While the Commission of Inquiry into Special Agriculture and Business Leases continues, revealing the layers of corruption and incompetence in the allocation of the 99-year SAB leases, the PNGExposed blog has republished the findings of an earlier Commission of Inquiry which reported in 2009 the Department of Lands was corrupt and incompetent. Its recommendations for a full Commission of Inquiry into DoL were ignored….

By Effrey Dademo

The Deep Sea Minerals Project of the SPC (Secretariat of the Pacific Community) disenfranchises indigenous people and promotes the interests of big mining companies at the expense of local communitiies.

By Martyn Namorong

A FRIEND OF MINE recently told me about a trip to Mt Hagen. You know there aren’t any mines nor is there any oil or gas exploitation in the Western Highlands Province. But he reckons he saw more 10-seaters in Hagen than they have in Tabubil.

By John Pangkatana

LANDOWNERS say there has been no meaningful consultation or engagement with them by the proponents of the Kerema/Meporo Agro Forestry Project.

This was highlighted as part of the people’s objection to Koaru Resource Owners Company Limited’s application for a Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) for Portion 323C in the Gulf Province, during the Commission of Inquiry (CoI).

By Scott Waide

Timber rights in the Nuku Maimai SABL (Portion 26C) in West Sepik have been traded for hundreds of millions of dollars on the international market as the newswire story below reveals

Pacific Plywood Acquires Harvest Rights for 65,800 Hectares of Forest in Papua New Guinea

Total Investment Involves HK$310 Million

By Scott Waide

In Madang town today my wife and I met a child – a boy of about seven – no more than a meter tall. He was selling DVDs

I don’t always buy DVDs on the streets but there was something about this kid that drew my attention and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

By Jimmy Kalebe

Landowners in the four Special Agriculture Business Lease (SABL) in East Sepik yesterday called on the provincial and National Government to revoke all SABL in the province, report the Post Courier.

In a petition drafted over the weekend by landowners from Turubu and Sausso Local Level Government and Nungwaia/Bongos, the people demanded that their land under SABL be returned to them.

By Kirk Huffman*

The Republic of Vanuatu in the southwestern Pacific is classed by foreign economists as one of the world's poorest nations. This mistaken view is only true if one believes that lack of modern money = 'poverty'.

Vanuatu consists of 83 inhabited tropical and semi-tropical islands with a current - almost completely indigenous Melanesian - population of around 230,000 which possesses twice as many languages and cultures as the whole of the (expanded) EU.