Fighting to ensure a future for the people of East New Britain by protecting their environment from the damage caused by uncontrolled logging.

Oxfam Horizons - Publications
January 1998

The rapid escalation of logging in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, the pollution and erosion caused by illegal logging practices and increasing abuse of landowners' rights prompted the formation of the East New Britain Social Action Committee, or SEK as they are known in Pidgin.

A project partner of Community Aid Abroad, SEK successfully combines action, education and information to give traditional landowners some choice and control over their land and valuable resources.

SEK's Environment and Awareness Program plays a vital role in informing communities of their legal rights as landowners, and of the environmental and social implications of uncontrolled and illegal logging operations. SEK also investigates and documents the logging companies' abuses and illegal practices and, in some cases, takes the companies to court.
"Land is life," says Linda Passingan, Director of SEK. "People here depend on their land for food, materials for housing, cooking, tools and traditional medicines."

The problem in the past was that landowners were often unaware of the true value of their trees, and of the possible alternative uses of their land.

Elizabeth Kaupun of SEK said, "the people accepted cash without knowing the future effects of logging; the long-term effects, such as pollution of the rivers, which means women now have to walk long distances to fetch clean water. This is backbreaking work, and it means that they have less time to work in their vegetable gardens and provide for their families.

"The offer of royalties, or a wage working for the logging companies, means that the men abandon their traditional roles, causing great hardship for the women whose workload becomes even more difficult. Often the men then take complete control of the family finances, destabilising traditional family relationships. The presence of the loggers also brings about an increase in alcohol abuse, domestic violence and prostitution, and disputes about land ownership."

Because there is very little effective government control over logging operations, environmental damage is commonplace. The logging companies frequently ignore the regulations on harvesting close to streams and rivers, resulting in polluted drinking water, and disastrous erosion problems in a delicate, high-rainfall environment.

The loggers also commonly cut undersize logs, threatening the very existence of the forest and its capacity to provide a livelihood for future generations. They destroy the evidence by burning the illegally cut logs, a practice that can lead to bushfires on a catastrophic scale, such as those throughout Indonesia and Papua New Guinea in the last six months.

"Then, when the loggers have finished, they move on somewhere else, and the villagers are left without a healthy forest to provide them with a livelihood," Ms Kaupun said.

SEK's approach is to educate people on the true value of their natural resources, to teach them how to better look after their environment, and to highlight the dangers of uncontrolled resource exploitation in the province. The group promotes the involvement of women in decisions about resource development. They have a crucial role to play in land management because of their knowledge of plants and water sources. In a number of areas women have taken leadership roles in challenging the logging companies.

SEK also works closely with other groups to provide information and training so that communities who do decide that they need to exploit the forest to increase their income, can take advantage of alternatives to large-scale logging, such as eco-tourism, food production, butterfly farming, or locally controlled small-scale logging using 'walkabout sawmills'.

SEK provides information on the pros and cons of these other means of forest exploitation, and promotes environmentally sensitive solutions that are managed by and benefit equitably the whole community, and not particular individuals and groups.