In East New Britain, Papua, New Guinea, indigenous people are being intimidated for protesting a massive land grab that is taking place. Indigenous people there still retain control over their land, and only 3 percent of the country is controlled by government or private interests, until recent leases that assign almost 20 percent of the remaining forests to agriculture leases.
The government has taken a controversial role in allowing more "Special-purpose Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs), where the government leases the land, and then sub-lets it to corporations. In recent months, groups have called for inquiry, and an investigation can determine if in fact these leases facilitated by the government are in fact just an avenue to allow logging and agriculture companies access to one of the largest remaining expanse of rainforest in the world.
Palm Oil companies want to log the forest to use the land for plantations. These private interests involved in the efforts toward deforestation involve a giant Malaysian business conglomerate called Rimbunan Hijau. They have been paying police to threaten and intimidate protesters. These security guards wear uniforms that indicate they're with a company called Gilford Limited, which is suspected to be a front for this conglomerate, has obtained a permit to clear the area, but local villagers say the lease was obtained without their consent.
One international organization that has a presence in Papua New Guinea also has local chapters in many corners of the world is Friends of the Earth. This group does a lot to support the empowerment of indigenous peoples, helping them to organize at the local level to hold back the onslaught of "for-proft" development of corporations that may not be required to act with concern for the environmental impacts of their activities, particularly in the developing world where most of the earth's unspoiled landscapes are found.
Deforestation is a concern to me because I love wild places, and believe that we should have the smarts and the ability to find alternatives without destroying the natural environments, but "moneyed" interests make decisions that affect people in far-away places where they don't (yet) feel the impacts of the destruction they cause. The forests of the world are carbon sinks – the lungs of the earth, if you will, that are being depleted and contributing to the CO2 levels in the atmosphere and climate change/current global warming trend. The destruction of forests is the "H"in HIPPO, the number one contributing factor to the extinction of species on earth.
A very neat site that has a lot of information and resources is Wilderness.net, so i thought i'd share that link here as well.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-11/png-police-reveal-crackdown-financed-by-loggers/3496032
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/massive-land-grab-of-papua-new-guineas-remain/blog/37337/?
Global Corruption Report 2011: Climate Change Hypothetical offsets Carbon trading and land rights in Papua New Guinea, Sarah Dix (Transparency International Papua New Guinea) 345-347
utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social_network&utm_term=19_10_11_1330&utm_campaign=forests
http://www.foei.org/
http://www.wilderness.net/
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