Rob Small's Masters Thesis: Uptake and the success of insect ...

initially began due to the impact that the mine was having on local villages, concerning
both the environmental damage and compensation claims. The largest mines that are still in
production are OK Tedi, Porgera and Lihir. In 1999 earnings from oil, gold and copper
amounted to K2301.
The large scale mining operations in Papua New Guinea have created localised areas of
relatively high income for Papua New Guineans (see Maps 2 and 3). The mines create
employment opportunities for people within the locale of the mine site and for those that
are able to migrate to it. As part of landowner compensation packages mining companies
such as BHP at Ok Tedi paid for electricity, roads and High School fees. This process of
uneven development, that has occurred throughout PNG over the past thirty years,
continues today.
Mining and logging operations provide significant localised
improvements to living conditions such as electricity, roads and health clinics. However,
these amenities are only maintained for the duration of the operation, and rapidly fall into
disrepair once it has ceased. This type of infrastructure provision, is therefore, short-term
and unsustainable, yet it still helps to foster a feeling of prosperity within communities..
Rural people are willing to accept environmentally damaging practices such as
unmonitored logging due to these benefits and a knowledge that the government is too
weak to provide them with adequate services.
Papua New Guinea’s immature transport network and obstructive topography intensify the
country’s developing spatial inequalities (Clarke, 1980).While working in the relatively
remote North Coast mountain range of Papua New Guinea on an Integrated Conservation
and Development project the author experienced first hand the desire for communities to
have their share of ‘development’. Communities in this area were aware of the short-term
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