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PNG forest scandal

An Australian-led logging company in Papua New Guinea has been involved in arrangements which have seen more than two million hectares of land, much of it pristine forest, taken out of customary ownership according to the ABC. Sources: ABC News

Land in PNG is almost sacred but over the past eight years it has been under assault from a land scandal that has seen 11% of the country leased under controversial Special Agricultural and Business Leases.

The leases are meant to be for small agricultural developments, not for logging.

In May last year, community outrage in PNG prompted the government to set up a Commission of Inquiry into how so much land had been leased.

According to the ABC, an Australian-led company, Independent Timbers and Stevedoring (IT&S), has been involved in arranging for more than two million hectares of land to be moved out of the hands of customary owners and in favour of landowner companies.

The ABC’s Background Briefing obtained interviews with former executives of the landowner companies who say the land was leased without permission of the customary owners.

The moves began with a plan to build a road – the Trans-Papuan Highway – from the Western Province’s administrative capital of Kiunga, 600 kilometres across the country, towards Port Moresby