Eddie Tanago / Campaign Manager

A recent news story about communities in Morobe using their profits from cocoa farming to pay for solar powered street lights for their villages is very encouraging and positive. Such initiatives drive economic independence, a sense of community and self reliance.

Eddie Tanago | Campaign Manager

ACT NOW is calling on the Prime Minister and regulatory agencies to take urgent action to address the huge discrepancies in log export values revealed in a recent report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

By Fr. Giorgio Licini, Caritas PNG Advocacy

By FORCERT

In Papua New Guinea, approximately 97% of land is customary, collectively controlled by clans, tribes and communities. This land serves as the foundation of life and security for the country’s rural communities, and is protected from alienation except under special circumstances, with the communities’ consent.

A new report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime provides evidence Papua New Guinea could be missing out on billions of Kina in taxes and royalties from the logging industry.

ACT NOW! and Jubilee Australia Research Centre are urging a United Nations Committee to act on human rights violations in PNG arising from illegal logging. The organisations have filed a formal request to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to consider taking urgent action at its next meeting in August. Bismarck Ramu Group has also endorsed the action.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) stands at a crossroads. For decades, its development narrative has been dominated by resource extraction gold, copper, oil, gas, timber, and palm oil, promising prosperity but delivering inequality. While foreign corporations profit, most Papua New Guineans remain marginalized, their environments scarred, and their futures uncertain.

A new report on logging in Papua New Guinea calls for urgent action by authorities in PNG and overseas to address long standing issue related to illegal logging, human rights abuses and environmental harm.