From gbarry@forests.org Thu May 3 15:35:11 2001
Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 23:31:04 -0500
From: Glen Barry
Subject: FORESTS: PNG Loggers Accused of Corruption and Rape
***********************************************
FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
Papua New Guinea: Loggers Accused of Corruption and Rape
***********************************************
Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal
http://forests.org/links/ -- Forest Conservation Links
05/02/01
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org
A startling new documentary alleges widespread human rights
violations, fraud, incompetence and corruption by transnational
loggers operating in Papua New Guinea - which contains the third
largest rainforest expanses on the Planet. In explosive claims an
investigation by SBS Television in Australia alleges that some
loggers are regularly raping local women at the barrel of a gun.
Landowners are being forced to sign legal documents, also at
gunpoint. The program states that police have become private law
enforcers for logging companies and are on their payrolls. The SBS
Dateline program alleges that foreign loggers "are a law unto
themselves".
In the late 1980s, the Barnett Inquiry, which exhaustively
investigated the PNG timber industry, reported "It would be fair to
say, of some of the companies, that they are now roaming the
countryside with the self-assurance of robber barons; bribing
politicians and leaders, creating social disharmony and ignoring laws
in order to gain access to, rip out, and export the last remnants of
the province's valuable timber." After millions of dollars of failed
donor aid programs and countless broken promises to pursue reform,
NOTHING HAS CHANGED. IN FACT, IT HAS GOTTEN WORSE.
There has been a complete breakdown in forest sector management in
Papua New Guinea. It is absolutely incumbent upon the World Bank and
Australia, as well as other donor participants in the structural
adjustment loans, to insist that the Papua New Guinea government
maintain the moratorium on new logging as a condition for further
loan disbursements. This was the agreement under which the loan was
originally granted. Given the severity of findings emerging from the
review of timber operations, and found within the SBS documentary,
donor failure to demand maintenance of the moratorium would be
shockingly irresponsible.
To let the PNG government off the hook, releasing a flood of some 30
ill-conceived new logging ventures into most of PNG's remaining
rainforests, would assign to donors a degree of complicity in the
rape of PNG's rainforests and mothers.
DEMAND THAT THE MORATORIUM ON NEW RAINFOREST LOGGING BE MAINTAINED
AT: http://forests.org/emailaction/png.htm . The alert has been
updated to reflect the new developments.
g.b.
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Title: SBS accuses loggers of corruption
Source: Copyright 2001 AAP, in the National (PNG)
Date: May 2, 2001
Byline: KEVIN RICKETTS
NEW claims have emerged of fraud, incompetence and corruption in
rainforest logging concession areas in Western province.
A new documentary by SBS Television's Dateline program will also
outline allegations that loggers in one area of the province have
raped local women.
The PNG Forest Industries Association and the National Forests Board
responded to the allegations by accusing the World Wildlife
Federation (WWF), the Eco-Forestry Forum and other non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) of being 'puppets' of foreign countries, bent on
securing more funding from the World Bank.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Forests Michael Ogio has also
rejected suggestions that he favoured a Malaysian logging company
with tax exemptions worth millions of kina.
Tonight's Dateline documentary will allege bribery and corruption of
government ministers and bureaucrats by logging companies, the
recruitment by those companies of PNG police as private law enforcers
and of local women being forced into sex at the barrel of a gun.
On April 10, a World Bank independent review team charged with
clearing up corruption in the forest industry reported that the PNG
Forest Authority was "incompetent at almost every level of the forest
management process".
The review team said that the authority had "grossly overstated" the
extent of forest resources, had proved incapable of responding to or
investigating complaints on current logging operations, had not
attempted to protect conservation areas or fragile forests, had
ignored statutory requirements and was interested only in supporting
log exports.
The team found 11 of the 32 forest management agreements (FMAs)
prepared for allocation -- covering 1.4 million hectares -- should
probably not be progressed any further because they were 'illegal".
However, Chief Secretary Robert Igara said that the draft reports
produced by the review team in fact largely commend the PNG Forest
Authority and its officers on their sound and professional
performance of their duties.
Speaking in his role as chairman of the Forest Review Committee
overseeing a PNG Government review of proposed forest projects, Mr
Igara said that the floodgate of poorly planned forestry projects,
which prevailed until 1992, was largely closed.
He noted that his review team also investigated the 32 proposed
projects and the reason why these proposals were still only in the
pipeline was largely because most of these projects either do not
comply with the Forestry Act, and associated requirements, or require
considerable further preparatory work before they are ready to be
approved.
The SBS Dateline program alleges that foreign loggers "are a law unto
themselves" in their logging concession areas and that a succession
of cash-strapped PNG governments have "sold off whatever natural
resources could be sold".
Dateline alleges that Minister Ogio has a special relationship with
one foreign logging company, illegally granting it new areas to log,
along with huge tax concessions.
It quotes Port Moresby lawyer Annie Kajir, who tells of allegations
that in the Bamu River area of Western province landowners are forced
to sign papers with a barrel of a gun at their back.
"Yes, in the presence of police and company officials, without proper
legal advice, with guns pointed to them -- we have statements from
these people," Ms Kajir says.
A police officer named as Galeva Sep has told the program that police
are recruited by logging companies to act only in the loggers'
interests and that one man was locked in a shipping container for
three days.
Dateline alleges that trade union officials "have taken dozens of
statements from women and girls who say they're routinely threatened
with guns and that shots are fired to scare them into having sex".
Forewarned of the Dateline allegations, the PNG Forest Industries
Association rejected claims of wholesale rainforest destruction in
PNG, saying: "The major cause of deforestation in PNG, as elsewhere
in the tropics, is due to forest conversion for agricultural pursuits
or due to fire."
It said SBS' allegations of police misconduct "are just allegations".
In its four-page reply to "Dateline", the Association asked: "Is the
real problem ... that the World Bank and its NGO partners cannot
accept that they are not the real custodians of PNG's forests in PNG
eyes?"
###RELAYED TEXT ENDS###
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From gbarry@forests.org Thu May 3 15:36:25 2001
Date: Wed, 02 May 2001 17:42:15 -0500
From: Glen Barry
Subject: FORESTS: PNG Wilderness Laid Waste by Corruption
***********************************************
FOREST CONSERVATION NEWS TODAY
Papua New Guinea - Wilderness Laid Waste by Corruption
***********************************************
Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.
http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Portal
http://forests.org/links/ -- Forest Conservation Links
05/02/01
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Forests.org
Following is the full script of SBS's Dateline Australian Television
documentary that "details the corruption and violence which underlie
every aspect of logging operations in PNG." Several weeks ago the
draft World Bank review on logging disclosed that 1/3 of the proposed
projects were outright illegal, and almost all are unfit to proceed
for one reason or another. Now this media bombshell alleges logging
without landowner consent, rapes and gathering of landowner "consent"
at gunpoint, misappropriation of donor environmental aid money,
police officers being paid to stifle dissent, and corruption in
granting logging areas by top government officials.
It is clear that the PNG forest sector is a quagmire of corruption,
deceit and violence. Under such circumstances, the PNG government
and donor community must be called upon to immediately pledge to:
1. Maintain the moratorium on new logging, or donors must
discontinue lending as had been the agreement.
2. Complete the review of new and existing logging operations, and
implement its recommendations.
3. Establish a Commission of Inquiry with broad discretionary power
to investigate all aspects of the logging industry and make necessary
recommendations, including possible criminal prosecutions.
4. Establish a timeline to permanently end industrial log exports,
and a process to transition the industry to small and medium scaled
community and certified forest management.
5. End donor subsidies to industrial log export. Redirect donor
funds to transitioning the industry to sustainability and community
based production, cushioning the economic impact upon the government
and landowners in doing so.
Papua New Guinea's rainforests, and its people's human rights, are
being trampled upon. Demand that the moratorium be maintained and a
meaningful reform effort away from industrial log exports commenced
at http://forests.org/emailaction/png.htm . Once again it has been
updated - bookmark the site, it will be updated regularly until this
situation is satisfactorily resolved.
g.b.
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Item #1
Title: PAPUA NEW GUINEA - WILDERNESS LAID WASTE BY CORRUPTION
Source: SBS Television, Dateline Program, Press Release
Date: May 2, 2001
The World Bank is due to release its final report on the state of
logging in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The Bank has made the release of
$160 million dollars in structural adjustment loans conditional on
the report's recommendations being followed. A draft report found
that one third of current logging projects in PNG are illegal and
most are unfit to go ahead in their current form.
On May 2, DATELINE reporter John Bennett details the corruption and
violence which underlie every aspect of logging operations in PNG.
Included in his report -
* The logging of the Western Province area of PNG, home to the third
largest untouched rainforest in the world and the Demeta people.
Despite the Demeta never making, or signing any agreement allowing
access, the area is being logged by Rimbunan Hijau, a Malaysian
logging company. The PNG government gave their consent without
notifying the Demeta who have relied on the rainforest for their
survival for centuries. The Demeta are now fighting their case in
court, as are many other clans in PNG. Currently 7 million hectares
of rainforest are being logged across the country.
* The existence of legal statements claiming that landowners have
been forced to sign agreements allowing logging at gunpoint.
* The claim that no accurate record of timber exports from PNG is
being kept. Bennett's camera caught a Malaysian boat being loaded
with timber on a day when no official record of that event had been
made. The boat stopped being loaded when the crew became aware that
Bennett was filming
* Documents which reveal that in 1999 senior bureaucrats in PNG spent
167- thousand kina at a part-owned Malaysian restaurant. The money,
earmarked for environmental protection, was from aid donors,
including the Australian government. The minimum wage in PNG is 27
kina.
* Allegations that PNG police have become private enforcers for
logging companies and are on the payrolls of those companies.
* Forestry officers and ministers are continuing to share in the
profits of the logging companies. Allegedly, the Deputy Prime
Minister and Forestry Minister, Michael Ogio, has illegally granted
new logging areas to a Malaysian company in addition to giving the
company huge tax concessions.
* The systematic human rights abuse of logging workers including rape
and physical punishment.
For more information please contact SBS publicist Verity Leatherdale
on (02) 9430 3784.vvv
ITEM #2
Title: Draft Script: PAPUA NEW GUINEA - WILDERNESS LAID WASTE BY
CORRUPTION
Source: SBS Television, Dateline Program
Date: May 2, 2001
Music/aerials
In Papua New Guinea the sad legacy of the country's forestry industry
must be lived with every day..
West of Madang township is the Trans-Gogol Valley.....
It's an area which saw large scale industrial logging begin in the
1970's.
And it's here that an old man has a terrible lesson in history for
his youngest grandchild.
Asikai Dominic is 5 years old.
He's reached the age when, in Papua New Guinea, a boy must learn
about his birthright.
By his grandfather, Dobon Turkop, he'll be taught the customary
tribal boundaries of his people, the Juam clan....
But Asikai is too young to understand the tragedy of what he is to
learn.
Tape 6. 31:46 Now the few trees that you see - it was not like this
before. There was a huge jungle that covered these hills - you would
never have been able to see through that jungle. That's where all the
animals lived, all the different kinds of animals - the giant pigeon,
the wild pigs, the cassowary, and the wallabies - they were all
plentiful here.
Dobon Turkop knows with the sad certainty of personal experience that
his grandson's future could be as barren as the hills before them.
If Asakai stays on his tribal lands he will become a part of the tale
of exploitation and misery that began in the Valley thirty years ago.
Tape 6. 31:17 Until 1970, 1971 - up until that time everything was
untouched. Now all you see before you, this bush, it's become like a
desert. There were trees that once grew from the soil all the way to
the mountain range. 31:46 But today if you go around here and look
into the rivers and the bush it's not a good sight. That's why all
this time we have been suffering - there's nothing here, absolutely
nothing. I don't know what to say. 32:30
It was Dobon Turkop's own father who naively sold logging rights to
the Juam traditional lands when PNG's industrial logging industry was
beginning to boom.
A Japanese company paid the government for huge tracts of rainforest
here and then pulped the hardwood for paper.
The clear-felled land was planted with non-native eucalypts and has
since been through three harvests.
The Juam people have been paid annual royalties they claim amount to
little more than one kina per person......
A sum which won't buy a loaf of bread.
For three decades they've been forbidden to use their own land.
Even untouched areas surrounding waterways are out of bounds for the
hunting and subsistence farming on which Dobon's people traditionally
rely.
Tape 15 26:08 I am very sorry for the damage to the river and the
bush. Now we are suffering, within my family and the rest of the
landowners here. All the small creeks that we tried to save are
almost gone too. That's why at this point of time we cannot find any
relief or any happiness.
Tape 15. NATSOUND - SONG CONTINUED
350 kilometres away is PNG's largest and least developed region, the
Western Province.
Here, the Bamu River runs through dense forest.....
The third largest stand of untouched rainforest in the world.
And it's here that another tribe is beginning to feel the bitter
injustice of forestry, PNG style.
Tape 16. NATSOUND - BULLDOZER
This is Kelaye Kima's home.
For centuries the lives of his people, the Demeta clan, have depended
completely on this environment.
They've relied on the forest for everything..... food, shelter,
clothing, and medicines.
But intruders are threatening to destroy it all.
The bulldozer belongs to Malaysian logging, Rimbunan Hijau.
Its a home invasion with the blessing of the PNG government......
Neither the company nor the government asked the Demeta's permission
to take the trees.
Tape 16 28:35 I feel angry when I see the Malaysians cutting the
trees because I did not sign the TRP (Timber Rights Purchase)
agreement with the company or with the government. I feel angry when
I see the destruction of my bush. 29:00
Tape 17. NATSOUND - CHAINSAW, TREE FALLING.
When the chainsaws started here, the Demeta had no idea their land
had been signed away by the government......
Part of the massive Wawoi Guavi forestry concession to Rimbunan
Hijau.
All up, three quarters of a million hectares are at the mercy of
loggers here.
Tape 17. NATSOUND - TREE FALLING
The Malaysians call this selective logging......
They select the tree they want for timber, and then destroy
everything in their path to get it.
The PNG Forest Authority admits 16 smaller trees die for every tree
which makes it to milling......
Tape 16. NATSOT - BULLDOZER
But the real figure may be closer to 60 which are left to rot......
Including once magnificent giants which are killed, but go unused
because they are not a valuable species.
For the Demeta, all trees are valuable, and this destruction is like
murder.
Tape 17. 29:55 When the company is finished all of the trees will be
gone, and in the future my children will be starving for food. So I
want the lawyers to stop the company from logging. 30:15
Tape 16. NATSOT - OUTBOARD
Port Moresby lawyer Annie Kajir is the weapon Kelaye's people are
using to fight the company's invasion.....
Tape 17. 10:30 His is a typical example - he's just there and he
doesn't know that the company is going to go onto his land at this
particular time to take out so many logs at that particular time.
It's actually a sad situation. 10:46
While other clans talk of waging war against the loggers, the Demeta
want to fight for their forest in court.
That means bringing a team of environmental lawyers and scientists to
the isolated Bamu River......
To document traditional boundaries, and plot the places where loggers
are at work.
TAPE 16. NATSOT - MAP MEETING. Like I said it is about 32 kilometres
on this side, then later we'll go down this road.
It's a massive area, and a massive job.......
The lawyers work on a tiny budget in a race against the companies
which employ vast resources to push further into virgin forest.
Natsot - Annie. Tape 2. 8:36 They're supposed to be building roads,
but they're supposed to be within certain boundaries, but they've
gone outside those boundaries and that's what we were afraid of. 8:43
The Demeta clan is just one of Annie's landowner clients fighting a
David and Goliath battle against foreign loggers in PNG.
She claims that as landowners are becoming more aware of their
rights, companies are increasingly using intimidation and violence to
get what they want.
Tape 2. 40:32 Allegations where you have landowners forced to sign
papers with a barrel of a gun at their back. Those are the kind of
allegations that we get. Q. So, people being forced to sign
agreements? A. Yes, In the presence of police and company officials,
without proper legal advice, with guns pointed to them - we have
statements from these people. 40:58
The Papua New Guinea Police Force says it's investigating numerous
complaints that its police officers are acting as private enforcers
for logging companies.
Annie Kajir, who documented many of those complaints, says police are
accused of threatening and brutalising landowners......
Even forcing some people into acts of bestiality.
Tape 2. 39:30 Getting on their knees crawling with the gun at their
back. Telling them to crawl so many distance. 39:39 Being shot at in
the presence of families, they haven't dome anything wrong, these
are peaceful people living there with guns being fired... 39:48 Guns
being carried around by un-uniformed policemen, what else is
there?..39:57 telling people to carry dogs on their backs and to walk
and to, you know, suck the dog's, you know? Those are some of the
allegations we have. Q. So serious abuses of human rights? A. Serious
abuses of human rights. 40:16
Galeva Sep is a police officer.
He claims many of his colleagues are effectively on the payrolls of
logging companies.
Tape 2. 27:20. The company pays police travel allowances, airfares
and accommodation, and all that. Q. So how does that effect the way
they act? A. It effects in a way that when they go to an area they
would only protect the interests of the company, they do not go in
there to be a neutral people. 27:53 Q. So in a way they are bribing
the police to act for them? A. That's right, yes. 28:00
Sep has helped many people from his Western Province clan make
complaints against other officers.
28:25 My people told me there was a lot of inhuman treatment, like
hanging people upside down from a mango tree, or telling people to
climb coconut trees and jump down, which one of these guys ended up t
Port Moresby General Hospital. 28:40
Paul Singi claims he was tortured by police.
He challenged the logging company he worked for, suggesting
traditional owners be compensated for activity on their land.
His punishment was three days locked in a steel shipping container in
the Western Province's forty degree heat.
Tape 2. 21:29 The time was about 10pm on a Monday, I was locked in
there without being fed, without food or water or without being
allowed to have a bath or go to the toilet until Wednesday which was
the third day. While I was in there on the first entry into the
container, a policeman came who has been mentioned earlier, name
which is known as Alex Vokendro who is a task force sergeant, a
police commander, he kicked me here and on the elbow and told me to
pushups and sit-ups and later on to get out of the container and look
at the sun. And there was the scissors that was brought by the
policeman and he shaved my hair off without any concern for me. I was
told you criminal, and I was shaved. 22:36
More disturbing are the allegations about the treatment of female
workers.
They are recruited into camps so isolated the only way in or out is
by plane.
Once in the camps, many women claim they're forced to have sex with
company officials and the police who work for them.
Natsot - Union Meeting Tape 24
National and international unions have been investigating human
rights abuses of PNG logging workers for more than six months.
Tape 24 9:02 These workers are living there under the threat of their
jobs being terminated. They have no choice when the company, when the
management approaches them they just go along and do what they are
told to do, and that is sexually exploiting them, especially the
young ones who are employed in the companies. 9:27
In secret meetings, union officials have taken dozens of statements
from women and girls who say they're routinely threatened with guns
and that shots are fired to scare them into having sex.
Woman No 1:
During the night police come and try and wake the girls from their
sleep. If the girls don't pay attention to them they fire shots in
the air.
Woman No 2:
Police would normally go to the girl's dorms and threaten them and go
to sleep with them.
Women who become pregnant must have abortions or face ejection from
the camps, with no way to travel the hundreds of kilometres home.
Woman No 3:
If a girl is pregnant it is likely to be terminated. Company
regulations don't allow pregnant ladies to work so the only way to
stay is to get rid of the baby.
For decades logging in PNG has been a business defined by the abuse
of power.
A succession of cash-strapped governments has sold off whatever
natural resources could be sold.....
Seven million hectares of forests are currently in the hands of
loggers, with another five million promised.....
A total area twice the size of Tasmania.
Even with timber prices low since the Asian economic crisis, logging
companies here are a law unto themselves.
Tape 23. 11:23 I remember we described them as being like "robber
barons", just roaming the countryside doing whatever they wanted to
because they had the power. 11:37
Tos Barnett, now head of the West Australian Administrative Appeals
Tribunal, ran an inquiry into PNG's forestry sector more than ten
years ago.
His revelations of widespread high level corruption brought down one
PNG government, and threatened the successors.....
towards the end of the inquiry, he was attacked in Port Moresby and
stabbed almost to death by an unknown assailant.
Tape 23. 7:47 5:50 Not only were the Forestry Officers and the
ministers in government and the other leaders who were meant to be
controlling this not controlling it, but they were sharing in the
profits because they were being corrupted in many cases by these
foreign timber companies. 6:10
Foreign logging companies continue to operate largely as they see
fit.
At this remote port on the island province of East New Britian, the
crew of a Malaysian vessel stopped loading logs when they noticed
they were being filmed.
They only started again after a silent standoff lasting nearly four
hours.
There was no government-employed inspector present for the loading.
However official records for the day showed the Malaysian company
reported no loading of timber took place....
Only adjustments to the ballast of the vessel.
18:47 If those who are given the task of enforcing the conditions are
being paid on the side or getting other benefits then there's no hope
of stopping it. 18:59 I don't suppose I'm surprised that the
ignorance of the landowners and the greed of some of the landowner
leaders and the greed of the timber companies and the corrupted greed
of some of the officials involved in administrating the system have
combined to allow the same things to happen. I don't suppose I'm
surprised but I'm disappointed. 19:25
Tape 15 15:49 Quite a number of people say that after the Inquiry
things have changed.
A decade ago, Silas Boas gave evidence before Tos Barnett, as the
Forestry Officer in charge of the massive Western Province logging
concessions.
15:55 Nothing has changed - the practice, the malpractice and the
corruption still goes on. It's done under the table. Most of our
resources are being mortgaged especially by decision-makers at the
political level. We are still losers at the end. 16:16
Over the past decade, many of the people charged with protecting
PNG's forests have displayed open contempt for Barnett's
recommendations.
These documents reveal that in 1999 senior bureaucrats in the Office
of Environment and Conservation spent an extraordinary amount of
government money entertaining themselves.
167 thousand kina was spent at this Port Moresby restaurant, which is
part owned by Malaysian interests.
In a country where the minimum weekly wage is 27 kina, OEC officials
spent 47 thousand kina here in just four nights.
Much of the money was from aid donors, including the Australian
government, and was earmarked for environmental protection.
Tape 1 39:19 There certainly is corruption going on - very difficult
to prove at the highest levels - but that's not our biggest problem,
our biggest problem is that these organisations do not run
effectively. Q So the OEC is effected by corruption, ineptitude, and
lack of resources? A Yes, and if I was going to rank those I would
rank corruption probably at the bottom. 39:47
Dr Tom Wagner, pro vice chancellor of the University of Papua New
Guinea, has reviewed some of the work done by the Office of
Environment and Conservation.
He says the corrupt squandering of funds means even those who do want
to protect the country's environment, have their hands tied.
26:40 What we don't have is the equivalent of an Australian or US EPA
that can review these proposals in detail and say "wait a minute,
there are some very important guidelines and specs that need to be in
here, or there are some very important environmental concerns you
have not taken into account", and because of that the environment
loses out in PNG. 27:03
Allegations of corruption go to the second highest office in PNG.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Forests, Michael Ogio, has a
special relationship with one Malaysian logging company......
Illegally granting it new areas to log, along with huge tax
concessions.
His actions, regarded as beyond the pale even by PNG standards, have
led to demands in the media he be sacked.
Mr Ogio ignored repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.
TAPE 12 NATSOT - REVIEW TEAM MEETING WITH LOCALS
The forests of PNG may have one last chance.
NATSOT
That chance is an investigation by the World Bank......
A review of plans to let loggers loose in the last remaining
accessible forests.
It's an attempt to force the PNG government to clean up its act.
Tape 13 4:28 Some of our timber has already been cut. There was all
kinds of money coming in but we haven't seen any of it. Then the
company disappeared and we don't know what has happened to it. 4:41
Last year the World Bank effectively threatened to withhold a one-
hundred and sixty million dollar loan......
Forcing the government to place a hold on new logging projects.
Not surprisingly, some logging companies have ignored the moratorium.
Tape 13 6:27 They made roads all over Rottock Bay, and they took the
timber by road and loaded it onto ships. Now all the timber's
finished. 6:37
Over three months, these world bank investigators found widespread
evidence of fraud and corruption.
They also found the rights of landowner's had been consistently
abused.
Tape 12 Lucis - 15:52 It's not just you watching. There are outsiders
watching. Once you've sold your trees that's it... The ones who have
already sold theirs - you go and see how they live. 16:05
Tape 12 Tony - 16:32 A lot of countries have put together a fund - a
lot of money - to look after the rainforest that's left in the world.
PNG's the third biggest rainforest left in the world. There's plenty
of interest now - the whole world is watching. 16:54
The review's draft report damned many of the projects, deeming one
third to be illegal, and most unfit to go ahead in their current
form, if at all.
But environment groups and aid donors fear the PNG government will
only pay lip service to any recommendations, grab the World Bank's
cash and go back to business as usual.
Tape 11 19:05 If you do a review obviously you are acknowledging that
there is something serious going on and something serious going
wrong. And you do a review and you spend a lot of money getting
experts out there - people who know the situation in Papua New Guinea
really well and have been involved in forestry a long time - if they
come up with a report and recommendations, those recommendations
should be taken seriously and should be implemented. 19:31 And I
think the moratorium shouldn't be lifted until those recommendations
are in place and everybody is satisfied that the situation has been
improved. 19:44
The signs aren't good - Forestry Minister Michael Ogio has already
given the go-ahead to one project condemned by the review.
Natsot - Tape 15
The story that will be told to the next generation of Papua New
Guinea's children about their rainforests is still being written.
NATSOT DANCING
Unless changes are made, at the current rapacious rate of logging one
of the world's last great wild areas may be destroyed in under
fifteen years.
MUSIC AND CHILDREN
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