Report Highlights Widespread Abuse Of Logging Permits In Papua New Guinea

Don
Wiseman, RNZ Pacific Senior
Journalist

New Guinea Island is home to one of the
world’s most important remaining stands of tropical
rainforest.

However, for many years, it has been under
assault by illegal loggers and a community advocacy
organisation in Papua New Guinea is calling for action to
stop it.

ACT NOW, with Australian watchdog Jubilee
Australia, has produced a report called The
FCA Logging Scandal, which details the abuse of a PNG
government scheme aimed at encouraging the clearance of
small patches of forest for agriculture.

Prime
Minister James Marape, in his inaugural
address to the national parliament on 9 August 2022,
stated that “we are committed to stopping all round log
exports by 2025”.

“We can no longer tolerate this
wrongdoing happening for a very long time under our noses,”
Marape said.

“We are also exploring state market
options for logs that are earmarked for the state, which
will give us the volume to move into downstream processing.
This level of intervention is likely to also shine a
spotlight on the challenges of the sector and what needs to
happen to it, to stimulate growth.”

However, that
promise has yet to be fulfilled.

RNZ Pacific spoke
with ACT NOW campaign manager Eddie Tanago.

(This
transcript has been edited for brevity and
clarity).

Eddie Tanago: These
aren’t new issues. We’ve been talking about these issues.
The recent being the Forest Clearing Authority (FCA), which
has been subject to abuse for quite a long time now, and it
accounts for a third of total log exports coming out from
Papua New Guinea.

The concerns have been raised
numerous times, and it’s quite frustrating that there’s
really nothing tangible done to address it. The recent
report that we had launched actually demands for action, not
only by PNG authorities, but by overseas agencies, or those
that are involved in the supply chain, and those who
actually buying from Papua New Guinea.

Ninety percent
of exports from Papua New Guinea go to China, it’s right
that China also acts on ensuring compliance from the sources
that it is buying the logs from, and abuses and the issues
of illegal logging, human rights abuse, and the harm to the
environment has been in existence for as long as Papua New
Guinea has been a state and it is still an
issue.

Don Wiseman: Yes, let’s look at these.
So these Forest Clearance Authorities, they’re there to
primarily encourage agriculture, but that often doesn’t
happen.

ET: Exactly, and
what has been uncovered in this recently published report,
is that, FCAs is meant for clearance for agriculture or
other small clearing or land use, but the evidence that we
have collected in the series of reports that we have
documented, and the current one shows that logging has been
happening, and we’re talking about large scale forest
clearance.

We see that in normal logging operations
and under different type of licence. For this case, we have
seen logging companies who are in the excuse of doing
agriculture, taking up huge volumes of logs. And logs worth
millions have been shipped out or exported. This is a
concern. It’s a direct breach of the terms of the
licence.

DW: When they go into an area,
they’re taking a far bigger area than would ever be required
for whatever agricultural project they’re
doing.

ET: We have reports
and evidence that shows that logging is actually happening
in large scale. Not only that, but we have satellite imagery
that shows that logging are actually happening beyond the
boundaries that it’s supposed to happen.

We have
what’s written on the paper. It’s different to what’s
actually happening on the ground. And as I said, this is
very concerning.

We have the PNG Forest Authority and
the board having announced a moratorium and promises to have
the audit reports on the FCA is audited and have a report
published. And this is like two years ago, this hasn’t
happened.

DW: So no
moratorium?

ET: There is an
announced moratorium. There’s a new one being
announced.

As it is now we are not able to verify if
that really has existed, because, you know, two years ago
they promised an audit, and the audit report would have been
made public.

We don’t have that report, or it’s not
even publicly available that we have cited.

DW: Who
do you blame? Who do you blame for these, these
failings?

ET: The regulatory
authority, which is the PNG Forest Aauthority, it is not
able to handle these issues.

While we are not able to
handle these kind of issues, logs have been shipped out from
these areas. We have people’s rights who have been
suppressed, or we have logs that are taken out
illegally.

We have the proceeds from these logs that
are going out and sold in the markets. So this whole lot of
issues that are still outstanding while logging is being
allowed to continue under this FCAs.

DW: You’ve put
out a report and you’ve made some recommendations. What do
you want to see happen?

ET: As I
said earlier on, the report is out there, and this is an
issue that’s not only for Papua New Guinea and not only for
PNG Forest Authority, but those in the whole
picture.

We had a set of recommendations that
accompany the report, and the number one is that we want the
government to suspend all log exports from the FCA series
until an independent, transparent and public inquiry is held
to look into the legality of these existing FCAs.

And
number two is that we want the National Forest Board to
extend the moratorium on the new FCAs until a government
inquiry has been conducted, [and] recommendations have been
implemented. But also we wanted audit reports publicly made
available.

We also want the police fraud in the United
Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, and Interpol, to identify
the criminal laws that may have been broken in the
submission and the approval of the fraudulent FCA
projects.

Commercial banks also play an important part
in this transaction or in this in this process.

We
also want the commercial banks to identify any customers or
logging companies that are linked to FCA logging operations.
And we will want a full compliance with all anti-money
laundering legislation and the bank environmental social
responsibilities are complied with.

DW: You’ve
called for overseas timber buyers to be a whole lot more
vigilant. How would they know – if the wood goes to China
and then, I guess, comes out to Western countries as
furniture and whatever. How would you
know?

ET: That’s a very good
question, and that is also a very big hindrance.

There
has to be some kind of system put in place, where it’s
traceable when it goes to jurisdictions like China. There
has to be some kind of message put in place between Papua
New Guinea, and maybe China, to ensure that there’s
transparency. So the buyer, or the users of the end
products, know exactly the sources the timbers are coming
from and where people’s rights are not being infringed,
where people are not being made landless, where people are
not being deprived of their rights to have access to the
environment and their land.

These kind of things have
to be put in place properly, so that those in the supply and
the demand chain, and the end users, are able to trace back
to the sources of timber to ensure that people’s rights are
not
infringed.

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