Jemima Garrett

the australian

Robber barrens of the logging world

PAPUA New Guinea’s Barnett Inquiry into corruption in the logging industry produced a world-class report.

It is also the one and only detailed account of the often secretive operations of the large logging companies which operate throughout Asia and which, increasingly, are moving into the Pacific Islands.

On corporate operations in PNG’s New Ireland province Justice Barnett said: ‘lt would be fair to say, of some of the companies, that they are now roaming the countryside with the self-assurance of robber barons; bribing politicians and leaders, creating social disharmony and ignoring laws in order to gain access to, and rip out, and export the last remnants of the province’s valuable timber.

These companies are fooling the landowners and making use of corrupt, gullible, and unthinking politicians. It downgrades Papua New Guinea’s sovereign status that such rapacious foreign exploitation has been allowed to continue with such devastating effects to the social and physical environment, and with so few positive benefits.”

By the end of the Inquiry companies from Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Australia and elsewhere stood accused of corrupting politicians and officials, circumventing Papua New Guinea tax laws, undervaluing and misdeclaring the species of logs they were taking and failing to live up to their commitments to landowners. Barnett found not one company investigated had a satisfactory record of performing the conditions of its operation.

At the same time landowners became increasingly angry about environmental destruction. Big companies were clear felling forests and leaving water supplies silted up and undrinkable. In some cases villages and food gardens were bulldozed while promised amenities such as "new houses, churches and schools failed to materialise.

It’ B a familiar story in many areas which have suffered the predations of large industrial logging companies. And one w hich needs to be tackled now if the forests, with their valuable and uniques species, are to survive into the future.

Papua New Guinea provides an object lesson in just how difficult it can be to bring these companies to heel.

Despite a two-year moratorium on logging intended to give the government time to take stock of the country’s remaining forest resources and the 67 million Kina donated tC> u* u ® an^’s PNG Tropical Forests Action Plan (which was designed to protect the forests), logging continues apace. \ ast tracts ol iorest have been exempted from the

moratorium. In many cases companies criticised by Barnett are returning continuing their operations unchanged.

It is now becoming clear these giant corporations are simply too big and too powerful for small national governments.

The continuing abuses by logging companies have prompted landowner protests and blockades. PNG’s Na tional Alliance of Non-Government Organisations, a body which includes all major national environment and develop ment groups and the Melanesian Council of Churches has re-iterated its call for a ban on all export logging.

In many quarters there is a now growing feeling that only alternative forms of timber cutting and alternative uses of the forest are likely to save the resource and ensure its future economic benefits accrue to landowners and national governments.

One very promising alternative is the Walkabout sawmill, a small mill which can be carried into the forest by four men.

Its success lies in the fact that it can be owned and controlled by landowners themselves and, because it requires no roads or heavy machinery, it avoids what is usually the most damaging part of tropical forestry.

Other commercial alternatives to large scale industrial Joggmg include farming of rattan palms followed by production and export of rattan furniture, fruit and nut farming or tourism all activities which can go hand in hand with the highly selective Walkabout-style timber cutting.

Although alternative uses of the forest have been shown to be cost effective, enormous political clout will be needed to control the logging companies.

Most are part of huge Asian conglomerates with profits and power far in excess of individual small island nations. As was the case with the Asian driftnet fishing fleet, the job of bringing them to book may be best handled by a regional institution which has the backing of the 15 Nation South Pacific Forum.

Just as the Forum Fisheries Agency under Philipp Muller’s able leadership was able to save the albacore tuna from extinction so a regional body like the Noumea-based SPREP (the South Pacific Regional Environment Program) may be able to halt the destruction by industrial logging companies.

Regional institutions of this sort have the advantage of being less vulnerable to corruption and more able to exert a level of diplomatic pressure which cannot be ignored.

Any moves by island nations are likely to find support within the wealthy timber importing countries.

Western governments are facing increasing domestic pressure to take action to stop the devastation of tropical forests.

This month, for instance, Australia will consider a ban on the import of tropical timber which has not been sustainably produced.

If adopted this may require significant changes in Fiji and Solomon Islands. It would also open up lucrative new markets for the more than 300 Walkabout producers cutting their own logs in PNG. n