Logging company fined 100 million USD
Papua New Guinea:For the first time ever a timber company in PNG has been fined by a court. “This is a major victory and it will serve as a powerful warning to other logging companies in Papua New Guinea”, says Damien Ase, lawyer and director of CELCOR.
Foto: Greenpeace-Schellema
On 20th June the Malaysian timber company, Concord Pacific, was sentenced by the courts in Papua New Guinea to pay a fine for illegal logging.
Among other things, the court judgement states: "the damages done is immeasurable. The logging operations has completed destroyed the lives of the people and has had great impact especially on women and children”.
Cover for illegal logging
Over a period of 10 years Concord Pacific has conducted widespread illegal logging operations in primary forest areas in Papua New Guinea. In 1994 the company was granted go ahead for a socalled “road-line clearance” which is an authorisation to clear trees along the alignment of a proposed road from Aiambak to Kiunga. The authorisation (the Timber Authority) usually allows the builder of a road to cut timber in a corridor, 40 metres either side of the road’s centre-line.
The agreement stipulated that logging was limited and only for the purpose of building the road. Concord Pacific took this instead as an opportunity to log up to 20 kilometres on each side of the road. After 10 years of widespread and extremely brutal logging, construction of the road was still not completed.
"This was an extremely vulnerable and untouched forest area and the land owners, local clans, are now left with the problem of major environmental damage," says Ken Mondiai of PNG Eco-Forestry Forum. "-The local communities are highly reliant on the forest and the land which they cultivate. This widespread environmental destruction thus has a major impact on them”. Mondiai visited Norway last week to participate in the climate conference, Oslo REDD Exchange.
A precendent for similar cases
In 2002, the organisation CELCOR, Rainforest Foundation Norway's collaborative partner in Papua New Guinea, brought a case against the timber company on behalf of the local communities.
In 2003 CELCOR had a breakthrough when a court ruling ordered a complete cease on all logging in the area.
CELCOR and the land owners enjoyed yet another victory on 20 June 2011: The court ordered the timber company to pay over NOK 540 million in damages to the land owners. The timber company must also pay all legal costs.
"This is the first time a court in Papua New Guinea has awarded a settlement for illegal forest destruction," says Lars Løvold, Director of Rainforest Foundation Norway. "It is a very important victory, because it sets a precedent for similar cases."
There is the problem that such companies might deregister and disappear. "It is highly likely that this has already happened even in this case and that the land owners will never see any of the money. The message this judgement sends out to other timber companies, however, is very clear – any future destructive logging operations in Papua New Guinea comes with a huge price tag," says Løvold in Rainforest Foundation Norway.
