14 May 2002

Greenpeace says PNG logging has no consent

4:51 pm on 14 May 2002

The environmental group, Greenpeace, says landowners in the remote Kiunga-Aiambak area of Papua New Guinea's Western Province have not given consent for logging there.

The organisation has stalled the loading of logs at the mouth of the Fly River after activists boarded a barge and ship at Umuda Island on Sunday.

Spokesman Brian Brunton says three of the group are also on the ship's crane.

Mr Brunton says there has been no attempt to remove the protestors and no reaction from the PNG Government.

He says the action came after the local landowners and NGOs tried unsuccessfully last month to see the prime minister Sir Mekere Morauta.

Mr Brunton says the prime minister would not see the landowners because his party, the PDM, has strong links to the logging industry.

They wanted him to stop the logging company, which Mr Brunton says is taking wood from common land without the consent of local landowners.

"There are violations of the lands act , because this logging company, has entered on to land, dug a road and takes the trees - so under the lands act, there's a whole lot of illegality here, apart from that, the trees run with the land in law, and if you take the trees, you must take them with consent. There's never been any consent with the landowners."