Comments

Thanks Ryan, Poverty reduction is essential for the people of New Guinea (both PNG and Indonesian Papua). It can be achieved without heightening climate risks- which are themselves a major driver of poverty- and while maintaining biodiversity. Supporting locally led choices, including stronger smallholder agriculture and sustainable forest-based livelihoods offer important development gains while protecting the resilience of local communities.

Sorry about this. To be fair I did stop myself going on. Corruption comes in various guises; sometimes it is blatant, sometimes it is disguised. In Nauru, for many years, it has been blatant, but its consequences have been avoided by corrupt means of a different form. Thus, we have seen many years of election corruption that, despite assertions that gift giving is customary, it is patently untrue and, in any event, falls well within the purview of the Crimes Act. But despite being known to the police, nothing is done out of fear of government reaction. The saga of Getax bribes has been documented. Charges against Nauruans could have been laid because offences took place in Australia. A conviction in Australia named Nauruan recipients of bribes, but nothing happens in Nauru. The Australian Federal Police take action against the Getax company but the case drags on, raising the impression that the Australian government doesn't want it heard. Years ago the Qaqa/Adeang government set about entrenching its place by the passage of the Assistant Ministers Act that empowered the President to appoint any number of Assistant Ministers and set the salary of Assistant Ministers at just short of $12,000 per annum above that of ordinary members. In 2019, the new ‘Aingimea’ parliament replaced the previous Act with the Deputy Ministers Act giving similar powers to the President and providing the Deputy Ministers with an allowance. The rise of David Adeang to the Presidency in 2023 led to a new enactment, the Deputy Ministers Act 2023, that reinforced the power of the President to provide lucrative and influential positions to supporters. Subsequent changes to the Constitution gave the President the power to appoint up to seven Ministers, providing the ability, by the appointment of Deputy Ministers, to have a clear majority of members of Parliament. The result has been that in 2025, there are eight ministers (including the President) and five Deputy Ministers thus, given that the Parliament consists of 19 members, one of whom is the Speaker, the depth of control of the Parliament is clear and significant. That is corruption pretending to be for the better government of the country. Despite all that has happened, the Parliament did get around to passing a Leadership Code Act that provided for the appointment of an Ombudsman. But that was in 2016. There is still no Ombudsman. It would be in order to assert that government doesn’t want some independent person to look into the activities of its members and cronies. How the Australian government can close its eyes to the corruption issues faced in Nauru, issues that have gone on for years, is beyond human understanding.

This is a timely article highlighting the media’s critical role in exposing corruption. However, another emerging concern is the risk of corruption of the media itself by the state or the government of the day—particularly given the media’s increasingly vulnerable financial position. One mechanism is through lucrative public-service broadcasting grants or exclusive state advertising contracts awarded to favoured media outlets. This trend accelerated in Fiji under the FijiFirst Government, which had exclusive advertising arrangements to the state broadcaster and to one print outlet. The editorial impact of these arrangements was evident in our content analysis of Fiji’s 2018 election coverage. The two beneficiary outlets not only provided the incumbent FijiFirst Government with overwhelming coverage, but also overwhelmingly positive coverage. In the lead-up to any election, media scrutinization of the government of the day is at its most intense, not the least because it’s the government that holds executive power and controls the national purse. What we found strange was that opposition parties were subjected to far more rigorous questioning than the government! Interestingly, media outlets that did not receive government funding also tended to provide favourable coverage of the incumbent. The only exception to this rule was the The Fiji Times. Our paper explores several possible explanations for this pattern. To its credit, the current Fiji Government has repealed the Media Industry Development Act and, while it has continued with public-service broadcasting and print contracts, it is now treating all media organizations equitably, without exclusivity or political conditions. However, there is no guarantee that future governments will not exploit these financial levers to gain political advantage. This trend therefore warrants close monitoring in Fiji and across the wider Pacific, even if similar practices have not yet taken root elsewhere in the region. No government–media financial arrangement should come with strings attached as it could easily undermine editorial independence—as the lessons from Fiji’s 2018 election coverage indicate. Here’s the link to our discussion paper: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/d078c136-d754-4615-b696-7d49d175f097/content

Hello Thiago, it must be the season to call a spade a shovel. Your opening paragraphs are spot on and what follows a veritable spring clean of Pandora's box. I don't think I have seen a better summation of the ways to subvert an election in PNG. But does this not raise the question of where to now? What you have reported goes to the heart of why the big house Tambaran in Port Moresby does not represent the best interests of the population at large and the malaise it has spawned everywhere. In its present form maybe it never will. It builds clientelism and despite claims to the contrary centralises power. One look at the state of rural services and sector indicators should be enough to question anything the former colonial power did to shepherd this epicentre of diversity along the path it did. What I find difficult to reconcile is why millennia of deep time governance at community level was not taken into the given model as the bed rock foundation to ensure cohesion between communities and the three tiered system set up to serve them. As it stands community interests, needs or aspirations are rarely discussed or accommodated in any meaningful sense within the present model. Instead inherent weaknesses have been exploited to the "nth" degree by the usual suspects you might find on the nightly news. When logging interests can run roughshod over multiple communities by pulling levers in Port Moresby or representatives elected by the nefarious means you report expend what amounts to a lions share of district income on pet projects, there is little hope. I cannot see a way forward until communities are able to exercise more agency and control over their futures. Time for a root and branch review and deep dive to enable traditional authority to exercise agency and hold elected representatives to account.

Thanks for the detailed response, Peter! That makes sense, and does highlight the key point: that PNG is one of the most forested countries in the world, and also still one of the poorest. There is probably a lot of opportunity in the gap between the 88 and 58 for some more productive agricultural development, given the relatively poor performance of REDD+ and PES schemes, never mind the inherent paternalism and issues around outsourcing emissions, in delivering poverty reduction at scale where its most needed.

Dear Ryan, Thanks for your question. As you know, there are several ways to estimate forest cover. Satellite imagery is efficient, especially for tracking change, but it can’t always indicate ecological quality. Different organisations also use different definitions of forest cover, which adds another layer of variability to the estimates. Because I’m emphasising the value of New Guinea’s forests as both a reservoir of biodiversity and a major carbon sink, I use figures that estimate primary forest cover. My focus is on intact tropical rainforest ecosystems rather than disturbed, logged, planted, or recently regenerated areas, as the former typically hold the highest biodiversity. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization defines primary forest as naturally regenerated forest of native species with no clearly visible signs of human activity and where ecological processes remain largely undisturbed. Primary forest includes some areas often described as old-growth forest, meaning long-established ecosystems of particular ecological value. The source you shared identifies 88% (around 41 Mha) of PNG’s land cover as forested. It’s an excellent tool for monitoring deforestation in PNG and beyond, but it doesn’t distinguish forest types. This figure likely includes substantial areas that have been disturbed in recent decades. PNG has relatively little planted forest, so most non-primary forest is likely to be selectively logged or otherwise altered. In writing the paper, I triangulated across a few sources. The most detailed breakdown I found is in a recent publication from the PNG Forestry Authority (https://pngreddplus.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/PNG-Forest-and-Land-Use-Change-Assessment-2000-2019-PNGFA-2023.pdf?utm). It reports that in 2019, 77.9% of PNG was forested. Using PNG’s total area of roughly 46 Mha, this equates to about 36 Mha of forest. Of that, the report classifies 75.2% as primary forest—which it defines as intact and not disturbed by human activity—which translates to about 26 Mha, or 58.5% of PNG’s land area. For Papua (Indonesian New Guinea), there is the advantage of a peer-reviewed 2021 study Forest loss in Indonesian New Guinea (2001–2019): Trends, drivers and outlook (https://www.global-roadmap.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Forest-loss-in-Indonesian-New-Guinea_Gaveau-et-al-2021.pdf?utm), which states that in 2019, 34.29 Mha—or 83% of the region—supported old-growth forest.

Dear Stephen - Thanks for your thoughtful comment. There’s strong evidence that supporting Indigenous and local communities is one of the most effective ways to conserve forests. PNG is particularly well placed for this approach, given the strength of customary land tenure. As you note, there are many examples of local groups conserving ecosystems and, in some cases, generating income through ecotourism and other sustainable livelihood activities. The YUS Conservation Area in the Huon Peninsular of Morobe Province (mentioned in the article) is a great example, combining conservation with community development and livelihood support. On the TFFF contribution, the 20% allocation for Indigenous communities is a minimum requirement. Ideally, countries like PNG would choose to direct a much larger share to landowning communities. The TFFF framework also allows a portion of funding to strengthen state capacity to support, monitor and enable forest protection. In PNG, as elsewhere, there is considerable scope to build this enabling environment around local communities.

A journey to greatness. Your education journey is very tough. I believe those are the refining moments for Great future. I strongly believe that you will become a leader. I'm truly inspire by your story. God bless

"The country retains around 58% primary rainforest cover, but.." which definition in the linked report are you using for this? Figure 2-1 on page 2 says 77.89%, which is close to the 77.5 on Our World in Data and but I'm presuming this is not "primary rainforest" and could not find a ~58 figure from searching. And Global Forest Watch, which I would tend to use, says: "As of 2020, 88% of land cover in Papua New Guinea was natural forests and 0.75% was non-natural tree cover" https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/PNG/?map=eyJjYW5Cb3VuZCI6dHJ1ZX0%3D

Thank you, Ronny, for your excellent and illuminating analysis. One of the best pieces on decentralisation in Indonesia I have read!

Thank you Peter for an excellent article. I cannot comment on Papua but by contrast the high percentage of customary land ownership in Papua New Guinea offers hope for which the addition of the TFFF is encouraging. When it comes to land in PNG the key words are customary and landowner. Not government or other entity and twenty percent sounds like a recipe for failure. Land owners are vanishingly unlikely to relinquish agency over decisions concerning their land to others for twenty percent of the pie, especially to entities that history tells them they have no reason to trust. In my opinion customary land owners hold the key to success. There are examples that potentially point the way. I refer to two unrelated community groups in Milne Bay province who of their own volition registered portions of their customary land as bird of paradise sanctuaries. They did so because their leaders understood the value of the pristine nature of their environment that provides ecosystem services such as clean water rather than acquiesce to the dubious benefits from palm oil or logging interests. In both cases this is paying dividends as both groups are also investing in village tourism. Cruise ships and other visitors arrive in Alotau where an opportunity to glimpse Raggiana bird of paradise in full display during the mating season is quite a draw card. In the case of one group I am familiar with, their BOP sanctuary would have been covered in oil palms now had they not made the choices they did. By comparison they retain full control over their land and bird watchers provide their youth the opportunity to earn income while showcasing the wonders their ancestral land to others. My takeaways are it is the landowners who should be driving the activities to protect PNGs unique forests. As past, present and future custodians of the land it is they who should also receive the lion's share of the financial reward for doing so. Because so much of PNG is still covered in pristine forest and because it remains under traditional ownership the TFFF may offer a uniquely nationwide opportunity to apply benefits widely at the grass roots level. Benefits that could be maximised by exploring with communities solutions to mitigate the impact of climate change on food and water security, women's and youth economic empowerment and potentially positives arising from the intersection of these activities with basic services delivery. If a wide lens approach was applied in conjunction with the TFFF it would resonate strongly with community needs. If also applied democratically the TFFF might be the right initiative to catalyse widespread empowerment across rural PNG.

Thanks for your comment and helpful suggestion Keith