10 Percent of PNG Lost in land grab
THE AUSTRALIAN 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 native forest. Colin Filer of the Australian National University calls it a "land grab". His research shows customary land has been secured by corporate interests via lease, leaseback arrangements. Since 2003 about 5.1 million hectares of customary land has passed into corporate control by abusing a mechanism in the PNG land law designed to allow for customary landowners to agree to so-called special agricultural and business leases. This is twice the amount of land grabbed by corporate interests across five African countries over a comparable period, according to one international study, yet institutions such as the World Bank have largely ignored these events in PNG. Professor Filer has shown how the Western and West Sepik provinces have lost 20 per