Logging ship, Turubu Bay, East Sepik (taken from cover image of 'The FCA Logging Scandal' report). Photo: Oakland Institute
New Guinea Island is home to one of the world's most important remaining stands of tropical rainforest.
However, for many years, it has been under assault by illegal loggers and a community advocacy organisation in Papua New Guinea is calling for action to stop it.
ACT NOW, with Australian watchdog Jubilee Australia, has produced a report called The FCA Logging Scandal, which details the abuse of a PNG government scheme aimed at encouraging the clearance of small patches of forest for agriculture.
Prime Minister James Marape, in his inaugural address to the national parliament on 9 August 2022, stated that "we are committed to stopping all round log exports by 2025".
"We can no longer tolerate this wrongdoing happening for a very long time under our noses," Marape said.
"We are also exploring state market options for logs that are earmarked for the state, which will give us the volume to move into downstream processing. This level of intervention is likely to also shine a spotlight on the challenges of the sector and what needs to happen to it, to stimulate growth."
However, that promise has yet to be fulfilled.
RNZ Pacific spoke with ACT NOW campaign manager Eddie Tanago.
PNG logging Photo: Papua New Guinea Forest Industry Association
(This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity).
Eddie Tanago: These aren't new issues. We've been talking about these issues. The recent being the Forest Clearing Authority (FCA), which has been subject to abuse for quite a long time now, and it accounts for a third of total log exports coming out from Papua New Guinea.
The concerns have been raised numerous times, and it's quite frustrating that there's really nothing tangible done to address it. The recent report that we had launched actually demands for action, not only by PNG authorities, but by overseas agencies, or those that are involved in the supply chain, and those who actually buying from Papua New Guinea.
Ninety percent of exports from Papua New Guinea go to China, it's right that China also acts on ensuring compliance from the sources that it is buying the logs from, and abuses and the issues of illegal logging, human rights abuse, and the harm to the environment has been in existence for as long as Papua New Guinea has been a state and it is still an issue.
Don Wiseman: Yes, let's look at these. So these Forest Clearance Authorities, they're there to primarily encourage agriculture, but that often doesn't happen.
ET: Exactly, and what has been uncovered in this recently published report, is that, FCAs is meant for clearance for agriculture or other small clearing or land use, but the evidence that we have collected in the series of reports that we have documented, and the current one shows that logging has been happening, and we're talking about large scale forest clearance.
We see that in normal logging operations and under different type of licence. For this case, we have seen logging companies who are in the excuse of doing agriculture, taking up huge volumes of logs. And logs worth millions have been shipped out or exported. This is a concern. It's a direct breach of the terms of the licence.
DW: When they go into an area, they're taking a far bigger area than would ever be required for whatever agricultural project they're doing.
ET: We have reports and evidence that shows that logging is actually happening in large scale. Not only that, but we have satellite imagery that shows that logging are actually happening beyond the boundaries that it's supposed to happen.
We have what's written on the paper. It's different to what's actually happening on the ground. And as I said, this is very concerning.
We have the PNG Forest Authority and the board having announced a moratorium and promises to have the audit reports on the FCA is audited and have a report published. And this is like two years ago, this hasn't happened.
DW: So no moratorium?
ET: There is an announced moratorium. There's a new one being announced.
As it is now we are not able to verify if that really has existed, because, you know, two years ago they promised an audit, and the audit report would have been made public.
We don't have that report, or it's not even publicly available that we have cited.
DW: Who do you blame? Who do you blame for these, these failings?
ET: The regulatory authority, which is the PNG Forest Aauthority, it is not able to handle these issues.
While we are not able to handle these kind of issues, logs have been shipped out from these areas. We have people's rights who have been suppressed, or we have logs that are taken out illegally.
We have the proceeds from these logs that are going out and sold in the markets. So this whole lot of issues that are still outstanding while logging is being allowed to continue under this FCAs.
DW: You've put out a report and you've made some recommendations. What do you want to see happen?
ET: As I said earlier on, the report is out there, and this is an issue that's not only for Papua New Guinea and not only for PNG Forest Authority, but those in the whole picture.
We had a set of recommendations that accompany the report, and the number one is that we want the government to suspend all log exports from the FCA series until an independent, transparent and public inquiry is held to look into the legality of these existing FCAs.
And number two is that we want the National Forest Board to extend the moratorium on the new FCAs until a government inquiry has been conducted, [and] recommendations have been implemented. But also we wanted audit reports publicly made available.
We also want the police fraud in the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, and Interpol, to identify the criminal laws that may have been broken in the submission and the approval of the fraudulent FCA projects.
Commercial banks also play an important part in this transaction or in this in this process.
We also want the commercial banks to identify any customers or logging companies that are linked to FCA logging operations. And we will want a full compliance with all anti-money laundering legislation and the bank environmental social responsibilities are complied with.
DW: You've called for overseas timber buyers to be a whole lot more vigilant. How would they know - if the wood goes to China and then, I guess, comes out to Western countries as furniture and whatever. How would you know?
ET: That's a very good question, and that is also a very big hindrance.
There has to be some kind of system put in place, where it's traceable when it goes to jurisdictions like China. There has to be some kind of message put in place between Papua New Guinea, and maybe China, to ensure that there's transparency. So the buyer, or the users of the end products, know exactly the sources the timbers are coming from and where people's rights are not being infringed, where people are not being made landless, where people are not being deprived of their rights to have access to the environment and their land.
These kind of things have to be put in place properly, so that those in the supply and the demand chain, and the end users, are able to trace back to the sources of timber to ensure that people's rights are not infringed.
