River surrounded by forest in PNG | Music
| 01.00.00.00 |
| Williams: This is a story of three tribes.
For the Maisin - it's a story of deceit.. For the Kosuwa it's a story of bitterness.
| 00.22 |
Angry man at meeting | Man: I'm a landowner! We are not getting a good service - we are left like rubbish!
| 00.34 |
| And for the Kamula it's the story of a slim chance of hope.
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| Man: We thought that development would come in, so we signed... but I'm not sure - I don't know what's going on. | 00.47 |
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Travelling over river
| Singing
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Vaso in boat | Williams: Through stormy Solomon Sea waters John Vaso's coming home, but there's a lot on his mind.
John is a Maisin clan chief with some important news on the future of his people A tribe living here - in one of Melanesia's last stands of truly untouched rainforest, a land now besieged by government-backed loggers.
| 01.15 |
Vaso getting out of boat/Interview | Vaso: The government wants to take out as much as it can from the resources of people, not knowing that whilst doing that the government is really making the people poor. And eventually end up have nothing left for the generation to come.
| 01.42 |
Williams watches warriors | Williams: Maisin warriors ask no questions. A few decades ago landing here meant certain death. Those unlucky enough to survive were staked out in the village for a few days before being eaten. Today's reception is largely ceremonial - but these same warriors threatened war when they discovered their land was about to be logged without their permission.
| 02.10 |
Vaso Super: JOHN WESLEY VASO Maisin Clan Chief | Vaso: All this logging deals were done at the national level and there's not been a single consent from the people, the landowners themselves.
| 02.40 |
| Singing/Drums
| 02.50 |
| Williams: The homecoming for this clan chief is more than ceremonial. Just two weeks from the first cut, John won a temporary injunction against the logging. But the fight for their land is far from over.
| 03.00 |
Maisin warriors | Williams: What happens if you lose in the courts? | 03.15 |
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Vaso: We will take the law into our own hands. Those people who signed away this land, and those developers who are going to come in here, they will have to come in at their own at their own risk. | 03.19 |
Vaso | We will just have to kill everybody around this place. We will look at a second Bouganville here -- and I speak on behalf of the people.
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Kids hold signs | Singing: Arise, arise of Maisin people Your day has come, your day has come To tell the world.
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| Williams: But is militant ecology enough for a people faced with the pressures -- and temptations -- of modern life?
| 03.52 |
| Singing
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| Taylor: What's happening in Maisin shows that procedures and processes can be disregarded, with a flick of a pen somebody's signed away a whole place, land, life.
| 04.05 |
Williams with Taylor | Williams: Former ambassador to the United States, Meg Taylor, fears logging deals are now fuelling the breakdown of the state.
| 04.26 |
Super: MEG TAYLOR International Finance Corp | Taylor: The real issue here is where the independent state of Papua New Guinea and the mini-sovereign state of communities - landowning groups -- are now coming to a loggerhead. That of course then raises the issue of, well what about the broader picture of developing the economy of Papua New Guinea? And people like myself don't argue against that, but we've got to find mechanisms where people are involved, make decisions about their own resources.
| 04.33 |
Village life | Williams: John Vaso's not defending a poor life. People here are taking gradually from the developed world - educated Maisins bring in some cash and they're experimenting with renewable forest business.
Vaso: We are not ignorant of the fact that development has to come, | 04.54
05.09 |
Vaso | but if there's to be development, the Maisin people have to initiate that development. And they have to be the implementers of that development.
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| Williams: Why though, if you're the traditional owners of the land, did this almost get logged?
| 05.22 |
| Vaso: The ministers themselves are responsible for the whole lot of these back door dealings. And this is where the ministers pull out, pull off and become millionaires themselves.
| 05.26 |
| Williams: Corruption?
| 05.38 |
| Vaso: Corruption takes place.
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Loggers with chainsaws | FX: Chainsaw
| 05.42 |
| Williams: Just a few hours north of his village you can see what John's worried about.
| 05.49 |
| FX: Chainsaw
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| Williams: Having raped their own land - much of Indonesia, south-east Asia and the Melanesian islands - the Malaysian logging machine is now ripping in to the region's last great stands of primary rainforest - here in Papua New Guinea.
| 05.59 |
Logger | Man: Their life is very simple, so we come and take all these logs out and they get the money... their royalty... their money.
| 06.28 |
| FX: Chainsaw
| 06.39 |
| Williams: This is commercial clear felling at its worst. One hundred, two hundred year old trees felled for the rapacious Asian market.
Some will end up as furniture, others become chopsticks and concrete formwork. Landowners here have sold their birthright for a bush house and temporary royalties.
| 06.46 |
Palms being planted | And this is their future. Forests felled for oil palm - a cash crop being planted across Papua New Guinea.
It earns peanuts for the landowners and leaves them totally reliant on the price of a single commodity.
| 07.20 |
| This is all the result of the desperate measures taken by a desperate and incompetent government - a government which ran Papua New Guinea's economy into the ground.
| 07.38 |
Logging | Williams: Prime Minister, Bill Skate may have had his fifteen minutes of fame - and infamy - by selling diplomatic recognition to Taipei for soft loans. But his most tragic and long lasting legacy has been to order the fast tracking of up to fifteen large logging concessions in a frantic bid for foreign funds.
| 07.52 |
Brunton Super: BRIAN BRUNTON Greenpeace Pacific, PNG | Brunton: It's a push driven by the economic downturn, bad economic management, which has resulted in currency crash and shortage of foreign exchange, balance of payments and general shortage of cash in treasury.
| 08.15 |
| Williams: Lawyer Brian Brunton is taking the battle against logging to the government. It was he who helped John Vaso's Maisin people stay the chainsaws for now - and it was a landmark win.
| 08.32 |
| While he won that battle, he's far from winning the war. At the other end of the country Bill Skate's backroom deals now threaten one of the globe's greatest living treasures.
| 08.45 |
| Brunton: It saw an expanded logging industry as one way out. But there were also other pressures. The loggers themselves wanted more resources, they wanted to be able to tie up very big areas.
| 08.58 |
Aerials over logging scars/river | Music
| 09.12 |
| Williams: Deep in PNG's remote western province is the world's biggest tropical rainforest outside the Amazon. It's one of the last great lungs of the earth. | 09.24 |
| Its sheer undisturbed size makes it unique, a home for rare species, a sanctuary for entire ecospheres of life - animal and human - not yet fully explored or understood. It's so remote not one road scars its pristine face. | 09.39 |
Aerials of forest/Tanaye | Tanaye: Our customary land and our bush and our waters... our historical grounds... all these things are totally destroyed.
| 10.08 |
Tanaye and family getting into boat | Williams: John Tanaye is a clan chief of the Kosuwa people - this is his land, his river, and by his tradition, travel is a family affair.
| 10.23 |
| Understanding their anger is easy, but trying to find your feet on these swift currents a little harder.
| 10.37 |
Travelling down river | Williams: What appears to the outsider a forbidding tangle is to the Kosuwa a living breathing self-stocking supermarket.
| 11.05 |
| Tanaye: This land is where we hunt and look for meat. For many generations we have lived here.
| 11.14 |
| Williams: On good day, a line over the side can catch a two kilo barramundi. But today there's no time for fishing -- loggers are already on the Kosuwa's land - and if John doesn't stop them, the rivers will silt and there'll be no fish.
| 11.23 |
| Tanaye: The company machines destroy everything... | 11.44 |
Tanaye in boat | we're not happy with this. We don't live in the cities - we take what we need from the bush. If we send machines into the bush it destroys our bush, our animals... our water... our food. We don't want this at all.
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| Williams: What's wrong with it, if they bring money and they bring development to family
| 12.12 |
| Tanaye: It's true -- when the company wanted to come into the bush they promised to build us houses and roads saying "we'll give you good services - we'll improve your lifestyle" - but the company bullshitted us.
| 12.17 |
| Williams: John wants us to see what he's worried about. But first we must seek spiritual permission.
| 12.50 |
Tanaye holding stick | Tanaye: I'm going to hold up this stick while you people come inside. This place has a spirit - that's why you shouldn't come here without good reason. You must go with someone who knows the area - who knows how to stop at the tree - and then you can go inside. Then you will have a good life - the tree will look after you.
| 13.12 |
Forest | Williams: But no one's been able to look after the trees. Logging tracks now dissect John's land -- the big trees are gone and the loggers will soon be back to finish it off.
| 13.30 |
| Williams: Looking around here, there's still lots of trees, so what's wrong with this now?
| 13.45 |
Tanaye | Tanaye: After ten years they're planning to cut this area again. They want to plant palm oil palm and they want to take trees from this area to the new plywood mill.
| 13.51 |
Tanaye in forest |
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| Williams: With the help of a few modern tools, the Kosuwa are among the last hunter gatherers on earth. Not that that's such good news for the wildlife .
| 14.08 |
| FX: Gunshot
| 14.20 |
| Williams: Although the blue-crested wild pigeon does make a pretty tasty lunch.
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| For the Kosuwa these trees abound with food and medicine. Their branches are heavy with history and religion.
| 14.34 |
Village scene | It may be plentiful, but life in the forest isn't easy. And when cold cash brought the promise of out boards and shotguns, John naturally signed a deal to allow logging on his land. There's only one problem -- he wasn't allowed to read the agreement.
| 14.46 |
| Tanaye: We're confused about this - we want to read the permit and the agreement. | 15.05 |
Tanaye | We're only asking - but they haven't given us a copy.
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| Williams: John isn't totally against some logging, but he's so angry with the way it's being done now, he's seeking a court action to stop the company and renegotiate.
| 15.19 |
| Tanaye: We'd test them for one year... | 15.31 |
Tanaye | If in one year, they're putting in houses and good services then we'll give them another five. If not, then after one year we'll finish with the company - they can't cut any more trees - and we'll do small scale logging ourselves.
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| Williams: The company's response was to offer him money to resolve the dispute.
| 15.58 |
| Tanaye: I thought about my kids - I thought if I side with the company they will destroy my forest - and when they take off, in the future, my children will suffer. So I didn't take the money.
| 16.01 |
Sawmill | FX: Sawmill
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| Williams: Just downstream is the sharp edge of John's concerns, the mill that's meant to offer the Kosuwa people progress. But jobs here are poorly paid, temporary and usually occupied by outsiders.
| 16.26 |
| For each cubic metre of this timber, exporters earn about US$75, of which they pay the landowners less than four.
| 16.46 |
| Williams: Once I'd tracked him down...
| 17.02 |
| Williams: I'm Evan, from Australia.
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Williams with Shiu | Williams: ...Malaysian mill manager, James Shiu sees nothing wrong with the deal.
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| Shiu: Of course this area is primitive, so they have to clear all this thing so some projects will be carried out to replace the forests.
| 17.09 |
| Williams: So like oil palm. But that means taking all the trees, doesn't it?
| 17.21 |
| Shiu: Yeah.
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| Williams: Yeah, yeah.
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Cleared forest/Williams to camera
Super: | Williams: This is the result of so-called selective logging, the government approved method for taking the biggest and the best trees. Except here a lot more goes with them. In fact for every tree felled another 16 are destroyed. According to one recent report that's the worst such logging record in the world. And although it may not look like it now once these big trees are gone, these forests are changed forever.
| 17.35 |
Kamusi | Music
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| Williams: And this is the company's idea of fair compensation. The timber town of Kamusi is what landowners like John get for their irreplaceable inheritance. |
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| Ignored by government - the clinic and houses are built by the company. But no one here believes the roads, buildings or even occasional businesses will last beyond the company's interest in their trees.
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| Brunton: The government has had this series of very unfair contracts which it imposes upon landowners. | 18.07 |
Brunton
Super: BRIAN BRUNTON Greenpeace Pacific, PNG | I once described this is as bureaucratic feudalism, that the government takes away your trees, because it essentially doesn't think you've got the brains to manage them and then it mismanages them on its own.
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| Williams: The government has provided a police force of sorts for Kamusi -- not to make sure the company keeps to its promises -- but to back the loggers against landowner complaints.
| 18.32 |
Men at meeting | Angry man: If there's something wrong, landowners demand payment but the company rings the police taskforce and they come in and point out you... you and you! They start belting up the young men... and with no reason, shoot the dogs. They shot three of your dogs... I'm a landowner.
| 18.45 |
| Williams: John isn't alone -- that night we're visited by a delegation of landowners all angry with the company.
| 19.04 |
| Angry man: The company's destroyed everything and there are no services. The government's not looking after us -- the benefits all go to the government and the company but we landowners are left like rubbish.
| 19.14 |
Men at meeting sing | Williams: Our meeting closes with a song lamenting lost lands.
| 19.39 |
| Song: When our ancestors settled here in the forest everything they needed was just here. They could move free from one place to another - they could collect bush materials free. But now the loggers have entered our place, life is very difficult for us.
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Williams in boat | Williams: But leaving the mudflats of Kamusi behind the next river holds the secrets of what may be the greatest tragedy of all. | 20.13 |
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This is the land of the Kamula people. It's here despite all the concerns the same company has just won a massive logging extension
Eight hundred thousand hectares -- twice as big as its existing lease -- eight times the size of Hong Kong -- a billion dollar jackpot for the loggers.
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20.21
20.32 |
Dancing in village | Music
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| Williams: But here - in Wawi Falls, deep in the heart of the extension, the deal has raised some disturbing questions among the Kamula.
PNG's own Forest Authority - the chief advisory body - strongly recommended against the extension, arguing that if it had to be logged at all, then it should at least be put out to public tender for competitive pricing and better practises. The government ignored the advice.
| 20.52 |
| The man you'd think most interested in stopping logging, instead strongly backed the loggers' claim.
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| Iamo: What's the alternative, I mean what's the alternative? | 21.31 |
Iamo
Super: Dr. WARI IAMO Director, Environment Department | In a country developing, emerging country like this, what do you want for the people? Do you want them, do you want to preserve them in a picturesque poverty? Don't you want those people to have the basic services and the benefits like all other people in other developing countries?
| 21.36 |
| Music
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| Williams: The decision has divided the Kamula. Some want the cash from logging, and think they can dictate the terms. They forget these days it's the loggers calling the tune.
| 22.03 |
| Williams: Are you convinced that the logging operations, the way they run at the moment, in fact bring sustainable development?
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Iamo | Iamo: I get complaints, you know, I get complaints from western province, from all over the country, on environmental destruction and environmental damage. And it's not just western province, it's all over the country. I don't have the money to send expertise down there to do environmental audit.
| 22.19 |
| Williams: Such a crippled bureaucracy are the legacies of Bill Skate's last desperate days in office - legacies that helped freeze World Bank funds from Papua New Guinea.
| 22.50 |
Brunton | Brunton: It's in the area of forests that Papua New Guinea has broken so many promises that the World Bank essentially has spat the dummy and said, we are not dealing with you until you get your forests in order.
| 23.01 |
| Williams: As part of their farming, the Kamula raise penned cassowaries for visitors' feasts and special occasions. It's a way of life those in the west, who wring their hands over lost cultures, want to preserve. But it needs the developed world to dig into its own pockets if it's to save this area from sacrifice. | 23.20 |
| The idea is to get the west to pay these people not to allow large scale logging. And the money's there.
Brunton: There are some very big cashed up NGO's, there are some very big cashed up | 23.46
23.54 |
Brunton | foundations. There's also international funds, such as the Global Environment Facility, which could be in a position to do this type of thing. The question is, is do those particular foundations that do those international funds want to do this?
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Waterfall over river | Drums/singing
| 24.11 |
| Williams: If western conservationists want to keep this land they'd better hurry up and decide. Some clan chiefs have already signed this land over to the loggers. Despite the new prime minister's best intentions, the parlous state of PNG's economy means he needs quick cash from these resources.
| 24.23
24.34 |
| If things don't change, PNG's commercial logging industry will exhaust these supplies in just 15 years. And that, at a time when we still don't really know what's lost with these trees.
| 24.45 |
| Singing
| Ends 25.16 |
25.20 - 26.31 Out takes: forest gvs, PNG MAP of Kamusi
CREDITS:
Reporter EVAN WILLIAMS
Camera GEOFFREY LYE
Research MARK WORTH
ABC Australia c. 1999