By Earth's Newsdesk and the Rainforest Portal, projects of EcoInternet
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CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org
Once again EcoInternet's true global rainforest action network contributes to questioning and obstructing the dominate paradigm that primary rainforests exist to be industrially logged
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. PNG has the world's third largest rainforests [search], but sadly industrial logging and oil palm are booming, and large, intact old rainforest ecosystems are dwindling fast. An entrenched and voracious Malaysian timber-mafia has until now virtually owned the government and the nation's rainforests.
"Special Agriculture and Business Leases" (SABL) covering 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) were granted 74 times in recent years by former Prime Minister Michael Somare. These agriculture projects skirted forestry laws and customary land ownership, allowing clearcuts of primary rainforests on customary land without consent, for oil palm which may or may not get planted. Local national led NGOs such as the highly successful ACT NOW![1] and others expressed concern that SABL leases were improperly executed and would result in large scale logging without providing agricultural development.