate employees and
local women.
- Contamination
of food and water sources. Far from the promised benefits, logging
is denying people their right to an adequate standard of living.
Sediment from cleared forest and roads is polluting rivers, as
are chemicals used to kill timber pests and preserve felled logs.
Fish, crayfish, wild pigs, cassowaries, tree kangaroos and birdlife
– all food staples for local communities – have left logged areas.
- The
destruction of cultural sites, artefacts and grave sites. Compensation
for such acts of desecration is rarely forthcoming. These acts
deny the rights of communities to use their own land for cultural
and spiritual purposes.
- Unjust
working conditions. The appalling labour conditions in many logging
camps are again exposed. In Gulf Province, workers have died and
been buried on the job rather than the company going to the expense
of returning their bodies home. Timber industry workers have not
been paid, have lived in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions,
worked 7am to 7pm and, with company transport the only option,
have been held at their work area beyond their willingness to
stay.
Human rights
abuses have flourished thanks to the physical isolation of the
logging communities, and the corruption and inadequate resources
of PNG’s government. These same conditions have allowed international
trafficking in guns, timber, and people. Regional security, not
just PNG governance, is being undermined.
In PNG,
it is local people who are most skilled in sustainable forest
management. Yet these skills are locked out of the forestry process,
contrary to PNG’s National Goals and Directive Principles.
An immediate
moratorium must be placed on the granting and renewal of all logging
permits. The current model is not working.
Excerpted
from: "Bulldozing Progress: Human Rights Abuses and Corruption
in Papua New Guinea's Large-scale Logging Industry", by The
Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights and The Australian
Conservation Foundation, 2006,
http://www.acfonline.org.au/uploads/res_ACF-CELCOR_full.pdf
