THE NEW LAND GRAB IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA: A CASE STUDY FROM NEW IRELAND PROVINCE-NEW HANOVER AND EMIRAU
Why Ben Micah MP must never allow him to be a member of Parliament again. BY COLIN FILER EMIRAU In December 2006, a SABL over an area of 3384 hectares (Portions 53C–58C) on the island of Emirau in the Murat LLG area was granted to a company called Emirau Trust Ltd (ETL) for a period of 99 years (whose shares were owned by Ben Micahs half sister). The six land portions included in this lease appear to cover the whole of the island, and the state is said to have acquired these land portions from 29 incorporated land groups in January 2005 (The National, 9 September 2008). The island is approximately 130 kilometres north-west of Kavieng, the provincial capital (see Map 1). In May 2005, one of the islanders wrote a letter to one of PNG’s national newspapers expressing concern that the SABL had not yet been granted in April of that year (The National, 9 May 2005). According to this correspondent, ETL was the brainchild of the island’s most well-known political leader, Ben Micah, f