We have to concede, Mutang, that we lost all you lost to a large extent the battle against the loggers and their corrupt politician allies in Sarawak that you know over that period leading up to the end of the last century. Now, what did those loggers do after they made their first billions?
As I explained they spread their tentacles into any other forested areas they could and one of the biggest lures, one of the biggest you know areas to get in before anyone else did was Gary’s territory of Papua New Guinea.
Gary when did these guys these same families these are companies um you know from Cebu, that's a town in Sarawak um mainly populated by you know long-established families originally from mainland China, who had you know the very well-known business region of mainland China um with very astute and ruthless reputation actually um these are family companies they married into each other.
I actually think quite often of the Sicilian mafia when I’m looking for a uh an equivalent um they then arrived the same family members the same companies at your door, didn't they Gary? When was that round about the 1990s?
Actually they came in in the 1980s mid-1980s. And uh and how did they transform lives in your area Well we had a logging industry, a forestry industry, I would say in Papua New Guinea and it was you know basically the companies were from Japan, Australia, New Zealand and America and they did what uh companies ought to do which is to abide by the laws of a nation, wherever they are operating in. So they respected these laws which dictated where they could carry out deforestation activities, where they couldn't and they actually went into downstream processing.
They actually went into downstream processing and they had you know wood pulp mills plywood meals etc and there was a massive reforestation program that was managed by the department of forestry until the Malaysian cartels came into Papua New Guinea.
When they (the Malaysian Cartels) came in they immediately displaced those legitimate companies that were operating in the forestry sector and soon enough these companies packed up and left because they just couldn't operate in this environment where they were intimidated, where they couldn't get permits where they were not treated fairly and eventually they packed up and that downstream processing industry was completely dismantled and replaced with a round log export.
You know philosophy that was perpetrated by the Malaysian timber companies. Then we saw some very interesting things happen which you know on the face of it you can't really tell but if you go into details and if you scrutinize what was actually happening you would see a systematic development of a perverted system whereby the various government departments responsible for checks and balances were compromised.
So permits and licenses would only go to these particular companies and you know and in record speed, without following the due processes for example there was no free prior informed consent from landowners. You know 97 (per cent) of the land in Papua New Guinea is owned by clans and what they would do is they would target individuals within these clans compromise them and then use the perverted system that they created in the government.
They would then gain access to this forest. They even I would I’m stating here from my own analysis of what happened, they even went through the process of carrying out government reforms deliberately so that they could access timber in areas which they couldn't originally access. In the first place, for instance, provinces used to have a huge say in regards to what type of companies would operate in their jurisdiction. Well reforms were carried out in 95 they called them you know provincial government reforms and they basically allowed the centralizing of permits and licenses to be made from Wagani by the national government which were easily accessed by these companies then they could access the provinces and their forest which they couldn't previously do so.
That this is you know that's my knowledge of how they first entered Papua New Guinea and what they started to do well is what we're effectively talking about is um the systematic corruption of a country. Isn't it?
Read about illegal logging in Papua New Guinea
