Greenpeace in Lake Murray, PNG

To the logging industry, the rainforest is the last great frontier left to exploit in PNG – a prime target.

In the heart of PNG's remote forest lies the 52-square kilometre Lake Murray, the largest in PNG. Indigenous tribes of around 5000 people own the lake and the surrounding one million hectares of forest.

It was here, in 2003, that Greenpeace and other non-government organisations worked with Lake Murray landowners to expel illegal logging company, Concord Pacific. Before they left, the loggers and their infamous Kiunga-Aiambak road degraded 100,000 hectares of ancient forest.

Since then, Greenpeace has forged community forestry solutions with Lake Murray landowners. They want an alternative source of income to logging. Their greatest challenge is keeping the illegal loggers out of their forest.

The Global Forest Rescue Station

In 2006, Greenpeace brought the plight of Lake Murray to the world with the global forest rescue station (GFRS). The GFRS was established when Lake Murray tribes invited Greenpeace to help protect their ancient forest. Volunteers from around the world lived and worked alongside the Kuni, Begwa and Pari tribes, boundary marking over 300,000 hectares of remote forest.

The boundary marking was a precursor to establishing ecoforestry businesses. Ecoforestry causes minimal damage and the money made from just one tree can pay a child’s school fees for a year.

Working from village to village, always in alliance with community-based organisations, we demarcated (boundary marked) clan lands and prepared them for ecoforestry. Foresters trained clans in portable sawmilling and business skills.

After three months, the GFRS culminated in the felling of the first ecoforestry tree. The tree was milled using the portable sawmill and loaded onto a barge the landowners had retrieved from the bottom of the lake. This ecotimber was shipped locally. Future ecotimber will be milled for local and international customers, like Australia. The ecoforestry industry in Lake Murray is a direct challenge to the industrial logging industry in PNG.

Although the GFRS is over, the real work for the landowners is just beginning. The foresters, from the PNG highlands, will move from clan to clan, supervising the start of each new ecoforestry business in Lake Murray.