The Prime Minister’s promise to stop issuing new forestry licences will do nothing to stop illegal logging destroying Papua New Guinea’s tropical forests, says ACT NOW!
Addressing the recent meeting of the Green Climate Fund in Port Moresby, the Prime Minister is reported to have said no new forestry licences will be issued after 16th September, the 50th anniversary of PNG’s Independence.
However, stopping new logging licences is an empty gesture that will have no practical impact.
Stopping new licences will not stop the illegal logging that is destroying our forests and will not stop the human rights abuses by foreign logging companies and their tax evasion and money laundering.
Existing logging licences will still be valid for decades and the Prime Ministers promise will not stop the licences being extended in the future.
At least one-third of current log exports still come from areas that were issued logging permits in the colonial era; permits that have been repeatedly renewed without the consent of current generations of resource owners.
There is also abundant evidence that logging companies routinely operate outside their logging permit boundaries but that no action is ever taken to stop them.
The National Forest Board placed a moratorium on issuing new Forest Clearing Authority licences more than two-years ago, but one-third of log exports are still coming from FCA areas.
This is despite the published evidence that the FCA licences were obtained under the guise of bogus agriculture projects and the logging is illegal.
The PNG Forest Authority has proven to be totally incapable or unwilling to enforce Papua New Guinea’s forestry laws and as a result illegal logging and associated forest crimes remain unchallenged.
If the Prime Minister is serious about preserving our forests then he should order a full public inquiry into the FCA logging scandal and order the suspension of all log exports until the legality of individual licences has been independently verified.
If the government doesn’t act on existing illegal logging licences the forest destruction will continue and the associated money laundering is likely to result in PNG being grey listed by the international finance community with devastating impacts on the whole economy.
