Logging, corruption and protest in Papua New Guinea

Andrew Lattas

Research program: Globalisation and International Development

Here, I am working on different forms of opposition to the logging operations of Malaysian timber companies.  In the Pomio area of East New Britain, Kivung followers claim that the true company, which will change their existence, will come from the dead and the timber has to be kept for them. Unlike other parts of New Britain, which have had their forests wiped out by timber companies, this has not yet happened on the same scale in  Pomio. Here, Kivung followers use the dead to provide the ideological resources for resisting some of the new coercive and exploitative forms of development that dominate parts of the economy of PNG. In other areas of West New Britain, resistance has taken the form of road blockades and physical attacks upon Malaysian logging company workers. This has resulted in heavy handed policing by the riot squad. Much of the funding for politicians is often provided by logging companies and this has meant that often the state does not provide a reliable way of addressing local concerns about logging.