A Somare two-step, with Rudd and Rimbunan Hijau
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his Papua New Guinea counterpart Michael Somare have signed a pact to protect forests and reduce carbon emissions.
The agreement was signed at talks involving the two leaders in Port Moresby on Thursday.
Mr Rudd flew in to the PNG capital on Thursday morning for his first visit to the nation as prime minister.
Following the talks, Mr Rudd and Mr Somare said the PNG-Australia forest carbon partnership would address greenhouse emissions and deforestation.
Under the pact, a carbon trading scheme will be developed that can be linked to international markets.
The agreement follows the United Nations climate change conference in Bali late last year, at which the two leaders met for the first time.
Mr Rudd announced the partnership as part of a Port Moresby "declaration", which aims to strengthen relations between the two nations.
"I believe the time has come for us to turn over a new page and write a new chapter in Australia-PNG relations," Mr Rudd told reporters.
(http://news.theage.com.au/australia-and-png-sign-forests-pact/20080306-1x9m.html)
Meanwhile, in the real world, as reported in 2004:
The cash-starved Somare Government is sanctioning the illegal logging of PNG's rainforests, and the timber is being used for Australian furniture....A bitter battle to preserve the forests has been taken up by no less a man than former US vice-president Al Gore. Greenpeace has dispatched activists into the logging sites and now the World Bank is refusing to release $50 million in desperately needed funds to PNG unless the Government of Sir Michael Somare moves to ensure the timber industry is sustainable and accountable. Indignant, the Government brands the criticism a conspiracy designed to sabotage PNG.......The Government's own review team has found that PNG's massive logging industry is not only environmentally unsustainable but heading for economic disaster. Almost every major logging project is run illegally and the industry is characterised by "a general contempt" for environmental and conservation values......Special criticism is reserved for the Malaysian giant that dominates the industry, Rimbunan Hijau. The multinational company has a net worth of nearly $2 billion and sits at the apex of political influence in PNG, branching out into restaurants, supermarkets, even one of the nation's two daily newspapers. The performance of Rimbunan Hijau's forest operations was "seriously deficient", the team found.......The team found most landowners wanted logging to continue — they had no other avenue for development — but they were not receiving contracted cash and benefits. Funds were being diverted by landowner companies, closely linked to Rimbunan Hijau. Some roads and bridges had been shoddily built, but "these infrastructures are sustainable only as long as the company is using them to extract logs from the area", the review says.
Joe Chapman has 13 years' experience in PNG and now runs the Queensland-based TLB Timbers, a Rimbunan Hijau subsidiary, which takes about half of the company's 17,000 cubic metres of sawn timber sent to Australia from PNG each year.
The timber goes to more than 200 wholesale and retail companies. Light and heavy hopea and water gum are used for construction, and silver ash, pencil cedar and kwila are used in furniture and joinery...........
(http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/11/1086749874973.html)
The agreement was signed at talks involving the two leaders in Port Moresby on Thursday.
Mr Rudd flew in to the PNG capital on Thursday morning for his first visit to the nation as prime minister.
Following the talks, Mr Rudd and Mr Somare said the PNG-Australia forest carbon partnership would address greenhouse emissions and deforestation.
Under the pact, a carbon trading scheme will be developed that can be linked to international markets.
The agreement follows the United Nations climate change conference in Bali late last year, at which the two leaders met for the first time.
Mr Rudd announced the partnership as part of a Port Moresby "declaration", which aims to strengthen relations between the two nations.
"I believe the time has come for us to turn over a new page and write a new chapter in Australia-PNG relations," Mr Rudd told reporters.
(http://news.theage.com.au/australia-and-png-sign-forests-pact/20080306-1x9m.html)
Meanwhile, in the real world, as reported in 2004:
The cash-starved Somare Government is sanctioning the illegal logging of PNG's rainforests, and the timber is being used for Australian furniture....A bitter battle to preserve the forests has been taken up by no less a man than former US vice-president Al Gore. Greenpeace has dispatched activists into the logging sites and now the World Bank is refusing to release $50 million in desperately needed funds to PNG unless the Government of Sir Michael Somare moves to ensure the timber industry is sustainable and accountable. Indignant, the Government brands the criticism a conspiracy designed to sabotage PNG.......The Government's own review team has found that PNG's massive logging industry is not only environmentally unsustainable but heading for economic disaster. Almost every major logging project is run illegally and the industry is characterised by "a general contempt" for environmental and conservation values......Special criticism is reserved for the Malaysian giant that dominates the industry, Rimbunan Hijau. The multinational company has a net worth of nearly $2 billion and sits at the apex of political influence in PNG, branching out into restaurants, supermarkets, even one of the nation's two daily newspapers. The performance of Rimbunan Hijau's forest operations was "seriously deficient", the team found.......The team found most landowners wanted logging to continue — they had no other avenue for development — but they were not receiving contracted cash and benefits. Funds were being diverted by landowner companies, closely linked to Rimbunan Hijau. Some roads and bridges had been shoddily built, but "these infrastructures are sustainable only as long as the company is using them to extract logs from the area", the review says.
Joe Chapman has 13 years' experience in PNG and now runs the Queensland-based TLB Timbers, a Rimbunan Hijau subsidiary, which takes about half of the company's 17,000 cubic metres of sawn timber sent to Australia from PNG each year.
The timber goes to more than 200 wholesale and retail companies. Light and heavy hopea and water gum are used for construction, and silver ash, pencil cedar and kwila are used in furniture and joinery...........
(http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/11/1086749874973.html)
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