Part 2 - DEVELOPMENT DENIED:  customary land management neglect & the creeping balkanization of Papua New Guinea

By:  A.P. Power, Managing Director, Sago Industries Ltd, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea © 2000

It has been argued above that the State of Papua New Guinea has failed to develop legitimacy with its citizens because it has failed to empower the citizens. It has failed to empower the citizens because it has failed to recognize them as members of landowning groups. For the last 25 years the state has adopted a Western image of itself thereby denying a fundamental Melanesian reality and thereby stifling development. Diagram No.1 illustrates the difference between a Papua New Guinean model of the State and a Western model.

All fundamental issues facing village people in Papua New Guinea today, as in times gone bye, have implications for land management. These issues are listed in the following diagrams taken from recently republished Land Group Incorporation Manuals (Power 2000).

table 1
Incorp. Land Groups & Village Management

Many current problems facing landowners and landowner-state relations are frustrating development efforts by well meaning politicians, government agencies, financial institutions, and donors lead back to failures affecting management of land by customary groups. Twenty-five years of neglect must be addressed if headway is to be made in development in Papua New Guinea in the next twenty-five years.

There are certain basic principles that must be understood:

• The state must recognize, facilitate and empower the land groups
• Land groups have the customary know-how to manage land and related matters NOT the state
• While expert in customary matters, land groups require assistance to develop modern management skills needed to manage modern opportunities and problems.
• Once empowered, land groups have the responsibility to manage their affairs in a responsible and self-reliant manner, not sitting and waiting for the state to deliver.

Some examples will illustrate the problem and what the state and land groups must do to facilitate the solution.
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Reference

ARTICLE ABSTRACT

This paper examines the performance of governments over the last 25 years in relation to customary land and argues that there is a direct relation between this neglect and the negative development in the rural areas of the entire country. Furthermore there is a connection between neglect of customary land and the present tendency towards fragmentation or Balkanization of Papua New Guinea. The paper makes a plea once again for government to formally address management of customary land. We have the laws. We know what to do. We need to develop the political will to include all the population in development not just those in the modern sector.

The paper begins with a brief history of high points in development of the philosophy of customary land management in the last 30 years. The next section deals with the track record of successive governments and then goes on to make some practical suggestions as to the way forward towards involvement of all the land groups in the country in development.

By:  A. P. Power,
e-mail author A.P. Tony Power:  powerap@daltron.com.pg
Tony Power, Managing Director, Sago Industries Limited, PO Box 1907 Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea © 2000

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