Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

The Foi in Papua New Guinea 93
Some legal provisions would seem to include
conservation as one of those public purposes.
The fourth goal of the Constitution calls for the
conservation and use of natural resources and the
environment “for the collective benefit of all” and
in ways that guarantee “replenishment for future
generations.” The Directive Principles of the
Constitution advocate “all necessary steps…to
give adequate protection to our valued birds,
animals, fish, insects, plants and trees.” Yet constitutional
protection also gives customary landowners
protection from usurpation, deprivation,
or infringement of their rights to property. In
practice this means that any conservation efforts,
even those that are state-led, must involve the full
participation of landowners in the planning and
decision-making process and enlist their cooperation
in order to succeed.
Disputes over land are common and traditionally
often led to warfare that settled things for a time
but planted the seeds of the next conflict. The
Land Disputes Settlement Act of 1975 tried to
bring some coherence to the process. Covering
disagreements over boundaries, customary ownership,
usufructuary rights, and other claims, the
act establishes a legal framework for amicable
mediation that extends from local land courts to
appeals at the regional and national levels. But
the act cannot guarantee certainty of title by a
decision at any level. Since decisions occur only
within the context of customary rights, they are
subject to later disputation should circumstances
change among the contesting parties. Landowners
do not have the right to mortgage their
property under customary law, and banks generally
are unwilling to issue loans using customary
land tenure for collateral.
2.2 The Kikori Integrated Conservation and
Development Project (ICDP)
The Kikori Integrated Conservation and
Development Project (ICDP) was established in
1993 with funding from an oil consortium to promote
sustainable development among the peoples
of the Kikori River watershed. Phase I of the
ICDP ran from 1993 to 1997, and Phase II began
in 1998 and will run through 2000. It covers a
mostly tropical rain forest area of more than 2.3
million hectares, or approximately 23,000 square
kilometers in the Gulf and the Southern
Highlands provinces of PNG. This area represents
6 percent of the country’s land area and
harbors 30 to 50 percent of New Guinea Island
species in several major animal groups (see map
6.1) (Leary et al. 1996).
The Kikori River catchment is a vast, intact, and
largely undisturbed biogeographic unit. The area
is very diverse in topography, landforms, relief,
soils, and vegetation. It extends from the precipitous
Doma Peaks in the Southern Highlands to
the Gulf of Papua, encompassing habitats as distinct
as Lake Kutubu, the nation’s second largest
freshwater body; the Great Papuan Plateau;
rugged limestone ranges; extinct volcanoes;
extensive tropical rain forests; and complex lowland
river deltas.
Recent surveys across key sites in the project
area testify to the high level of biodiversity. The
project area is also rich in cultural diversity, with
about 20 different ethnolinguistic groups among
the more than 80,000 people.
The Kikori ICDP was envisaged as a pioneering
model project that would enlist maximum community
participation to achieve conservation and
sustainable development initiatives. Its ongoing
mission is to help local people identify and refine
culturally appropriate strategies to improve their
subsistence and generate needed income, while
protecting the long-term resource base of biodiverse
ecosystems in the area.
The diverse stakeholders involved in this process
include local landholders and their organizations,
national and provincial government agencies,
Chevron Niugini and its joint venture partners,
and various nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs). The collaboration between WWF and
Chevron and its partners is a pioneering effort by
the oil industry to demonstrate responsible corporate
citizenship in the communities affected by
its business activities. Chevron Niugini and its
joint venture partners have provided substantial
funding to the project to protect the rich biodiversity
of the Kikori watershed region and benefit its
people. The environmental impact of the oil
project has been minimal.
Most of the communities involved are in areas
that are remote even by PNG standards. They
are thinly populated and widely scattered, they
lack basic services, and they are on the periphery
of the market economy but feel its pull. They are
blessed with abundant natural resources.