Eco-Tourism in the Rain Forests of Crater Mountain, Papua New Guinea

by Research and Conservation Foundation of PNG

Partners:

Research and Conservation Foundation of PNG (RCF) Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)

Success Stories

As a result of the expanse of the area and the relative newness of the establishment of functioning Wildlife Management Areas in PNG, some national, and most provincial and district government departments are not familiar with, and are even suspicious of, the collective actions of communities and NGOs to implement conservation and eco-enterprise development initiatives in remote regions.

Under the national legislation, land-owning clans in the WMA are to identify clan representatives to form Management Committees who will create natural resource law (within the parameters of the national law) and act in an official capacity to enforce them. Yet over the last three years, despite the Crater Mountain landowner management group's conscientious effort to draft and enforce natural resource laws within the boundaries of the WMA, they have received limited assistance from government departments when prosecution of violations is requested.

To try to improve matters, in May 1997, the project staff and landowner committee representatives from four WMA communities staged the first provincial briefing for public officials from Eastern Highlands and Simbu provinces. This included presentations to government departments by national project staff and landowner Management Committee representatives about the eco-enterprises, management institutions, natural resource laws and enforcement procedures operating in the WMA.

Officials from both provinces were impressed that local communities from 21 different clans and two language groups, with limited formal education in the remote regions of their provinces, could generate and manage income from enterprises based on conservation instead of the customary large-scale resource extraction model of development. Many said they did not know that national NGOs in PNG had the capacity to provide such a level of services or to conduct the sophisticated analysis of the process through the interdisciplinary monitoring activities being utilized in the Crater project.

Given their success, Crater Mountain landowners gained confidence to talk directly with national and provincial authorities about the resolutions from the Crater Mountain Annual WMA Meeting later in August 1997. Committees reviewed and ratified their natural resource laws and sent copies to the Department of Environment and Conservation for gazettal. They also attached letters which expressed their concerns about some government departments involved in granting of logging and mining permits in parts of the WMA without assuring full participation of the WMA management structure in the process.

We hope that the success of the briefings will serve to foster greater support and collaboration from the district and provincial level government of PNG in the protection of the Crater Mountain WMA in the months ahead. That support will be critical as communities work to strengthen and maintain their natural resource laws to withstand the pressures of large mining and logging operations now on the WMA borders. Our experience illustrates that, despite our busy and demanding schedules, it is truly essential to keep all stakeholders informed and involved in the conservation process to increase the chances for success.

Challenges

Significant threats loom on the boundaries of the WMA. In the lowlands, over the south border, large-scale logging activities in a national Forest Management Area are testing the management capacity of clan communities inside the WMA. Is there enough financial income, value and satisfaction derived from the existing eco-enterprises and conservation procedures now operating in the WMA, to prevent community factions from abandoning enterprises with conservation linkages for non-sustainable short-term profits?

Likewise on the northern boundary of the WMA, industrial and government requests to explore for gold and copper deposits have divided clans of the same language group. Those within the WMA have cautiously examined the options, requesting more information and guidance from NGOs on how proposed activities will effect their current eco-enterprise and conservation activities.

Related clans outside of the WMA boundaries, within the same mineral exploration area, have applied intense pressure on their neighbors to submit to the requests for further exploration and possible exploitation of mineral deposits. At times over the last year, the tense negotiations between clans have led to tribal fights. Clans downstream from the exploration area in the WMA are also worried about their water quality if clans upstream elect for possibilities of mineral extraction.

Can the young Management Committees within the WMA maintain consensus on such volatile environmental issues? Representatives from all 21 clans have agreed that no such large-scale exploitation of natural resources in the WMA will be permitted. Yet, the pressure on individuals and selected clans to pull out of the WMA consortium is intense. Will the national, provincial and district level government support or disarm the fledgling conservation initiatives in the WMA? Based on the successful briefings from May, we are hopeful that they will lend support to the tremendous first steps that landowners have achieved in one of the first operational Wildlife Management Areas in the country. Yet, are they sufficiently convinced of the economic and environmental value of the WMA's biodiversity to the region to objectively review the other development options which may be presented?

Throughout the WMA, landowners with an average education level of grade one and still largely engaged in a subsistence lifestyle, struggle to collect and digest information about everything from natural resource law, economic options and probabilities of businesses that they are only beginning to understand, and the unknown and little understand social impacts of the development options being presented to them. Project staff, in turn, are challenged to collect and deliver the needed information for decision-making to the communities in a clear and uncomplicated format while still addressing the complexities of the options and their implications. We come back to the need for strong partnerships from collaborative communities, NGOs and government departments to work with the Crater Mountain WMA, in what may be it's biggest challenge yet.

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