Community advocacy organization ACT NOW! has criticized Prime Minister James Marape, after his address at the Green Climate Fund in Port Moresby city.
He was reported to have stated that no new forestry licenses will be issued after 16th September, the 50th anniversary of PNG’s Independence.
ACT NOW Campaign Manager, Eddie Tango, says, preventing new logging licenses is an unfruitful move with no practical impact.
“Stopping new licenses will not stop the illegal logging that is destroying our forests and will not stop the human rights abuses by foreign logging companies and their tax evasion and money laundering.”
“Existing logging licenses will still be valid for decades and the Prime Ministers promise will not stop the licenses being extended in the future.”
According to ACT NOW, at least one-third of log exports presently, are still obtained from areas that were issued logging permits in the colonial era; permits that have been repeatedly renewed without permission from current resource owners.
A lot of evidence also showed that it was a common practice that logging companies operate outside their logging permit boundaries.
A significant portion of Papua New Guinea’s log exports continues to come from FCA areas in spite of a moratorium placed on new Forest Clearing Authority (FCA) licenses more than two years ago –and well-documented evidence show that many of these licenses were fraudulently obtained under the pretense of agricultural development, while in reality being used for unlawful logging operations.
The organization argues that the PNG Forest Authority has consistently failed — or refused — to uphold the country’s forestry laws, allowing illegal logging and related forest crimes to persist without accountability.
“If the Prime Minister is serious about preserving our forests, then he should order a full public inquiry into the FCA logging scandal and order the suspension of all log exports until the legality of individual licenses has been independently verified.”
“If the government doesn’t act on existing illegal logging licenses the forest destruction will continue, and the associated money laundering is likely to result in PNG being grey listed by the international finance community with devastating impacts on the whole economy.”