A ‘LIVELIHOOD ADVISOR’ with Esso Highlands Ltd in Papua New Guinea says the company is retraining local people whose traditional means of getting food have been disrupted by the LNG Project.
Esso, which is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, has defended its efforts to mitigate negative impacts from its LNG operations particularly in the Southern Highlands where the gas project is centred.
The Hela Community Care organisation claims the construction of the LNG project has left many local families without homes or crop gardens.
But food processing specialist, Mary Maima, says she has been equipping local people with skills to adapt.
She has just finished training over 500 women from the Komo and Hides area.
“What is going strong now is the women and people are more interested in baking,” Ms Maima said.
“Because baking is something new, women are more interested when they think that they can do it as a business and they can buy the drum oven and do it for themselves. Already some of them are selling scones and cakes.”
Source: Radio New Zealand International
Mary is indeed a league of her own. She is a member of the Resettlement Implementation Team up at Hides 4.
However, this story can present a lopsided view that the affected landowners up at the PNG LNG project sites - Hides 4 and Komo areas - are being trained to lose sight of their traditional way of working the land through agriculture.
Mary is part of a team that provides short, medium and long term assistance to the affected landowners by providing them with what Mary is doing and most importantly training them also in better ways of sustainable agricultural livelihoods.
I was a member of the Resettlement Implementation Team until March 2011.
Posted by: Basil Peutalo | 04 September 2011 at 08:30 AM