The Search for Alternative Outcomes

Engaged Anthropology ◽

10.1525/california/9780520297944.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Stuart Kirsch

Keyword(s):

Papua New Guinea ◽

Environmental Degradation ◽

New Guinea ◽

Development Project ◽

Resource Extraction ◽

Conservation Areas ◽

Subsequent Work ◽

Conservation And Development ◽

Regional History

This chapter examines a conservation and development project in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1990s. These projects were intended as alternatives to more destructive forms of resource extraction, including logging and mining. In this case, the four sociolinguistic groups living in the area could not agree on a shared agenda, forestalling the project. This suggests the importance of understanding regional history before establishing conservation areas. Although I correctly diagnosed the challenges facing implementation of the project, my desire for an alternative to destructive forms of development tempered my assessment of the project. In subsequent work, I began to focus on corporations responsible for environmental degradation.

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Conflict Management in Community-Based Natural Resource Projects: Experiences from the Lakekamu Basin Integrated Conservation and Development Project, Papua New Guinea

Biodiversity and Ecological Economics ◽

10.4324/9781315096308-12 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 196-219

Author(s):

Michael Warner

Keyword(s):

Conflict Management ◽

Papua New Guinea ◽

Natural Resource ◽

New Guinea ◽

Development Project ◽

Community Based ◽

Conservation And Development ◽

Integrated Conservation ◽

Integrated Conservation And Development

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Human impacts and Anthropocene environmental change at Lake Kutubu, a Ramsar wetland in Papua New Guinea

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.2022216118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 118 (40) ◽

pp. e2022216118 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kelsie E. Long ◽

Larissa Schneider ◽

Simon E. Connor ◽

Niamh Shulmeister ◽

Janet Finn ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mineral Resource ◽

Environmental Change ◽

Papua New Guinea ◽

Human Impacts ◽

Wetland Management ◽

New Guinea ◽

Ecosystem Dynamics ◽

Resource Extraction ◽

Human Populations ◽

Ramsar Wetland

The impacts of human-induced environmental change that characterize the Anthropocene are not felt equally across the globe. In the tropics, the potential for the sudden collapse of ecosystems in response to multiple interacting pressures has been of increasing concern in ecological and conservation research. The tropical ecosystems of Papua New Guinea are areas of diverse rainforest flora and fauna, inhabited by human populations that are equally diverse, both culturally and linguistically. These people and the ecosystems they rely on are being put under increasing pressure from mineral resource extraction, population growth, land clearing, invasive species, and novel pollutants. This study details the last ∼90 y of impacts on ecosystem dynamics in one of the most biologically diverse, yet poorly understood, tropical wetland ecosystems of the region. The lake is listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance, yet, since initial European contact in the 1930s and the opening of mineral resource extraction facilities in the 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in deforestation and an influx of people to the area. Using multiproxy paleoenvironmental records from lake sediments, we show how these anthropogenic impacts have transformed Lake Kutubu. The recent collapse of algal communities represents an ecological tipping point that is likely to have ongoing repercussions for this important wetland’s ecosystems. We argue that the incorporation of an adequate historical perspective into models for wetland management and conservation is critical in understanding how to mitigate the impacts of ecological catastrophes such as biodiversity loss.

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Landowner Groups and the Codification of Custom in Papua New Guinea

Becoming Landowners ◽

10.21313/hawaii/9780824856663.003.0004 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Victoria C. Stead

Keyword(s):

Papua New Guinea ◽

Land Tenure ◽

Land Reform ◽

Large Scale ◽

New Guinea ◽

Resource Extraction ◽

Land Reforms ◽

Middle Way ◽

Customary Land ◽

Relations Of Power

Although it diverges markedly from the vision of the Melanesian Way elaborated in the 1975 constitution, large-scale resource extraction has in recent decades been championed as the key mechanism for development in Papua New Guinea. In this context, forms of “middle-way” land reform are advocated as means of rendering customary land tenure commensurable with the requirements of modern, capitalist practices of production and economic activity. Principal amongst these are Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs) and lease-lease-back arrangements. Ethnographic exploration of communities affected by the tuna industry in Madang Province shows how these land reforms transform structures and cartographies of power, privileging the agents of the state and global capital at the same time that they transform relations of power within communities. At the same time, however, forms of codification and the assertion of landowner identities allow communities to make claims against outside agents involved in resource extractive activity on their lands.

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