Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea -home of one of the world's largest remaining contiguous rainforests- is being subject to a destructive deforestation process. In an attempt to increase the country's exports to face a severe economic crisis, the government has adopted a policy of opening the country to foreign logging companies -granting them concessions and turning a blind eye to illegal logging- that threaten to deplete its forests.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) possesses one of the planet's largest remaining tropical rainforest biomes. At least seventy-five percent of its original forest cover is still standing, occuping vast, biologically rich tracts over 100,000 square miles in all. Nevertheless, lately the government of PNG has been taking steps to revive the dying timber industry, which favour a small group of companies, weaken forest sector governance and accelerate logging in these precious remaining forests (see WRM Bulletin 22).

Papua New Guinea constitutes another good (bad) example of current trends regarding forest conservation. While the world declares its concern over the rate of deforestation which affects the planet as a whole, that same world does very little to address the problem. On the contrary, apparently "neutral" forces such as "the macroeconomy" or the "market forces" or "international trade" continue destroying forests, while governments and international organizations continue agreeing --on paper-- on the need to protect them.

The opening of Papua New Guinea’s economy has promoted the exploitation of natural resources at an unsustainable level. The dominant vegetation in the country is equatorial rainforest, but it is undergoing a severe process of deforestation due to indiscriminate felling.

Papua New Guinea is located in the eastern part of the island of New Guinea and borders with Indonesia. The opening of the economy to foreign penetration has promoted the exploitation of natural resources at a level that has seriously damaged the environment.