Timber companies operating within Papua New Guinea have been given four months to submit proper environmental plans or face possible suspension of their operations. Environment and conservation minister Michael Singan gave this warning on January 15, setting an April 30 deadline for compliance with PNG environmental laws.
The minister acted in response to a media outcry following a recent Rainforest Information Centre (RIC) investigation, which revealed that in 1990 only 22 out of 316 timber projects begun since 1975 had submitted an environmental plan. In several provinces, including the almost totally deforested New Ireland, no timber project had ever submitted an environmental plan.
The RIC is recommending that a current moratorium (often disregarded by the Department of Forests) on new forest project licences be maintained until the government is in a position to monitor and enforce compliance with environmental regulations.
In law, the environment minister can withhold approval of a logging project indefinitely if its environmental plan is inadequate. In practice, environmental plans have been voluntary unless demanded by the minister. Only since 1986 has any timber company has been required to submit a plan.
Not until recent weeks was the notorious JANT operation in Madang required to submit an environmental plan after 20 years of chipping the area's tropical hardwoods for processing into cardboard boxes. This comes as JANT's original 69,000 hectare timber concession is almost entirely cleared.
Though more companies may now be submitting plans, there is evidence of chicanery. Four examined by the Rainforest Information Centre were almost identical fabrications. The four plans covered widely separated areas: Modewa-Garu in Milne Bay, Rai Coast in Madang, Lako Imala and Ormond Lako in Central, and Danfu and Danfu Extension in New Ireland. At first glance, the plans appear different, but on closer inspection the data on plant, animal and aquatic life in the affected areas is identical.
The plan for Garu Modewa has different numbers for various species, but these don't produce the claimed totals and percentages, which are the same as in the other three.
Although we are assured that in each case "the author conducted his own survey and census", in each plan the landowners are said to have identical customs, inheritance systems and beliefs. In addition, the name of the consultant differs for each, though they all share the same post office box.
It is amazing, if not impossible, that four areas so far apart could be identical in so many ways, and it seems someone has produced a model environmental plan on which only the company name, some figures and a few phrases are changed for each submission.
Even if timber companies were to submit accurate plans, the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) is in no position to assess or erly, the task requires studying proposals, visiting proposed areas, comparing findings with the submitted plan, making informed recommendations to the minister, negotiating changes in the plan and conducting follow-up visits to check adherence to the approved plan.
But the environmental planning department of the DEC has only 10 staff, of which only one with a minimal budget is working on timber projects. This person is also expected to represent the DEC in meetings with the Department of Forests.
[From the Rainforest Information Centre.]