Greenpeace, PNG landowner calls for ban on harvesting rare timber
Updated
A Papua New Guinea environmentalist is in Australia pleading with Canberra to implement its promised ban on an estimated $400,000,000 AU worth of illegal timber imports each year. The environmental lobby group, Greenpeace, and an Australian Greens Senator, have accused the Rudd government of backing away from its election pledge. Former P-N-G conservation department official, Lester Seri, who's a career field biologist, now represents Conservation Melanesia, a group he established. He says poor governance and corruption continue to drive illegal logging in his country, and Greenpeace says Australia's complicit if it doesn't ban imports from the trade.
Presenter: Canberra correspondent Linda Mottram
Speakers: Lester Seri, field biologist and campaigner against illegal logging from Papua New Guinea's Environmental Law Centre, Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, Greenpeace Australia's Head of Campaigns Steve Campbell
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MOTTRAM: Before it won government just over 18 months ago, Australia's Labor Party was emphatic about its position on the importation of illegally logged timber to Australia. Labor estimated that 400-Million Australian dollars worth of illegal timber was making its way into Australia each year, while the known negative impacts of illegal logging on climate change, ecosystems and indigenous rights, as well as corruption and good governance, all pointed to the need for a ban. But so far that ban by Australia has not eventuated. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert questioned officials about the issue at a recent inquiry in Canberra.
SIEWERT: I would have thought their lack of action and also the answers they were giving us in terms of maybe not going to a ban but going to things like codes of practice and standards is a fairly strong indication that they don't intend going down the road of a ban.
MOTTRAM: The environment group Greenpeace also says its evidence the government is going back on its pledge. And the group has linked that to an element of current international climate change negotiations, which could see major polluting industries avoiding having to make real carbon pollution cuts in exchange for simply buying forest carbon credits.
Greenpeace Australia's head of campaigns Steve Campbell says its double dealing by Australia.
CAMPBELL: The government is pursuing a solution where polluters can avoid domestic emissions cuts in Australia through purchasing forest credits yet without such cuts the forests and the biodiversity they contain are in critical danger.
MOTTRAM: Without a ban on illegal timber imports, Steve Campbell says Australia is complicit in the illegal industry. He says timber imports should be subject to an internationally accepted process of certification.
CAMPBELL: We have identified timber importers in Queensland, who are selling this timber, but it doesn't just come in as logs or lumber, it also comes in as finished products, so some of the logs from Papua New Guinea go to China, get manufactured into your sofa or plywood that you might be using for your reburshing or whatever and then those products come in as well and certification can deal with those chain of custody issues.
MOTTRAM: Greenpeace also wants developed countries to set up a forest fund to pay developing countries to protect their forests. Australia's closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, continues to battle extensive illegal logging. Greenpeace estimates 80 per cent of Papua New Guinea's forests are illegally logged, and deforestation is said to be responsible for 20 per cent of global climate changing greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmentalists say a ban on illegal logging imports by Australia is vital in the effort to curtail the industry in Papua New Guinea. Lester Seri is a field biologist who has worked for Papua New Guinea's Conservation department in the past. Representing the Environmental Law Centre in Papua New Guinea, he's visiting Australia to lobby on the illegal logging issue. He says Papua New Guinea's poor governance, combined with corruption, means that little progress has been made against illegal logging in three decades, leaving indigenous peoples stripped of the rights to their own land and with none of the benefits that flow to illegal loggers. Mr Seri has strongly urged Australia's government to follow through with its promised ban.
SERI: My plea here is if Australian government could help us to really put in place mechanisms, stringent mechanisms that you can actually monitor and if at all possible control illegal logging in Papua New Guinea at the same time control or monitor importation of illegal logs from Papua New Guinea and other Asia countries into Australia. If we can be able to ban import of illegal logging all the better. In fact that's what we would want to see in Papua New Guinea. that will give us time so, time to actually look at our existing institutions, the legislation or enforcement aspects of it, so that we can actually try to do something about the terrible state it is in now.
