Immiserating a people: the Bewani logging scandal

TREVOR FREESTONE

LOGGING IN THE VANIMO GREEN RIVER region of the West Sepik province in Papua New Guinea has shown a complete disregard for the rights or welfare of the villagers.

In 1990 logging rights were sold to a Malaysian logging company for an unknown sum. The extraction was supervised by the Forest Authority under the direction of then forestry minister, now deputy prime minister, Belden Namah.

It has been demonstrated that 70% of this logging was illegal. It is claimed that only 15% of timber cut down actually makes its way to Vanimo, most being used to fill in swamps and build bridges.

The local people have stated that, even though they were uneducated and unable to read or write Pidgin, they were forced to sign legal documents in English which they had no idea meant that they were signing away their rights to their timber.

They were employed on very low wages to help log timber in their traditionally owned forests. Once their timber had been harvested they were sacked.

The people were encouraged to buy their food and other supplies from the company’s supermarket in Vanimo, where exorbitant prices were charged.

They needed to buy these supplies because the logging operation had destroyed their traditional sources of food within the rainforest.

In spite of the Forest Authority claiming that logging companies offer training and safety equipment for chainsaw operators, evidence clearly shows this is untrue. One can see video evidence of villagers working as chainsaw operators with no safety equipment. Not even boots.

The claim that they have been trained in the correct method of felling timber is also incorrect. Anyone who knows how to fell a large tree would be horrified watching them.

The pristine rainforest has not only been destroyed; the rivers and creeks have been so polluted that the local villagers put their lives at risk whenever they wash or drink the water.

Diarrhoea and cholera are now common illnesses. Video evidence shows machinery being washed and the runoff going into the river system. Lack of toilet facilities also means that waste finds its way into creeks and rivers.

Now that the forest has been destroyed, plans are underway to create oil palm plantations – an economic activity of dubious benefit to the local people.

The villagers have stated they are now far worse off than they have ever been and no longer have their beautiful rainforest to supply them with sago and other foods.

I know hindsight is useless but it is sad to know that if the rainforest had been left alone the villagers could in today’s world receive millions of dollars under various carbon trading schemes.

Comments

[Peter Kranz]

Michael - great detective work. And from one of the best films ever made (IMHO), Terence Malik's masterpiece "The Thin Red Line".

Also has a most amazing musical score featuring the Melanesian Choirs and the choir of All Saints Honiara.

Watch it and weep.

[Michael Lorenz]

From the same place... :-)

Love. Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us? No war can put it out, conquer it. I was a prisoner. You set me free.

[Peter Kranz]

This quote comes to mind...

"This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night? "

Guess where it's from.

[Peter Kranz]

Palm oil plantations are one of the biggest scams in the pseudo-'greenie' movement. Just another opportunity for carbon cowboys to take the money and run.

They are cutting down ancient, productive, pristine rainforest which has supported local communities for millennia, and replacing this with a highly-controlled monoculture whose only product is of little use to local people and is exported to western companies to make soap and cosmetics.

You can't eat soap, and lose control of your land. But the cowboys can claim carbon credits for this!

By contrast one of my PNG cousins is an environmental scientist working for a big mining project. They are working hard to replant forests areas destroyed by the mining with young native rainforest plants and trees.

Not perfect, but at least they are thinking about the long-term future of impacted communities.

[David Wall]

It makes me so sad to read this sorry account of the destruction of the beautiful rainforests in the West Sepik, and the harm this has done to the villagers.

Foreign logging companies and their local collaborators should be held to account for this, but of course, they never will be, for it's my bet that they would be found in the corridors of power in Kuala Lumpur or Port Moresby living the 'good' life on their ill-gotten spoils.

[Trevor Freestone.]

Maybe AusAID should consider funding a legal campaign on behalf of the villagers who have neither the funds nor the expertise to fight the establishment.

Papua New Guinean lawyers such as Lynette Baratai- Pokas an environmental & human rights lawyer need all the help they can get.

I believe that many people are reluctant to speak out because they have either been bribed or are afraid of being threatened and this has to stop or PNG will be completely destroyed.

I can understand why villagers are very reluctant to put their mark on voting papers or indeed any document as they no longer trust anything put before them.