Papua New Guinea

A massive land grab has occurred in Papua New Guinea under the auspices of the Special Agricultural and Business Leases scheme, and the impact on communities across the country has been devastating. Greenpeace has produced a new report that details the extent of the damage.

A new interactive mapping website shows exactly which areas of PNG have been stolen under the guise of Special Agriculture and Business Leases and which villages have lost their rights to their land for at least the next THREE generations.

Papua New Guinea landowners are getting very little in the way of rent for vast tracts of land that have been leased out under controversial leases. Interview with Colin Filer.

"People are having their land stolen from them, literally, without even being aware it has happened, let alone consenting."

Developers hover as 5 million hectares, and national pride, are signed away in 99-year leases that have raised fears of corruption.

Papua New Guinea has launched a Commission of Inquiry into foreign land grabs of pristine, indigenous owned primary rainforests for clearcut logging and supposed oil palm development.

More than 10 per cent of Papua New Guinea's land mass has been handed over to foreign and national corporate interests over the past seven years under mysterious land deals that appear to be aimed at logging, not food or cash crop production.

The government of Papua New Guinea suspended its Special Agricultural and Business Leases program which has granted concessions to mostly foreign corporations across 5.2 m ha of community forest land

The PNG Lands Department has vowed to take action on land deals in Papua New Guinea - deals in which control of more than 5 million hectares of land, 10% of PNGs land mass, has been taken away from local people and given to corporations.

Colin Filer says 5 million hectares of customary land has passed into the hands of national and foreign corporations in Papua New Guinea using a legal mechanism called the 'lease-lease-back scheme'.

Le groupe malasien Rimbudan Hijau vient d’annoncer son intention de se lancer dans l’huile de palme après l'acquisition de milliers d’hectares de terres coutumières dans la province de Nouvelle-Bretagne orientale.

"We have Indonesians and Malaysians coming in and saying we want 100,000 hectares to make PNG a rice producing country," says PNG’s Deputy Prime Minister Sir Puka Temu