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Anne was the 2006 winner of the Goldman Award, the world’s top
grassroots environment prize and her message is clear: Our greed for
timber products is causing the Asia Pacific region's dwindling forest
areas to be logged out of existence.
As a law student in PNG, Anne witnessed the damage illegal logging does to forest communities and the habitats they rely on for survival. Since then, she's dedicated her life to helping custodial landowners fight the multinational logging companies.
In her acceptance speech at the 2006 Goldman Award ceremony in San Francisco, Anne told an international audience how the cancer of illegal logging has spread right to the top in PNG.
"Papua New Guinea is famous for its corruption, which permeates all levels of society. This corruption is fuelled by greed of multinational corporations who are hell bent on stealing resources from its traditional custodians.
"This is our fight, in the face of a seemingly unending appetite for the raw natural resources.
"How can anyone call it development when the land is raped for profit and the benefits of a few? Is it development when our country has to go begging to the international community because our natural resources are being exploited and our people left destitute?"
Anne won a landmark court case in 1997 that saw a forest community awarded $1 million dollars (2.3 million Kina) in compensation. The long fight put Anne at serious personal risk. She was physically attacked and intimidated, and even received death threats. Legal files were stolen when her house was broken into while she and her son slept.
Despite the risk, Anne says she will continue to keep up the fight. "At the end of the day it's about these people, it's about the future, and I can't stop until we get something right," she explains. "Just seeing them being treated so badly – being forced to sign contracts at gunpoint, being beaten up by police that are supposed to protect them – I can’t bear that."
"I hope that by sharing my story, Australians will think of me the next time they buy wood. And of the people, animals and birds that depend on these forests for their lives.
"I call on the Australian people to help me stop the plundering of my country by buying only wood that can be guaranteed to have come from sustainable sources."
As a law student in PNG, Anne witnessed the damage illegal logging does to forest communities and the habitats they rely on for survival. Since then, she's dedicated her life to helping custodial landowners fight the multinational logging companies.
In her acceptance speech at the 2006 Goldman Award ceremony in San Francisco, Anne told an international audience how the cancer of illegal logging has spread right to the top in PNG.
"Papua New Guinea is famous for its corruption, which permeates all levels of society. This corruption is fuelled by greed of multinational corporations who are hell bent on stealing resources from its traditional custodians.
"This is our fight, in the face of a seemingly unending appetite for the raw natural resources.
"How can anyone call it development when the land is raped for profit and the benefits of a few? Is it development when our country has to go begging to the international community because our natural resources are being exploited and our people left destitute?"
Anne won a landmark court case in 1997 that saw a forest community awarded $1 million dollars (2.3 million Kina) in compensation. The long fight put Anne at serious personal risk. She was physically attacked and intimidated, and even received death threats. Legal files were stolen when her house was broken into while she and her son slept.
Despite the risk, Anne says she will continue to keep up the fight. "At the end of the day it's about these people, it's about the future, and I can't stop until we get something right," she explains. "Just seeing them being treated so badly – being forced to sign contracts at gunpoint, being beaten up by police that are supposed to protect them – I can’t bear that."
"I hope that by sharing my story, Australians will think of me the next time they buy wood. And of the people, animals and birds that depend on these forests for their lives.
"I call on the Australian people to help me stop the plundering of my country by buying only wood that can be guaranteed to have come from sustainable sources."
