A Papua New Guinea (PNG) court revoked two 99-year land titles awarded to Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK) of Malaysia to develop palm oil plantations on 38,350 hectares of land in Collingwood Bay, Oro province, following complaints by customary landowners.
A report by Fatima Hansia on her CorpWatch Blog said the local landowners argued that palm oil development would exact a heavy price on their community, making the case that the deforestation of pristine rainforests to prepare land for plantations would erode traditional biodiversity and livelihoods while releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide emissions.
Community members applauded the decision and urged the courts to go further.
“We are urging the government to take a firm and decisive decision…by cancelling all the illegal leases,” Lester Seri, a spokesperson for the community told PNGexposed Blog. “Court cases are expensive and beyond the means of most village people.”
Since the late 1970s, PNG has tried to attract investment from foreign agro-business companies to stimulate economic growth and provide job opportunities by issuing Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABLs) to develop land concessions.
To date 400 SABLs covering five million acres (about 2.02 million hectares) have been issued, the blog said.
Under the Land Act of 1996, these SABLs can only be issued if an “instrument of lease in an approved form” or an “acquisition by agreement” is signed.
This means that the state must have a valid lease agreement with leaders of customary land and the prior informed consent of the affected landowners.
The acquired land can then simultaneously be released by title deed to an “agreed” person — usually a foreign company — for a maximum of 99 years.
However the SABL system has recently come under fire. A Commission of Inquiry was set up in 2011 after complaints from environmental and human rights NGOs over “land grabbing” on customary lands.
“The Commission of Inquiry found widespread abuse, fraud, lack of coordination between agencies of government, failure and incompetence of government officials to ensure compliance, accountability and transparency within the SABL process from application stage to registration, processing, approval and granting of the SABL,” wrote John Numapo, the Chief Commissioner, in the final report.
