The government of Papua New Guinea made amendment to the Environmental Act on May 27 2010. We citizens of this country can no longer sit back and watch what is happening before our eyes. The changes in this Act basically means the government has taken away peoples’ traditional, constitutional and legal rights over land away from them. Landowners will no longer be in a position to interfere with operations of multinational corporations such has logging, mining, commercial fishing and so forth. They will not have the power to prevent any possible environment damages by these large scale developers before actual operations begin. They are also prevented from taking legal actions against operations of these companies.
This is a very sad story for our people. Do we continue to let this happen to our people? What does this really mean for our people? Most of these people do not know about this amendment. Are they still principle landowners? This is now very critical question to ask as the amendment classifies them as third party. Is this in-line with the people’s traditional landowning systems? Is this another breach to peoples’ constitutional right to freedom of speech? Is this now the start of what we expect more from our government in future?
In the first place, why do we even have the government? Has the role of the government shifted over time? Who is it serving, is it the people of this country or foreign multinational corporations? If it is serving the interests of foreigners then why do we need to have one? The recent amendment shows clearly that the power of the landowners have been stripped and given to multinational corporations. If this is the situation then who is controlling this country? Is it our people or outsiders?
I thought the days of being colonized, administered and controlled by outsiders was over many years ago but the current trends in the country totally proves me wrong. Are we going to continue to let this happen to our people?
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