Department of Anthropology & Sociology
University of Papua New Guinea
The following piece was written in September 1990, immediately after
the Task Force on Environmental Planning in Priority Forest Areas
had made the visit to New Ireland which is described in Filer's first
article in this volume. It was eventually published (too late to
have the desired effect) in January 1991 under the title 'The Eyes
of the World Are On Lak'. It is reproduced here in its original form,
except that a few minor factual errors have been corrected, and the
occasional footnote added for clarification.
At the end of August this year, Minister for Environment and Conservation
Jim Yer Waim made a public statement that no further logging operations
would be allowed to proceed without the submission and approval of
a satisfactory Environmental Plan.
At the same time, the Minister was advised of the need to defer his
approval of one such Environmental Plan, for the Lak timber project
in southern New Ireland, for a period of at least six months. This
was to allow for a proper assessment of the conservation values of
the Lak area, and for consideration to be given to the question of
how best to promote the development of this area without threatening
these values.
But there is no shortage of political pressure on Minister Waim to
remove the last obstacle to the logging of Lak. The heat is being
turned up by the efforts of provincial politicians to retain their
seats in the upcoming elections to the New Ireland Provincial Assembly
and by the determination of a few contractors and consultants to make
a fast kina out of the few remaining areas of New Ireland which have
not so far been logged.
For these reasons alone, Lak has become a major test of the Minister's
resolve. But this particular case has a much wider significance:
for it is also a test of the Government's sincerity in pursuing the
aims and objectives of the Tropical Forest Action Plan - a programme
of action worth millions of kina in grant aid to Papua New Guinea.
The source of the Minister's advice on the Lak project was the Task
Force on Environmental Planning in Priority Forest Areas. The Task
Force was established by the round-table conference which met last
April to discuss funding and implementation of the TFAP for PNG.
This conference included representatives of the relevant national
government departments (PM's, Finance, Forests, and Environment),
all the major agencies and countries which give aid to PNG, and a
mixture of national and foreign non-government organisations concerned
with environmental issues.
It is important to remember that the origin of the TFAP lies in worldwide
concern over the environmental consequences of the degradation and
destruction of the world's rainforests. A variety of international
organisations have been engaged in the construction and implementation
of TFAPs for particular tropical countries for several years. In
the PNG case, this process was initiated by a World Bank team whose
investigations and recommendations overlapped with those of the Barnett
Inquiry, which revealed the extent of corruption and mismanagement
in our so-called 'forest industries'.
So, while all parties are agreed that the commercial exploitation
of PNG's forests has got out of control, and that several years of
concerted action are needed to reverse this situation, a big question
mark remains. Even assuming that foreign donors are willing to shoulder
the cost, does the PNG government have the political will to do what
is necessary to clean up the forestry sector? And if the political
will is not there, will the foreign donors pay for a programme which
is doomed to failure from the outset?
These questions were addressed, but not resolved, at April's conference.
Recognising that further delay could only add to the damage inflicted
on the forest environment by unscrupulous and uncontrolled logging,
the non-government organisations resolved to test the government's
commitment in the eyes of the foreign aid donors. They did this by
presenting the conference with a statement which, amongst other things,
urged that
This statement was unanimously endorsed by all those present at the
conference, including Forests Minister Karl Stack. And, in order
not to be outdone, Minister Stack surprised his audience with the
announcement of a two-year moratorium on the issue of new timber permits.
The grounds for a test of the government's commitment had now been
laid.
One of the four priority conservation areas defined by the unanimous
agreement of the April conference was Southern New Ireland. This
is the only significant part of the mainland of New Ireland which
has not so far been logged. It is also an area of outstanding natural
beauty and home to a unique combination of wildlife.
The greater part of this area is included in the Lak Timber Rights
Purchase. The government had already purchased the timber rights
before the April conference, and a 'landowner company', the Lak Development
Corporation, had already entered into negotiations with a logging
contractor, Niugini Lumber Merchants Pty.1
When announcing the proposed moratorium on the issue of new timber
permits, Minister Stack was careful to exempt four TRPs in which negotiations
had reached such an advanced stage that landowners and contractors
could not reasonably be expected to abandon their hopes and plans.
But the Lak TRP was not one of the Minister's proposed exemptions.
Indeed, having joined in the endorsement of the NGO resolution, the
Minister could not have added Lak to his list without immediately
contradicting himself.
Yet, strangely enough, by the time that the Minister came to present
his proposed moratorium to Cabinet in May, the list of exemptions
had indeed grown to include Lak. Indeed, the list of exemptions had
grown to include just about every major timber project which might
conceivably have been developed over the next two years. In other
words, the 'moratorium' had already proved itself to be an empty gesture.2
Of course, it is still true that exemption from the so-called 'moratorium'
is not the same thing as the granting of an actual timber permit.
But the Department of Forests, with or without the encouragement
of the Minister, seems to have been doing what it can to turn the
one into the other with the minimum delay. On the one hand, the Secretary
of the Department has been doing what he can to smooth over the almost
inevitable conflicts between factions within the landowning community.
And on the other hand, the Forest Research Institute, an integral
part of the Department, had no hesitation in accepting payment from
Niugini Lumber Merchants to produce an Environmental Plan for the
Lak project.
It may be argued that FRI, as a government institution, has an obvious
conflict of interest in undertaking such consultancies for private
logging companies. But this has been going on for some time without
anyone making a big fuss about it. What is more peculiar, in the
Lak case, is that FRI's Environmental Plan does not make the slightest
mention of the fact that Southern New Ireland was defined as a priority
conservation area by April's round-table conference - at which the
FRI was represented. In the Department of Forests, memories are either
very short or very flexible.
The Task Force has the job of keeping these memories alive, reminding
the participants in April's conference of what it was that they agreed
to do. That is why the Task Force has since focussed most of its
attention on Southern New Ireland. No sooner had the government accepted
its status as a priority conservation area, in full view of the foreign
aid donors whose money is supposed to pay for an improvement in PNG's
environmental management, than the Minister and Department of Forests
seem to have set about proving that the government's word is worth
nothing.
However, the work of the Task Force is not confined to keeping an
eye on the strange words and deeds of the Minister and Department
of Forests. The main function of the Task Force is to make an assessment
of the conservation value and development potential of those areas,
like Lak, where the dictates of logging and conservation are most
obviously in conflict, and, above all, to establish a process of dialogue
with the customary landowners in those areas.
To pursue these objectives, the Task Force has already received considerable
financial support from a variety of overseas sources.3
The money is mostly spent on field trips to those areas where urgent
action and dialogue is required. These trips involve representatives
of all those organisations, government and non-government, which have
something to do with the implementation of the TFAP.
The Task Force team which travelled to New Ireland in August included
representatives of three national government departments (Environment
and Conservation, Forests, Minerals and Energy), the two universities,
Wau Ecology Institute, and the Lae-based Village Development Trust,
as well as an independent documentary film crew based in Port Moresby.
The team was joined by Forestry officers from the Department of New
Ireland in Kavieng, one of whom was born in Lak.
The Task Force would have visited Lak much earlier, but the trip was
postponed for a time when it was rumoured that Lak's representative
in the Provincial Assembly was uttering unpleasant threats against
his would-be visitors. These rumours may have been exaggerated,
but they show that the whole issue of logging in southern New Ireland
is not simply a case of hypocrisy in the Department of Forests, but
goes to the heart of provincial politics.
If Minister Stack were asked to justify his inconsistent attitude
towards the prospect of logging in southern New Ireland, then he would
probably repeat a statement which he made to the April conference,
that his own actions are partly dictated by the 'enormous pressure'
which local landowners and their leaders exert upon him to grant timber
permits over their areas. Cynical observers may take this statement
with a pinch of salt, but it does contain an important element of
truth, and one which is often overlooked by environmental lobbyists
from countries like Australia and the United States.
The truth is that the majority of local landowners, especially in
the more backward parts of the country, will say that they want 'development'
more than they want conservation, and that they don't want conservation
if it means they cannot have 'development'. On the basis of this
simple truth, it is not at all difficult for national and provincial
politicians to make cosy deals with foreign logging companies.
More such deals have been made in New Ireland than in any other province,
and New Ireland politics has long since become a game of hide-and-seek
between the trees.
This is why Judge Barnett, during his Commission of Inquiry into Aspects
of the Forestry Industry, chose New Ireland for his case study of
the relationship between timber exploitation and political corruption
at the provincial level. (The results of this case study are contained
in the four volumes of Barnett's fourth Interim Report, extracts from
which were published in last year's Times.)
Judge Barnett's investigations were mainly directed to events which
took place up to the end of 1986, when Robert Seeto and the People's
Progress Party held the reins of power in the New Ireland Provincial
Government - and Mr Seeto's reputation was certainly not enhanced
by the judge's findings. It seemed, at one stage, as if the MA-Pangu
coalition which came to power in 1987 seriously intended to remove
the smell of corruption which arose from the dealings of its predecessors.
How else could one interpret the self-imposed moratorium on the issue
of new timber permits?4
But old habits die hard, and money talks a lot louder than political
labels. One sign of this has been the imprisonment of former national
MP Gerard Sigulogo - himself an MA supporter - for misdeeds committed
in the period before his election in 1987. And while Mr Sigulogo's
behaviour has presumably been modified by his imprisonment, nearly
all the other individuals whose actions were condemned or criticised
by the Commission of Inquiry have carried on regardless. Not just
the politicians, of whatever party, but the lawyers, bureaucrats and
businessmen who help them to consume the proceeds of deforestation.
The so-called moratorium has been forgotten, while the drive to finish
the job of plundering the forests of New Ireland has been intensified
by the prospect of provincial elections at the end of this year.
The Province is back to 'business as usual'. Logs make money, money
wins votes. The logic is inescapable. So provincial politicians
are falling over each other to secure timber permits for any portions
of their own electorates which have not so far been penetrated by
the bulldozers of the logging companies (and even some which are now
entering their second round of degradation).
Even Premier Pedi Anis, once known as a conservationist, seems to
have thrown his weight behind a dubious logging project in his own
electorate of West Lavongai (New Hanover), to which the Task Force
made a brief visit before moving to the other end of the Province.
And even on Lihir Island, where the prospect of a gold mine ought
to satisfy the craving for development, the infamous Santa Investments
has obtained significant political support for the declaration of
an LFA.5
In the Lak electorate, it is clear that the sitting member, Provincial
Finance Minister Ezekiel Waisale, believes his own chances of being
re-elected depend on his ability to gain approval of the timber permit,
for this was the promise on which he was elected last time round.
And Mr Waisale is nobody's fool.
Nor is George Yong, the Malaysian businessman who proposes to harvest
and export Lak's logs. Niugini Lumber Merchants is one of a number
of companies controlled by Mr Yong which, between them, now hold a
substantial share of the logging and marketing contracts in the province.
Yong is new to the New Ireland logging game, but has quickly established
himself as a key player, having taken taken over several of the contracts
(like Konos and East Kaut) previously held by Bruce Tsang, whose activities
warranted a whole volume of Judge Barnett's Interim Report. And in
view of the substantial quantities of time and money which Yong has
already invested in the 'development' of the Lak timber resource,
he will not be keen to abandon his designs, whatever the outcome of
the forthcoming elections.
Needless to say, Mr Yong is not a conservationist. Mr Waisale, a
former Provincial Planner, privately concedes that unscrupulous logging
cannot produce sustainable development, but says that his hands are
tied by the demands of his constituency. His heart (he says) is in
the right place but, being a politician, he must always think about
his chances in the next election. Otherwise, to use his own words,
he will be knifed in the back.
If it is true that the vast majority of New Irelanders believe that
logging equals development, and is therefore a good thing in itself,
there is surely little chance of preventing, or even controlling,
this activity. Indeed, it could be argued that 'corruption' is the
natural outcome of a battle between bureaucratic regulation and popular
impatience.
But the strange thing about New Ireland, in comparison with many other
parts of the country, is that it is very hard to tell what anyone
really thinks about anything. To put it crudely, New Ireland is a
place where everyone claims to be acting on behalf of someone else,
where no-one really trusts anyone else to act on their behalf, but
no-one is prepared to say so publicly, for fear of being disrespectful.
New Irelanders excel in the virtue of politeness, but the virtue
of politeness can easily turn into the vice of dishonesty.
This has become a major problem for the Task Force, because the Task
Force must try to assess the real desires, attitudes and beliefs of
both the ordinary villagers and their various leaders at the same
time that it tries to persuade these people that logging is really
not the best way to achieve sustainable development. In New Ireland,
the problem is compounded by the political culture of the province,
and yet there is a much more pressing need for a solution.
On the 29th of August, the Task Force on Environmental Planning in
Priority Forest Areas finally descended upon the people of Lak. Four
members of the Task Force (including myself) were to spend the greater
part of their time in discussions with the local landowners. Our
main aim was to explain the part which southern New Ireland might
play in the development of a national conservation strategy, to warn
against the hazards of uncontrolled logging in the Lak Timber Rights
Purchase, and to discuss the construction of an internationally-funded
'benefit package' which might help to persuade the landowners to sacrifice
the short-term cash benefits of such logging.
The original plan was to land on Lambom Island, at the southern tip
of the New Ireland mainland, and then travel by boat to villages along
the eastern coast of the Lak Electorate until we finally connected
with the road back to Namatanai. However, our helicopter was obliged
to retreat from Lambom by a spell of bad weather, and we made our
first landing in Matkamlagir village - which is the home of the provincial
Member and Minister for Finance, Ezekiel Waisale, who was there to
welcome us in person. The first public meeting was held that night
beneath his house, as the rain poured down around it. The weather
improved during the conduct of two further meetings - at Silur Patrol
Post and Morukon village - which were attended by most of the village
leaders from that part of the electorate.
Our conservationist friends in the developed world sometimes seem
to imagine that Papua New Guinean villagers resemble the Indians of
the Amazon rainforest - people living in simple harmony with Mother
Nature, for whom 'development' is a menace imposed by outsiders.
If these people went to Lak, they would be in for a big shock. It
would probably be difficult to find another place in PNG where local
landowners were more insistent on the need to have their trees cut
down as soon as possible!
To understand why this is so, one must appreciate that the people
of Lak believe they are living in the least developed area of their
province, if not the country as a whole. Of course, they are not
alone in this belief, but they do have good cause to complain. The
small and scattered population of the electorate - perhaps 2000 in
all - has not merited a high priority in the provision of government
services. The rugged coastline, cut by innumerable streams and rivers,
might add to the attractions of a World Heritage Area, but it has
also prevented the construction of a reliable road link with the rest
of the province. In the past, the villagers obtained a small and
irregular cash income by shipping their copra to Rabaul - if and when
a boat was available. Nowadays the price of copra will not cover
the cost of the transport - so they don't bother. The people's income
now consists primarily of handouts and remittances from individuals
who work outside the area - including those individuals whose handouts
are directly related to the prospect of logging.
The Tropical Forest Action Plan for Papua New Guinea recognises that
the fact of customary land tenure and the problem of 'landowner awareness'
are both absolutely crucial to the success of any strategy for managing
the forest resources of this country for the real benefit of future
generations, in accordance with the fourth goal of the national Constitution.
The problem of landowner awareness in Lak is that the landowners
have long believed, or have been led to believe, that logging was
their one and only way of escaping what the old men of Matkamlagir
constantly called the 'suffering' of their backwardness. They want
their 'ten toea' and they want it now.
The royalties from the proposed logging operation would certainly
be worth a good deal more than ten toea to each of the landowners
whose trees are cut down. There is no denying that. The landowners
also expect to receive a whole range of infrastructural benefits -
which, as usual, are unlikely to materialise because the landowner
company will not have the financial and managerial capacity to deliver
them. We might have spent a lot of time attempting to explain the
pitfalls of the draft Timber Permit granted to the landowner company,
or the proposed Logging and Marketing Agreement between the landowner
company and the logging contractors. But time was short - and so
was the patience of our audience. Ten toea is still ten toea.
In a situation where logging and logging alone has long been the dream
of the landowners, the problem of landowner awareness is not going
to be solved by lectures on the legal, financial and managerial problems
of the logging industry. Our problem was to find the most powerful
images, the tok piksa, with which to convey the simple message that
there really is another way, another 'road', apart from logging, by
which the people of Lak can get their ten toea, and even their hundreds
of kina, without degrading their environment.
The image of the 'two roads' was our starting point. (There are some
parts of PNG in which this might have been a mistake, because the
idea of a 'second road' is associated with a history of cargo cult
activity, but this association was not likely to be made in Lak.)
The road called logging is (perhaps) the road to hell - at least
it is the wide, straight road (if not exactly paved with good intentions)
and those who travel along it will find that their progress is cut
short by fallen trees. The other road is the long and winding one,
where the long-term benefits are greater, but so are the short-term
sacrifices. The signpost to this road is the 'package' which the
Task Force has been authorised to offer to the landowners - and this
must still be a form of development, even if it needs a lot of planning
and a good deal of hard work.
The Bible was certainly a better source of inspiration to our efforts
than the Constitution, not just because the landowners are more familiar
with it, but also because it is full of parables rather than abstract
principles. My colleagues seized on illustrations which ranged from
Abraham and Lot to the Prodigal Son, but I believe that our most powerful
weapon was the idea that the poor man could make his way through the
eye of the needle - that the last could be the first.
In this case, we could tell the landowners that they could indeed
be the last people in New Ireland to choose logging as a form of development;
but they could also be the first people in New Ireland, and in Papua
New Guinea, to choose the other road. And if they were the first
to choose that other road, then they would be the first to reap the
benefits provided by the international community. This was not just
their choice, it was their chance.
Some of our other experiments in landowner awareness were not so successful.
For example, we suggested that future generations of landowners might
well regard the decision to sell the forest to an Asian logging company
in the same way that the present generation regards the earlier sale
of land to European colonisers for the price of an axe or a piece
of cloth. But this suggestion did not excite much comment from our
audience, possibly because they thought the earlier deal had not been
a bad one, and if that is true, then it only goes to show how the
economic backwardness of the area has limited the expectations of
its inhabitants - and thus made them all the more vulnerable to the
promises of the loggers.
Nor was it easy to convince the landowners that our own promise of
another road was anything more than hot air. One member of our team
tried to overcome this barrier by talking about the rare birdwing
butterfly, which, according to his estimate, could be captured and
sold for fifty kina a piece on the world market. In order to reinforce
the point, he captured one himself and carried it from one meeting
to another, using it as an illustration of the potential economic
value of the natural environment which we wish to preserve. The risk
in this strategy is that talk about the price of binatang na bataplai
can easily be turned into a joke - and the landowners in Lak are in
no mood for joking about economic development.
But that particular butterfly was the only visible and concrete thing
we had to offer. The rest was talk, and could mean nothing, as the
local people constantly reminded us. After all, 'the government',
with which we were identified, has made so many promises before, but
how many of these have been kept? We could of course reply that Mr
Yong, the Malaysian businessman who proposes to 'develop' the area,
has also made many promises, and these too might not be kept. We
could also point out that Mr Yong had more reason to deceive the people
than we did, because he stood to make a profit out of his promises,
whereas we did not. But Mr Yong has already provided benefits which
are more tangible than the sight of a butterfly and a lot of talk
about 'another road' - and we have not.
It is still very hard for us to assess the outcome of our first round
of discussions with the people of Lak. They were interested, to be
sure, but they were not convinced by what we had to say. At the same
time, the relationship between their public statements and the views
of their provincial member, Mr Waisale, not to mention those of Mr
Yong, became increasingly mysterious as we proceeded through the area.
As one meeting succeeded another, the difficulty of deciding who
it was that we were trying to convince, and what they really thought
of what we had to say, was measured by the length of the prayers which
two members of the team offered to God before they spoke to the public.
In our first meeting, sheltering from the rain underneath Mr Waisale's
house in Matkamlagir, the best that we could get from the village
elders was a confession that their brains were being 'stretched' by
what we had to say. Otherwise they could only speak of their 'suffering',
their need for the 'ten toea', and their absolute determination to
sell their logs in order to get it. It was Mr Waisale himself who
put forward the 'compromise' - that we suggest a way of dividing his
electorate into areas which can be logged and areas in which the 'other
road' can be pursued. But Mr Waisale still maintained that any decision
would rest in the hands of his electors, the people 'who pull the
strings on the backs of us leaders'. And Mr Waisale warned that we
would face much greater opposition in our next two meetings - at Silur
and Morukon - where he would not be present to suggest this compromise.
Strangely enough, this was not the case. In our next two meetings
the opposition was weaker, the landowners more divided in their opinions,
the compromise more readily acceptable. And by the time that we got
to Morukon village, we even found that some landowners were prepared
to speak out against the logging proposal and take sides with us from
the outset.
How was this so? Was it because news of the 'compromise' had preceded
our arrival? Or because Mr Waisale had less influence with the landowners
outside his own village? Or because the people in the north of the
electorate were not so backward, not so desperate for their ten toea?
Or because they already knew that the proposed logging operation
would bring them much less in the way of benefits than it would bring
to the people of Matkamlagir?
We do not know the answer to these questions. We do know that the
meeting in Morukon village was attended by one of Mr Yong's agents
(a gentleman from Madang) because we gave him a lift back to the Danfu
logging camp on our way back to Namatanai. But we do not know what
Mr Yong intends to do with his information. And we do not know the
current state of 'landowner awareness' in Lak.
Now is a time of difficult decisions - for Mr Waisale, who wants to
be re-elected to his seat in the provincial assembly, for Minister
Waim, who has to decide what to do with the Environmental Plan for
the Lak timber project, for the national government as a whole, which
must decide whether it is serious about the Tropical Forest Action
Plan, for the Lak landowners, who are presumably pondering the message
of the Task Force, and for the Task Force itself, which still has
the task of devising an alternative development strategy for the area,
in the hope that it will not be too late.
There is no doubt that an alternative exists. It exists not just
because the area has the potential for other forms of development
- whether it be tourism, butterfly farming, walkabout sawmilling,
or whatever - but because the international community is prepared
to pay the price of ensuring that this development takes place, through
the so-called 'benefit package', in order to achieve the goal of preserving
the rainforest from the destructive attention of the export logging
industry. And if the people of Lak really could seize their chance
to be the first people in Papua New Guinea to take this alternative
road, then they would also be the first to receive the financial support
of the international community.
But the planning and implementation of this alternative is something
which will take time. And time is not on our side. The people of
Lak would rather have ten toea tomorrow than ten kina in a year's
time. And Mr Waisale would rather be re-elected at the end of this
year than wait his turn until the next provincial election in 1993.6
In order to secure the long-term development of the Lak area, the
Task Force will need to find ways of presenting enough short-term
benefits to the Lak landowners to make them think twice about the
short-term benefits of logging, which are now deeply embedded in their
minds.
While the people of Lak are still absorbing our message, the film-makers
who accompanied the Task Force to New Ireland are busily editing their
footage into a programme which they are confident of networking to
TV audiences in Australia and even the United States.7
The film will make a visual comparison between the destructive impact
of logging in other parts of New Ireland and the insistence of the
Lak landowners, in their discussions with the Task Force, that they
want to experience this impact for themselves, because they think
that it will mean 'development'.
Now for the first time the eyes of the world will truly be focussed
on this otherwise forgotten part of Papua New Guinea. It will be
sadly ironic if the film has to end with the message that logging
of Lak's rainforest will be proceeding after all, that the people
of Lak have passed up their one big chance, and that the Task Force
was unable to convince them to take another road. Let us hope there
is still time.