A letter from John Barker
Dear Colleagues,
In a year when we finally have some good news about a
significant decline in illegal logging globally, it is disappointing
to report an instance of what appears to be timber piracy in the
Collingwood Bay area.
In May 2002, the Maisin and their neighbours in
Wanigela won an important PNG National Court case that overturned
illegally obtained timber licenses and set strict conditions for the
approval of commercial developments in the area. In June of this
year, a group of 10 foreigners (apparently Malaysian citizens) turned up
in Wanigela claiming to have papers overturning the court order and
the support of local landowner groups.
They were accompanied by an armed
police reservist. A barge arrived with heavy equipment and
proceeded to widen the track from the coast and to prepare a log dam on the
beach. In the course of building the new road, gardens were damaged,
latrines exposed and houses threatened.
The saddest immediate
result was the burying of the clay pit from which Wanigela women gather
material for their famous cooking pots, which continue to be traded
and used across
the region (apparently, when it became clear what was
about to happen, women rushed to the area with bilums and other containers
to gather as much clay as possible).
Village leaders called in the police from Popondetta, who
removed the outsiders to Port Moresby and confiscated a number of
rifles from local villagers who may, or may not, have been aligned
with the logging crew.
I have just heard that the group has returned,
accompanied by armed reservist policemen, according to Adelbert Gangai (local activist),
are intimidating the community, focusing in particular on
those who earlier called in the police from the provincial capital.
An urgent call to the Popondetta police has now gone out. There are
rumours that a second barge is on the way to Reaga near the Milne Bay
border. The three companies claiming the right to log the area have
also apparently filed papers with the national court to
restrain local protests against the projects.
Logging has been a contentious issue in southern
Collingwood Bay over the past 30 years. The strongest opposition has come from
Maisin living in the central villages of Uiaku and Ganjiga, who
in the late 1990s were able to forge a regional alliance, with the
strong support of environmental NGOs, in opposition to a series of
large-scale projects (partially documented in my “Ancestral Lines”).
This alliance was always tentative, even among the Maisin, and it
appears that in this round the logging companies have found some
supporters among Maisin living in the eastern villages as well as in
Wanigela. Apparently, there is a proposal to replant logged areas
with cashew
trees (one of a sequence of sketchy proposals over the
past two decades, previously for oil palm and coconut sap). That
said, following the familiar pattern, deals with “landowner
groups” have been conducted in secrecy and have almost certainly
involved bribes along with fantastic promises of the benefits of
“development”. Prior to the barge turning up,
there had been no community meetings and most people were taken by surprise by these events and by
the muscle behind them. What is new, sadly, is a very real threat of
violence.
In light of other developments in PNG, this is small kai
kai, but still very distressing. In his letter requesting
immediate police intervention sent out yesterday, Adelbert Gagai writes:
“It is a
repeat of what we have heard in countries under military
rule where militia is used to trample village chiefs for logging
companies to continue their illegal activities. Similarly at Wanigela
elders have been placed under house arrest and those who have been
vocal about trespassing on their customary land and the destruction
of traditional taboos are being threatened and abused.”
A detailed report, including photographs, has been
prepared by John Nilles of the Center for Environmental Law and Community
Rights, which I would be happy to pass on to anyone interested.
John Barker
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