Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

The Foi in Papua New Guinea 97
a particular long house is the clan segment whose
members reside there and share food together.
Individuals inherit from their ancestors the right
to use certain pieces of the clan’s territory, and
this right is often continuous so long as the land
use is maintained. Right to unclaimed land can
be asserted by continuous use of it. Each long
house community also has territories, usually
hunting grounds held in common by the men.
Traditionally Foi communities were not headed by
chiefs, but were dominated by “big men” whose
leadership was earned rather than inherited. Rather
than invoking institutional authority, big men
relied on their charisma and accomplishments to
wield power. In any given long house, two or
three men always emerged as acknowledged leaders
who had earned prestige and built extensive
personal connections with other communities.
As we have seen with the sleeping arrangements
and the discussion of land rights and clan and
affinal ties, each community is like a web in its
formation. The ability to negotiate the strands
of divergent interests and their connections to
other communities shapes the pattern of leadership
and the range of power and influence each
leader can exert.
Among the Foi, complex networks of marriage
and matrifiliation between individual families
cut across the grain of long house community
organization so that a web of personal and familial
alliances, rather than any formal political
unity, link communities together. Individuals or
individual families, by and large, alter the balance
of forces, influences, and interests that link
the various communities.
However, the petroleum project has altered the
terrain in which leadership functions and created
new institutional forms for dealing with social
and economic relations beyond the scope of traditional
means. National legislation established a
framework for setting up legally chartered
Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs), Landowner
Companies (LANCOs), and Landowner
Associations (LAs). The Incorporated Land
Groups Act authorizes landowner ILGs to negotiate
with government, companies, and developers
and receive royalty, equity, and compensation
payments. The Business Groups Incorporation
Act enables ILGs to establish LANCOs to
engage in commerce, provide direct or indirect
employment, and undertake contracts or subcontracts
from developers. These two pieces of legislation
have enabled customary land groups to
enhance their collective decision capacity and
create a more formal leadership structure.
Collective decision capacity is further enhanced
when ILGs band together to form a Landowners
Association to negotiate better terms from an
outside developer. These new formalized institutions
have played a significant role in helping
landowners get a fairer deal from developers and
the national and provincial governments, and
have generated spillover benefits for communities.
But these institutions also suffer from clan
rivalries, mismanagement, and corruption.
They have not ended the old disputes, but moved
them to a new battleground on which finding resolution
requires new tactics and leadership skills.
Major development activities such as logging,
mining, or oil extraction tend to escalate existing
land disputes and revive dormant ones because of
the revenue streams they generate. The 1997
Social Impact Survey carried out for the Moran oil
project near Lake Kutubu found a 700 percent
increase in land disputes within a five-month
period and a doubling of disputes in the Kutubu
petroleum development project area. Similar
reports came from the Gobe petroleum project
area not far from the territory of the Lower Foi.
3.4 Gender Relations
In Foi society, all major social process begins
with the culturally defined and historically determined
sexual separation of men and women and
distinction between male and female dominions.
Traditionally, Foi women had no role in the leadership
structure and were excluded in all decisions
governing land and other resources. The
process of change initiated by developments such
as the petroleum project has had little impact on
the traditional status and role of women.
Although men and women as married couples are
responsible for generating food for the family,
there are clearly defined gender roles in the division
of productive labor. Traditionally, men take
their wives and children and live deep in the bush
for weeks or even months during the hunting season.
The men do the hunting for flying foxes,
cassowaries, birds, tree kangaroos, and snakes,
and butcher, cook, and distribute the meat.
Women help with fishing, and also forage for