Home | March 2006 »
28 February 2006
A work in progress...
Reflections on Lake Murray
© Greenpeace/ Behring
Posted by Karen, GFRS correspondent
The light is fading. The lake is still. I'm sitting in the 'office' about 20m from the lake edge where the dinghies and dug-out canoe are pulled up or float nearby.
Just beyond there's a thick swathe of soft green grass that rims the edge of much of this vast lake. Waves of cicada calls sweep through the bush next to the camp.
Today a group of us headed south by boat to a temporary camp on Begua land. There the foresters, local landowners and forest volunteers have been marking the boundary of a forest management area and carrying out a basic inventory to get an idea of log volume and tree species in this area.
It's hot work.
Continue reading... | Permalink | Comments (3)
"Boy bilong grup"
Building a jetty by the Lake
© Greenpeace/Prout
Here at the GFRS, Klaas and me (Flo) are trying hard to be part of the group; "boy bilong grup" as they say in Pidgin.
Every so often we take a bush knife (it’s the tool for everything, and it’s better than a Leatherman), look mean and go off in the forest, just to ... well, be there.
Sometimes we take one of the dug-out canoes, the paddles and head out onto the lake. We're still practising. We zig-zag a lot, our balance is sometimes good, sometimes not. Steering can be an art form …
We haven't mastered it yet, but one day we'll take the spear too, and try to be proper hunters and fishermen. We've even set a trap in the forest not far from the GFRS, but we won't tell anybody until we've actually caught something.
Continue reading... | Permalink | Comments (1)
Lukautim Bus
Chauka from Manus Province
© Greenpeace/ Behring
Posted by Sophie, blogger on board the Rainbow Warrior
It’s 7:30 am and the dock is lined with a mix of Papua New Guinea and international campaigners and volunteers, all in matching dark blue heavyweight t-shirts in the already sweltering heat. Across our chests in big yellow letters it says "Lukautim Bus". This is the Pidgin slogan for the campaign.
Lukautim Bus means, “Protect our forest”. Pidgin is based on English, with additions for local dialects, Malay and German. So sometimes words are very similar. How is “Lukautim Bus” like English? Think, “Look after our bush!”
We're awaiting the Rainbow Warrior’s arrival in Port Moresby, to kick off the launch of Global Forest Rescue Station here in the region’s Paradise Forests. There's a lot of excitement all round, especially from me as it will be my first glimpse of my new home for the next three months. I'm Sophie, and I'm about to join the ship to be your onboard blogger.
Continue reading... | Permalink | Comments (3)
27 February 2006
Secret handshakes
Klaas and Sep at the airstrip
© Greenpeace/ Behring
It’s early Monday morning (6 am) and we’re at the domestic airport, after a 40-seater took us through Daru to Kiunga. In Kiunga we’re met by Sebastian. He’s holding up a sign saying “Greenpeace”, just in case there’s more white people on the plane. There isn’t. The stares of the locals means there hardly ever is…
A little later a small Cesna arrived to take all nine of us to Lake Murray, in two flights, because there's only five seats. Our luggage is weighed to the kilo, because the plane could not take more than 370 kilos and we were way over. So we had to leave boxes and even people (Richard and Brian, two guys from the Papua New Guinea team) behind!
The flight is just amazing.
Continue reading... | Permalink | Comments (1)
26 February 2006
Clans line up for eco-forestry
The boundary marking begins
© Greenpeace/ Behring
With news of the GFRS getting around, there's a big rise in the number of clans putting themselves forward to start ecoforestry.
Yesterday after a meeting in Miwa (see below), three more Begwa clans expressed their interest. Four other clans already had, so now there are seven new Begwa clans who will begin the process over the next weeks, including clans who have land in the Kamula Dosa concessions.
Continue reading... | Permalink
25 February 2006
Eco-forestry, step by step
Boundary marking
© Greenpeace
The following outlines the steps involved in setting up a community based eco-forestry project in Lake Murray.
1. Community organising
Community development organisation, Barefoot, holds workshops to discuss “What is development?” and conducts a “needs assessment” meeting so that each clan is clear about what they need and want to gain from eco-forestry.
2. Participatory land use mapping
The clans map their land, delineating their boundaries and identifying their existing land use – such as hunting areas, sago making spots and sacred sites. Neighbouring clans need to agree on the clan boundaries. Then land is allocated for future uses – including forest management areas (for eco-forestry), conservation, ecotourism as well as hunting and sago making. These maps that are drawn on the ground and recorded on paper.
Continue reading... | Permalink
Food and medicines from the forest ‘supermarket’
Cooking over the fire at the GFRS
© Greenpeace/Prout
The protein in their diet comes from hunting animals (pigs, cassowary, deer and wallaby) and trapping or netting fish (saratoga, barramundi and catfish) from the lake. Turtles and small birds are also caught.
Kendall Jamie, a hunter since he was nine years old, says deer is the hardest animal to catch: “They are quick!” Hunters must employ special tactics to catch a deer. “You paint yourself with mud,” he explains, “and they think it’s a friend who has been in the mud.”
Continue reading... | Permalink
Community logging on Batanta Island
Cooking at the camp
© Greenpeace/ Sewell
In many parts of the world, the forest is the lifeblood of the communities that live in or around them. It is the source of everything they need for survival. It is their supermarket, hardware shop, pharmacy and bank. These are things many of us take for granted in our day-to-day lives and is something many forest communities regard as an unchangeable part of their life. However attitudes are changing, as large scale logging operations threaten the very existence of much of the world’s forests.
During its Forest Crime Patrol in Papua, Indonesia, the Rainbow Warrior came across one community worried about the threat industrial logging poses to their forests and witnessed how they use the forest to raise funds for their village.
Continue reading... | Permalink
Profile: Galeva Sep
This is Sep
© Greenpeace/ Behring
It took fierce determination for Galeva Sep to make a life for himself away from Lake Murray and the shadow of a hard childhood. But his sense of pride and a wish to fight the injustices his countrymen have suffered has brought him back.
Now he lives in two worlds – traditional life in Lake Murray and that of NGOs and international media exposure.
Equally at ease in both worlds, Sep is passionate about sending a message to other Papua New Guineans and it’s not just about the importance of the forests.
“This is a national issue,” says Sep. “We want to make it as a model to PNGs, that we can do these things ourselves. We can make it a success and we don't need Malaysian companies coming in and destroying our forests and stealing from us. And we don’t need to go begging around to donor countries to make our living.”
Continue reading... | Permalink
China Forest Rescue Station
Inside the CFRS
© Greenpeace
Every second tropical tree traded in the world is sent to China, where it is processed into cheap furniture, flooring and plywood for local use or for export to Europe, the USA, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Much of the wood comes from the Paradise Forests of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (PNG), where between 76 to 90 percent of logging is illegal.
Housed in a traditional Chinese courtyard, the CFRS is decorated with genuine PNG artefacts and designed just like the Global Forest Rescue Station in Lake Murray.
Continue reading... | Permalink
The fight against the Kiunga-Aiambak ‘road’
The Kiunga-Aimbak “road”.
© Greenpeace
Flouting PNG’s laws, the required informed consent of the rightful landowners was never obtained or even sought.
“At first it didn't go through the community,” Gasilamai Malese, chairman of the Barrimundi clan of the Begua tribe, said. “The plan was done by top people in parliament. Then they came through the villages telling people, ‘We are going to build a road.’”
Continue reading... | Permalink
Meet the foresters
The foresters at work
© Greenpeace/ Prout
They work for the Foundation for People and Community Development (FPCD), an NGO based in Medang on the north coast of PNG. It specialises in ecoforestry and is committed to giving communities the skills and equipment to manage their own resources and forests sustainably.
Decked out in ‘wellington’ boots and beanies or tightly-tied blue bandanas, they are in the forest for a longer than usual three month stint while working with us at the Global Forest Rescue Station (GFRS). Always willing to answer questions, and quick to smile or laugh with you, these guys are dedicated to their work and have an abiding passion for the forest.
Continue reading... | Permalink
24 February 2006
Working together: our partners in Paradise
In Papua New Guinea, Greenpeace works with other NGOs and local groups offering training and support in community forest solutions. These groups include:
Barefoot Community Services
Environmental Law Centre (ELC)
Lake Murray Resource Owners Association (LMROA)
FORCERT (Forest Management and Product Certification Support)
www.forestandtradeasia.org
Papua New Guinea Ecoforestry Forum (EFF)
www.ecoforestry.org.pg
Foundation for People and Community Development (FPCD)
www.fpcd.org.pg
Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights (CELCOR)
www.celcor.org.pg
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
www.wwfpacific.org.fj
Talk To Us - Open Thread
This thread is a public forum.
