Development’s

alternative approach

By Liz Thompson

There are an ever-increasing number of Non Government Organisations operating around the world. These organisations are independent of govern ment funding and generally concerned with environmental and humanitarian issues. In Papua New Guinea, many of the NGO groups concentrate on minimising resource exploitation by large multi national companies which rarely bring a profit to local landowners. Most NGO’s are concerned with finding ways to com municate ideas to grassroots communities in order to better equip them to handle new experiences. Villagers tell stories of

being approached by logging and mining

companies with persuasive offers of money and facilities which often never appear. NGO’s are trying to guard against

this problem using theatre and running

workshops in remote areas, designed to raise awareness and equip people to better deal with the new influences. NGO groups have been major proponents of alternative economic sources to logging, encouraging non-timber forest product industries. Vincent Manukayasi, who is the national co-ordinator for the Papua New Guinea Trust, an NGO, would go even fur ther. He argues that any form of develop ment is counter-productive and the real answer is to encourage greater pride in traditional culture and values. Manukayasi argues that Papua New Guineans, “have been brought up to believe that what they can buy in the shops from outside is better than what they themselves can produce.

Fresh fish caught in the sea is not as good as canned fish imported from Japan.”

Manukayasi points to what he calls a ‘cargo mentality’ as the problem, “if it comes from outside by plane or boat it has more value than if it is handpicked and taken across to the next building and packed, then it has no value at all. This is the whole development scenario here, peo ple have been led to believe that what we have ourselves has no value at all. We are told that we should adopt the western eco nomic systems, we should adopt their political, social and religious systems because our system has no value. For so long, people have been told this over and over again that, to a certain extent, they do not want to talk about what we can do our selves, but that somebody else does it and we can get it from them. This is the cargo cult”.

Manukayasi believes people should be given information which encourages them to take pride in their own traditions, so that the emphasis is no longer and for him the question is not “How should development take place?” but, “Should it take place at all”? The continuous pressure to develop is, in his opinion, the wrong approach.

Instead, he advocates a return to tradition al values. The problem with Papua New Guinea society now he reflects, is “you either have money and you are somebody or you have no money and everybody looks down on you. That was not the way things used to be. Before, everything we wanted we did ourselves, we harvested ourselves, we ate and cooked ourselves.

Now people ask, “Why should I eat fish if I can eat something that has been pro duced in Japan,” people equate Japan with a rich country which has a lot of money, so they think if I eat Japanese tinned fish I

will get some of their j wealth, I will be somebody. We go overboard to sell our logs and resources so that we can get money and buy canned fish and rice imported from other countries”. The main problem he insists, is the education sys tem. According to Manukayasi, as soon as a child goes to school they leam to speak English and are taught in English, “the stories they read are about people in towns who eat meat pies and drink coca-cola go to cinemas and drive cars. Imagine this, a child way up in the mountains who has never seen a car and reads about all this.”

Throughout the whole education process Manukayasi argues that a child is not only learning to read and write but intrinsically learning about white western culture and western development values. There is no doubt that many of these claims are rele vant though the argument Manukayasi presents is considered inappropriate by a number of other NGO organisations who reject his views as romantic and failing to address the real issues. Brian Brant, a lawyer at the Individual Community Rights Advocacy Forum (ICRAF), also an NGO, does not believe this “return to tra dition” approach is a realistic option.

ICRAF have in the last few years been responsible for helping landowners estab lish better deals in logging and mining operations and have been involved in the struggle by OK Tedi land owners to take BHP to court. He argues that the desire to create what he calls “encapsulated soci eties” which are culturally independent is problematic. Brant believes that given the choice the majority of Papua New Guineans want development and that a return to traditional ways of living is sim

ply not realistic. Recently, working with communities in the Hunstein Ranges in an attempt to stop a large scale logging venhire the people reportedly told him, “We want change, we want to send our children to vocational schools and high schools, we need money and either you give us some alternative or we will bring in the loggers.” Brant argues that development is inevitable but must be done in a sustainable manner, controlled and managed by the landowners themselves. He encourages the idea of non timber forest products and small scale logging using work about sawmills, small saw mills which can be carried into the forest and used to cut selected trees. In the Hunstein the people themselves asked for crow bars and shovels and sieves he tells me, “ so

landowners complain that NGO’s suggest things like butterfly farming but don’t help set them up adequately and the community are left unsure how to manage the project.

They say that in the face of these problems logging often seems easier and faster.

Nikhil Sacran, who is a resource econ omist working for the United Nations Development Project in Papua New Guinea insists that the vast majority of Papua New Guineans are keen to develop.

He is critical of the attempt to establish alternative sources of income, stating, “We found that there is a lot of talk about alter natives but a lot of it is just hype and fails to look at the markets or structural imped iments. We have looked at many of the alternatives and thought many unrealistic.

The idea that there would be a market in

water, health services, schools for their children. “It is very hard”, says Bruce Jeffries, project manager of Bio-Diversity Conservation and Resource Management Project, “ to find people who are not touched by the cash economy and that is the reality of what we are dealing with”.

There are many people working towards the goal of sustainable develop ment, not only in Papua New Guinea but around the world. In Papua New Guinea the amount of discussion amongst NGO’s about establishing sustainable develop ment ventures has not been equalled with projects that are up and running. The prob lems which have hindered the establishing of small business ventures are many, some of the most significant being poor infra structure, inadequate transportation facili-

Papua New Guineans have been brought up to believe that what they can buy in the shops is better than what they can produce. Fresh fish caught in the sea is not as good as canned fish imported from Japan.”

that they could go gold panning because they believe they have gold in their rivers.

They have asked for more work about sawmills because they think they need five to produce the money they require to pay their school fees and operate their out boards.” Brant does not believe it is possi ble to create a sustainable selective logging industry in Papua New Guinea because he argues the government does not have the ability to regulate it and landowners are getting only a fraction of the profits in return. Instead, he advocates the develop ment of alternative industries such as galup nut collection, cassowary and crocodile farming and eco-tourism. The idea of pro moting alternative industries to large scale logging and mining are probably the most common approach of NGO’s in Papua New Guinea. However, these ideas have been discussed for many years. The main reason for this is that many remote com munities suffer from a very poor trans portation infrastructure and in most places it is only possible to fly goods out. This makes the process extremely expensive and often financially enviable. Internal management has also been a problem.

eco-tourism for example, the reality is there is a very, very small number of tourists in Papua New Guinea. Another problem is that markets are easily saturat ed, Papua New Guinea exports Kina 300,000 worth of insects annually but the market is becoming saturated and most insect farming agencies are diversifying into live pupae. Promoters of alternative business development do not have a hard nosed business approach to alternatives only an enormous wish list.” Sacran blames the problem on people failing to look at the market when trying to establish new, sustainable industries. He blames promoters of alternative industries for the poor record so far, arguing they have focused too much on the supply side and not researched the market place adequate ly. There is no doubt that large scale log ging as it has been conducted in Papua New Guinea cannot be sustained, however many NGO organisations have talked long and hard about economic alternatives.

And despite Manukayasi’s view, the reality does appear to be that the majority of Papua New Guineans want development to take place. They want roads, clean

ties, communications and management training. Loan facilities have not been made available, nor educational pro grammes which train people to set up and manage small businesses. The only sug gestion made by the government has been the Land Registration Act, where land owners can register their land and take out a loan against it.

At the moment NGO’s are fighting a hard and uphill battle against the might of multi-nationals and the desires of commu nities who feel they are missing out on development and want to make money quickly. As logging and mining continue on a grand scale in Papua New Guinea, landowners continue to reap few of the profits and the desperate need for alterna tives doesn’t go away. There is little doubt things need to happen faster and more effectively. Most importantly transporta tion facilities need to be improved and NGO’s need to be better funded in order to carry through with training projects which are essential if villagers are to set up, man age and maintain alternative, small scale industries. ■