Fishy business. The Social Impact of SST.pdf - Act Now!

Chairman Joe Sirias Yes we do go out, the population are increasing we still fish but catchlittle. All the fish are gone.Peter Kumun: There are extra ordinary lights coming from the sea, plus the noise too whichwe never heard before these things are scaring the fish away. no more fish came fighting intothe beach like they us to do before. Now a days we had to travel out in to the deep sea to lookfor the fish most of the time we caught nothing and we are really facing up with themsomething must done before its too late.Sirias: We have prepared some question for the big shots form the government body toanswered but you people came so we talk to you like students doing their research and shareideas. The ground breaking ceremony was held outside Wewak town but why did they build itin the middle of Wewak? Now that the smell is polluting the entire town what are thegovernment going to do about it?Anis: For what we know there is a dispute over the land on which the factory is built .Thegovernment wants to establish more factories that’s good but before that must meet therequirement of the land owners and pay the compensation before it begins its operation whoever said that’s their land must think again the state has acquirer the land.Sirias :This is so that the investors are free to come in anytime they like and do business in oursoil plus the government has given them authority to them to fish anytime so that they canmake bigger bugs to feed them selves and how about us the landowners ?we the people ofWewak are very clever to build the loining cannery in the middle of Wewak full of pollutions[smells]You people are very close to the factory, was there any awareness about it before it arrived?Sirias : I think I made it cleared that at the beginning we were not involve in any agreement ordiscussion but truly we face the consequence so who’s fault is it?Kumun : I recall there was a public awareness campaign aired on the radio east Sepik tellingpeople that every thing will be fine.Did the Provincial Government or the management of SST come down and talk to the peoplehow the factory was going to dump the waste?Anis : We the people of this village here know nothing ,no one came to our village anddiscussed any thing about the cannery plus they knew we are the traditionally landowners byrights we owns the land were the cannery is builds. Like we share the boundaries with the otherlandowners. The awareness ,were discuss with the settlements ,convincing them about thegoods that the cannery is going to bring to them plus they must fully support the government tobring more projects to benefit every one also our islanders they are subject to the problems thatwe are facing today. For example the government is getting 10 percent from the cannery for thetax and that’s a facts from some reliable sources.. So we’ve been sideline like we are nobody.These people are crazy by not consulting us the land owners.Kumun :To make it clear, we realise that we should form an association but we are only smallgroups here which we need to register to fight the case. But we have done it to shut down theMobil, not to pump in fuel. Now we are looking at the dredging going on, if they are thinking of120