What are some of PNG's international obligations?

A traditional contract was established between
the Dawang Clan in Mur village of Rai Coast
District, Madang Province, and MAKATA to support their 
adaptive sustainable community-based
resource management plan using Conservation 
Deed.  
We have completed most of the steps of this plan,
with a few issues to resolve before launching it.
Any funding support will help us achieve this
outcome.

By WENCESLAUS MAGUN

At MAKATA, we believe that by working in partnership with relevant stakeholders, even if it is painstakingly slow, we can achieve biodiversity conservation or adaptive sustainable resource management and use process in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

But we cannot achieve this on our own.  We need your help! 

Through your in-kind donation, funding support, and or other forms of material, technical, logistics, and even spiritual support, we all can achieve these commonly shared values. 

With this help, we can also contribute to influencing communities we work with to take on overall development planning processes to achieve PNG V2050 through its PNG DSP 2010-2030 thus working towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and the multinational agreements PNG has signed and ratified.

So what are these international obligations that PNG has signed and ratified?

Tokain community members at Kagur hamlet 
during the sand mining Warden Hearing on 
23 September 2020.

In 1990, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), PNG joined 177 other countries in accepting the earth charter known as the “Rio Declaration on Environment and Development” - an environment bill of right delineating the principles for economic and environmental behavior of people and nations. 

The Rio Declaration is a statement of 27 principles that the States agreed to implement at the domestic level in dealing with environmental and development issues. (PNGBSAP, Work Draft 1, September 2005).

 At UNCED, PNG also made a commitment to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use by adopting: 

1. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); 

2. The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC); and

3. Agenda 21 (PNGBSAP, Work Draft 1, September 2005).

The adoption of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) and other treaties and the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, the Forest Principles, the Johannesburg Declaration and the Johannesburg Plan of implementation (JPOI) by PNG manifests the country’s willingness to join hands with the global community in tackling many of the world’s environmental problems.  By international standards, PNG has shown strong enthusiasm in the field of international environmental law–making (PNGBSAP, Work Draft 1, September 2005).

PNG’s obligations in relation to three United Nations multilateral environmental agreements, and progress towards meeting these obligations, were assessed in 2010 (Wickham et al., 2010).

These are the Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Kimadi clan members of Murukanam village,
Sumgilbar LLG, Sumkar District, Madang
stood in absolute solidarity in defending their
natural resources and the environment from any 
 of the potential threat from sand mining.

In addition, PNG is a signatory to the International Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar) and the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage Convention) since 1997.

World Heritage Sites are places that have outstanding universal values, either natural or cultural or both. To be accepted as World Heritage sites, they must be nominated by the Government of PNG and then assessed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

When sites are inscribed on the World list, countries commit to undertaking “the appropriate legal, scientific, technical, administrative and financial measures necessary for the identification, protection, conservation, presentation and rehabilitation of this heritage”   (UNESCO), 1972, p.3).

There is currently one existing World Heritage Area in PNG, Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands Province, while another seven proposed areas are on the “tentative” list.

PNG is also a signatory to the Convention on the Protection of Natural Resources and Environment of the South Pacific Region (PNRESP). As a signatory to this Convention, PNG is required to protect and preserve rare or fragile ecosystems and depleted, threatened or endangered flora and fauna, as well as their habitat (Article 14). As part of this obligation, PNG must establish and effectively manage protected areas.

We thank the Bismarck Ramu Group (BRG), one of
our local NGO partners for conducting
sand mining awareness at Tokain village, 
Sumgilbar LLG, Sumkar District, Madang.

According to PNGBSAP, 2007 report, almost all the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEA) require corresponding domestic commitment to make the treaty work.  “Thus, in the case of CBD, PNG is required to:

• Create a system of protected areas to conserve biological diversity (Article 8);
• Develop mechanisms for the prevention and introduction of control or eradication of alien species which threaten ecosystems (Article 8);
• Develop systems for the preservation and maintenance of knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider application through appropriate legal, policy and administrative arrangement (Article 8j);
• Protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional and cultural practices (Article 10);
• Develop incentives measures for the sustainable use and management of the countries biological resources (Article 11);
• Promote research and training (Article 12);
• Promote and strengthen public education and training in biological resources management (Article 13);
• Introduce mechanisms to strengthen impact assessment and minimizing adverse impacts on the country’s biological diversity (Article 14);
• Develop strategies that promote access to genetic resources (Article 15);
• Identify and strengthen strategies to access and transfer technology (Article 16);
• Introduce legislative, administrative or policy measures to regulate and manage biotechnology research and benefit sharing (Article 19); and
• Strengthen partnerships to promote access to financial resources (Article 20 and 21).”

Mirap villagers joined the rest of the villagers
in Sumgilbar LLG to ban sand mining along
their turtles nesting beaches.

The report added that: “Most of the JPOI goals trace their origins to the Millennium Declaration of 2000.

It was perceived that the implementation of JPOI will also lead to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).  Amongst eight other goals is: Goal 7.  Ensure Environmental Sustainability.”

These sets of international environmental obligations require concerted and affirmative action by national States to achieve them.

Our work aims to translate some of these international commitments into domestic action. This truly requires working in partnership with all relevant stakeholders in PNG as well as by nation States that have made these commitments.

We know from more than 10 years of working with local communities in Madang, that there is very little to show for PNG’s active participation at the UNCED in Rio and its membership to relevant MEA and other international conventions at the domestic level. 

In PNG we are faced with a paradox or a dilemma.  

On one end we strive to fulfill our international environmental obligations through appropriate biodiversity conservation and sustainable development aspirations. Yet, on another end, we are forced to exploit our natural resources to fulfill our Vision 2050 through the PNG Development Strategic Plan 2010-2030.  

In order to fulfill the V2050 and PNGDSP 2010-2030 goal to attain a “high quality of life for all Papua New Guineans,” we are vigorously exploiting our country’s biological and mineral resources for economic growth. 

 

PNG needs more community-based resource management areas

 

Great Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare
launched The TURTLES RETURN book in
June 2018 after it was published by
Sir Peter Barter.

By WENCESLAUS MAGUN 

There is a much greater need in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to establish and sustain adaptive community-based resource management areas in light of the PNG government's failure to establish a sand mining policy and legislative framework.  

PNG has a land area of about 462 840 square kilometers with a small population of about 7 million people.  It occupies 1 percent of the world‘s land area and has about 6 to 7 percent of the world‘s total biodiversity which is equivalent to 400,000 to 700,000 species from an estimated 14 million species on earth thus globally recognized as one of the four mega-diversity areas of the world. It has 5,000 lakes, extensive river systems, 5,000 miles of mangrove swamps (1.5 % land area), and 8,000km² oceans, including 4,000km² coral reefs (NBSAP, 2007).

Madang Land Use Plan courtesy of TNC

Located within the Coral Triangle, a region recognized for its unparalleled coral reef biodiversity, PNG boasts of some of the most unique, endemic, and also endangered marine habitats, invertebrates, vertebrates, coral reefs, seagrass, and mangroves.

It boasts to have the second-largest nesting site of the critically endangered Leatherback Turtles located on the Huon Coast in Morobe Province with sporadic sites in Madang and other maritime provinces.

To ensure that these resources remain intact, PNG had signed the Treaty on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)  in 1992 and ratified it in March 1993.  Under this obligation PNG must fulfill 3 CBD Objectives which are:

1.    Conservation of biological diversity.

2.    Sustainable use of its components; and

3.    Fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources

This means that PNG, like most countries of the world, has committed to a number of binding obligations in the Articles of the Convention. 

Of most direct importance to the Policy is Article 8 on ‘in-situ biodiversity conservation, which commits PNG to establish and manage a system of protected areas, and to ensure that traditional lifestyles linked to the land are also protected.  Many of the other Articles are relevant to protected areas in PNG, including those about monitoring and identification of biodiversity values (Wickham et al., 2010).

Target 11 of the Aichi Biodiversity Target under CBD’s Objective calls for all governments who have signed the CBD treaty and ratified it to ensure that: “By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystems services of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures are integrated into the wider landscape and seascape;” 

In 2014, Yamai villagers in Rai Coast District, Madang
Province released this leatherback to sea following
MAKATA's advocacy efforts. Picture by Simon Warr.

In addition, Target 12 points out that: “By 2020, the extinction of known threatened species has been prevented and their conservation status, particularly of those most in decline, has been improved and sustained.”

Target 12 is MAKATA’s core business in light of saving, protecting, and restoring populations of the critically endangered Leatherback Turtles in ways that also improve the lives of indigenous local communities who share the beaches these gentle creatures come to nest.

PNG also ratified the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITIES), in 1976 which meant that Papua New Guineans are forbidden to trade endangered species such as sea turtles.

Achieving these obligations is not easy in PNG.  This is because 97% of PNG land is customarily owned and only 3 to 4 % is State owned.  The traditional customary tenure system in PNG is recognized by the country’s constitution and national laws.  This gives landowners freedom to determine how they wish to manage or give access to others to use their land, water, and sea resources upon which they are heavily dependent.