The Who’s Who List in PNG Business

Hello Mr. MP – Are You Awake?

There prevails a reoccurring perspective that is shared by Papua New Guineans all around the country regarding the existence of our leaders – or maybe more appropriately, their extinction. From the lapuns grinding their buai with rusty bolts, to the papas watching the mamas picking coffee, to the teens cutting bag after bag of copra – it seems that everybody in PNG is asking, where is our MP?

Surely the PNG Member of Parliament has not yet progressed onto the ‘endangered species list’, particularly when there exists (on paper) 109 healthy specimens who are employed by the people of the land. Perhaps because of their Bik Man (na wanpela meri) status they have somehow thwarted Darwinism and evolved rapidly back into the modern neanderthal – a big head, limited speech and hearing capabilities, and a tendency to become nocturnal when expected to help with the village duties, being among their most prominent characteristics.

To highlight the fact that ordinary Papua New Guineans, the people who voted their MPs to join the Haus Tambaran’s seductive membership, are searching high and low for their MPs, Tubuans & Dukduks took a dive into the June 2009 archives of The National in search of possible recorded sightings of this most elusive animal:

28 May, 2009: Dr Petrus Bosip Amban (Minj) states the following:

I would like to know where the MP for Anglimp-South Waghi has disappeared to. He holds no ministerial portfolios to keep him in Port Moresby all the time. His visits to the electorate have been dismal. There is no development of any shape or form in the electorate and Minj town, the so-called district headquarters, is overgrown with elephant grass. What is going on Jamie Maxtone-Graham? I challenge you to tell us your plans for the electorate. There is no point in keeping your plans to yourself.

1 June, 2009: Keru (Newcastle) supports the above statement:

I concur with the letter Anglimp MP Must Tell Us His Plans. It has been about five years since Jamie Maxtone-Graham was voted into Parliament. To this day, we have not seen any tangible benefits. Can the Anglimp-South Waghi MP shed some light?

With great foresight, The National must have known the people of Anglimp-South Waghi were wondering if their MP was still alive because  that very weekend they published a reassuring article titled, Jamie Loses 65kg and Saves his Life and they even included his email address just so Jamie could be contacted personally: jamiemaxtonegraham@gmail.com.

Now this regarding Western Province.

2 June, 2009: Concerned Barramundi (Madang) is also wondering about his MP:

I come from a remote river province and it is the least developed province in PNG. There is hardly any service and the people are still living the way our ancestors lived before Independence. Governor Bob Danaya and his deputy Boka Kondra, who is MP for North Fly, must wake up and start delivering.

Simbu MPs are in high demand too.

3 June, 2009: Julie Francis (Madang) wants to know what her Governor is doing – if anything:

I want to highlight the poor conditions of all roads in Simbu Province. The sad thing is none of our leaders, including the governor (John Garia), is doing anything about it. How are my parents going to transport their goods to the market? The people of Simbu are suffering.

Now over to Southern Highlands.

4 June, 2009: Ojay SB accuses his MP of deliberately hiding from his own people:

I would like to know where Nipa-Kutubu MP Philemon Embel has gone to. Since winning the election, he has gone into hiding. He has not brought any tangible development and the people are suffering. While many of his fellow MPs are delivering services in their electorates, Mr Embel is more concerned about PNG’s NRL bid than the people he is supposed to represent. I want to see when the police college will be built in Poroma.

Back to the least developed province in PNG.

9 June, 2009: South Flyer (Florida) thinks his MP accomplished the impossible and somehow managed to get lost in Waigani:

It is almost two years since the last general election. There is no development in South Fly and basic infrastructure has gone from bad to worse. Sali Subam must have got lost in the Waigani swamp. The National Government has allocated K10 million to each district but the MP does not know what to do with the funds because he is nothing more than a small boy among the big men in Parliament.

Now to the Islands.

10 June, 2009: Laluli Teu (Mamusi) is praying for his MP to visit his electorate:

The Mamusi people would appreciate it very much if Member for Pomio Paul Tiensten were to pay them a visit and see for himself how his people are surviving. There is no health centre or aid post and many primary schools are made from bush materials. There is no road to Mamusi. The people are crying for help and we pray Mr Tiensten will hear our cries.

Now to Western Highlands – the second time.

12 June, 2009: Johnson Takip (Lae) wants his MP to deliver at the bare minimum – something:

Recently, the MP for North Waghi, Benjamin Mul, has been spending a fair amount of district funds on all sorts of claims throughout the electorate. He has been given the mandate to bring services and develop the electorate. It has been two years since he was elected as MP but the people of North Waghi are still waiting in vain for developments.

Now to West Sepik.

15 June, 2009: TLF Citizen (Madang) wonders if his MP knows how to plan:

The Telefomin MP has done nothing since being elected to office in 2007. As someone from Telefomin, I wonder if Peter Iwei has any plans for the electorate. The odd services that we see in the district are the initiative of the former MP, the late Wesani Iwoksim about 30 years ago. I call on Mr Iwei to tell the people of his plans for the electorate.

Back to Western Highlands – AGAIN.

16 June, 2009: Akap Natngil (Mt. Hagen) claims his MPs are quite proficient at ‘lip-service’:

Decades have passed and leaders have come and gone but Mul-Baiyer has remained unchanged since the colonial days. The current Member has promised the people roads, electricity and water supply but in reality, there is nothing to show. The people of Mul-Baiyer are fed with lip-service by their MP, Sani Rambi, and governor, Tom Olga. I call on both leaders to live up to their promises and refrain from giving lip-service.

Back to Southern Highlands.

17 June, 2009: Concerned Ambula (Madang) believes his MP should be ashamed of himself:

The road, if we can call it road, from Kagua station to Maga is deplorable. If I were the MP (James Lagea), I would be ashamed by the condition. I don’t know how the MP feels when driving along this road. The people of Kagua-Erave have been living in darkness for far too long. We want to see tangible development and changes.

Now to Port Moresby. Yes, it seems even Mosbi MPs are vacant.

18 June, 2009: North West Resident (POM) thinks his MP has gone into hibernation:

I would like to advise the good MP (Mekere Moarauta) to drive around Ensisi, Rainbow Village and Gerehu suburbs to see for himself what is happening. Huge craters are the norm these days. Where has all the money gone? The Opposition leader has lost his way and gone into hibernation. Thanks to the NCD Governor, many parts of Moresby Northwest electorate are getting much needed services and facelift. We hear and read about Moresby Northeast and South electorates’ representatives doing something for their constituents but not the Northwest MP.

Now to Nokondi Land.

22 June, 2009: Concerned Okapian (Lae) is asking whether his MP is awake:

Since the last general election, I have been on the look-out for news on Okapa, my electorate. However, to my great disappointment, there is nothing while a remote electorate like Jimi has been making the news and headlines. Hello, Mr Okapa MP, are you awake? I wonder if the people made the right choice by giving their mandate to Bonny Oveyara. If he cannot deliver, then he should step aside for someone who knows how to use the K10 million allocated for the district and bring services and development to Okapa.

So, there you have it. In the space of THREE weeks the people of Papua New Guinea have requested that 14 MPs representing 8 provinces please stop hiding, stop sleeping, stop hibernating, stop giving lip-service, stop getting lost AND start planning, start providing, and once in a while – whether it be by plane, car, bus, van or their two feet, make the effort to visit and see how their people are coping!

By the way, where’s your MP?

10 Reasons to Challenge an Australia/NZ – Pacific FTA (Part 1)

For those of you have been reading Tubuans & Dukduks you will know that I’m a big believer in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and its potential in becoming the leading policy-institute for Melanesia, and a truly indepdendent organisation for the Pacific. I’ve criticised the Pacific Islands’ Forum before, in particular, Australia and New Zealand’s usurption of Pacific policy and their indifference to what is best for the Pacific. One example of this usurption is Australia and NZ’s aggressive demands that a free-trade agreement (called PACER-Plus) with the Pacific be established immediately. Certain academics have termed this bullying approach as being contemporary colonisation (I like that phrase).

The Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) recently published a fact-sheet regarding PACER-Plus which discusses the implications that an FTA with Australia and New Zealand will have on the Pacific. These concerns range from the undermining of the sovereign authority and responsibilities of independent Pacific nations, the economic and social well being of Pacific peoples, dramatic losses in government revenue, potential threats to to indigenous land-rights, business closures and job losses.

I’ve split up the 10 reasons into two different parts to make it easier to digest. Here are the first five:

1) PACER-Plus will lead to a substantial loss in government revenue

Many governments in the Pacific are struggling to provide public services paid for through taxes (like health, education, water, electricity, police and emergency services). One of the ways Pacific countries collect these taxes is through a tax on imported goods (often luxury goods). PACER-Plus will force Pacific governments to stop collecting some of these taxes, which means governments will have difficulty supporting already struggling public services.

A report commissioned by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, and completed by Washington-based consultants Nathan Associates, found that under PACER-Plus, Pacific countries stand to lose tens of millions of dollars each year. That report found Vanuatu stands to lose around 17% of its annual government revenue, as does Tonga, while Samoa and Kiribati stand to lose around 14% of their revenue. Even bigger countries like Fiji and PNG stand to lose more than $10 million each year .

It is unclear how Pacific governments would continue to provide services to their people if they lose this much revenue. One of the ways they might save money is to downsize their public sector – putting more people out of work. Any loss of jobs for nurses, teachers and public servants would place an added burden on women who work in these sectors and increase the push to migrate.

2) PACER-Plus could lead to higher taxes for the poor

If Pacific governments sign on to PACER-Plus they will have to look for other ways to raise money they need to provide public services. This usually means introducing a new tax in the form of a value-added tax (VAT) or goods and services tax (GST). Governments that already have these taxes will be forced to raise them. Taxes on goods and services unfairly penalise the poor. This is because everybody pays the same tax on what they buy, regardless of how much income they earn. A poor person buys bread, cooking oil or other basic goods (and pays tax on it), just as much as a rich person.

Even if these taxes are introduced, it is unlikely that Pacific governments will be able to recover the revenue lost through PACER-Plus. Studies by the International Monetary Fund have found that over the past 25 years, low income countries have completely failed to recover government revenue lost from the reduction of import taxes (and that introducing VAT has little impact on meeting the shortfall) . There are recent examples of this in our region – when the Asian Development Bank forced Vanuatu to lower tariffs and introduce a VAT as part of conditions for a new loan in the late 1990s for example, the country suffered massive revenue losses that it took many years to recover from.

3) PACER-Plus will lead to business closures and job losses

Businesses and industries in the Pacific Island Countries face considerable constraints to doing business (distance from markets, cost of inputs, small economies of scale, lack of human resources etc). Opening Pacific markets to large well established corporations in Australia and NZ who do not operate within these constraints may not necessarily make Pacific businesses more efficient – it may instead wipe them out. Dr Wadan Narsey, Economics Professor at the University of the South Pacific, predicts that under PACER-Plus three quarters of Pacific manufacturing would close down, leading to unemployment for thousands of workers . Pacific countries have little or no social ‘safety nets’ to retrain these unemployed workers or support them with welfare benefits while they look for other job opportunities, and have even less revenue to fund them.

4) PACER-Plus could undermine access to essential services

Services like health, education, water, electricity, post, waste management etc. are important services that should be available to everybody in society. These services play a social role, and it’s only recently that they have been thought of as ways to make profit. Some of these services (like health and education) represent basic human rights, and under international treaties governments are obliged to provide these services to everybody at accessible prices.

PACER-Plus will require Pacific governments to open service ‘sectors’ – allowing Australian and NZ companies to compete to provide certain services in their country. There are two main reasons why this could undermine access to services (especially for vulnerable people, like the unemployed, or the rural poor).

Firstly, opening service ‘markets’ could allow foreign companies to pick and choose where they provide services, and who they provide them to. Companies might provide water, health, education, or power services to wealthy people in the cities and towns, but not extend these services to rural areas or to outer islands. This is especially a concern in the Pacific, where in some countries there are no regulations in place to ensure everyone has a right to access these services.

Secondly, opening service ‘markets’ can lead to two levels of services in the country, where the rich get good services, but most people don’t. Listing health services for example, would allow the building of foreign hospitals, clinics and dental clinics. This could lead to an internal ‘brain drain’, where the most skilled health staff are drawn away from the public sector (by means of higher pay) leaving poor or remote areas without the people they need to run essential healthcare facilities.

Negative social impacts arising from the liberalisation of services have already been recorded in the Pacific. For example, the privatisation of water supply in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, during the 1990s was marked by allegations of bribery and corruption. There have been improvements in the efficiency of water supply to the capital, but higher water rates put the cost of water out of reach for many poorer urban dwellers.

There are also many cases of ‘two-tiered’ provision of services in the region. In Vanuatu a subsidiary of the world’s largest private water utility corporation (French-based Suez) provides water at some of the highest prices found anywhere in the Pacific, to people in the capital Port Vila. While Suez is making healthy profits delivering water to the better-off in Vila, provision of safe drinking water to the majority of ni-Vanuatu remains a responsibility of government (who cannot cross-subsidise the extension of water services into rural areas with money made from water provision in the capital).

5) PACER-Plus will strip Pacific governments of policy options they could use to stimulate industry and employment

PACER-Plus is likely to prevent Pacific governments from making a range of policy choices that could be used to stimulate Pacific industry, tourism and agriculture, and create local jobs.

PACER-Plus would make it very difficult for Pacific governments to favour local companies or agricultural producers. Under the terms of a new deal, Pacific governments may not be able to support local firms with things like time-bound tax breaks, preferential credit, input subsidies, or duty exemptions without extending those same treatments to an Australian or NZ corporation interested in establishing a similar enterprise.

A free trade agreement would also force Pacific governments to bind their tariff rates at a low level – removing forever the ability to protect local producers from foreign competition while they become established. This removes the right of Pacific governments to use development strategies that have been implemented successfully by developed nations and other developing countries around the world.

Mauritius, a small island state similar to some of the countries in the Pacific, has used a mixture of import taxes, quotas and investment incentives to govern the market in a way that added value and stimulated development. Many of the policy options that have been used by Mauritius would be banned under PACER-Plus.

The same would apply to services. Pacific governments may want to support local landowners to develop tourism services in a rural area, or on ‘offshore’ islands. This may be important for preventing rural-urban drift, promoting culturally sensitive development, and providing appropriate sustainable livelihoods for villagers. However, ‘national treatment’ provisions under a free trade agreement could mean Pacific governments cannot support those landowners with preferential credit (to build new tourist accommodation for example), duty exemptions on imports, subsidised fuel (for operating vehicles and dive/fishing boats), time-bound tax breaks, or training grants to send young people to hospitality courses, without offering the same treatment to Australian and NZ tourism companies.

Providing support to farmers (through subsidised fertilizer, seeds, machinery, equipment etc) could become even more important in the future, as Pacific countries look to improve domestic food security in the face of world-wide price rises for key staples like rice.

But it is likely to be more difficult to support farmers as well. Many Pacific countries have provided price subsidies in recent years to stabilise fluctuations in the price of key commodities like copra. PACER-Plus may ban certain supports and subsidies to the agricultural sector in Pacific countries.

NOTE:

Part 2 will be published shortly. To view the full fact-sheet now , click here.

Black Paradise: Spirit of Mambesak

Don’t you love it when something unexpected happens? I was walking past the same music store as last time, and this time this CD caught my eye: Spirit of Mambesak’s Black Paradise.

Spirit of Mambesak was initially formed in the 70’s and 80’s by West Papuan artists Arnold Ap and Eddie Mofu. They understood the importance of culture and strove to use music as a medium to convey their basic human right: the freedom of expression.

Mambesak was formed to revitalise traditional West Papuan dance, music and song and eventually provided a certain colour, form and inspiration for the birth of music and dance groups throughout Papua, actively promoting and strengthening West Papuan identity. However, Arnold Ap and Eddie Mofu’s popularity and the conscious pride in being Papuan Mambesak’s music engendered, brought them to the attention of the Indonesian military who accused them of being separatists. They were finally murdered.

Today, the spirit of Mambesak endures with new faces and new songs. This album was released in 2004. I’ve included a video of the group below.  The group reminded me of the West Papuan group that performed at George Telek’s Sing-Sing Concert in New Zealand.

NOTE:

And in case you’re wondering, the cover photo of the Bird of Paradise was actually provided courtesy of The Rainforest Habitat, Lae, PNG.

For more information on The Spirit of Mambesak, click here.

French Company ‘Bilum’ Responds

Many of you have emailed me and commented on Tubuans & Dukduks about a piece I wrote in February this year regarding the French company ‘Bilum’ and their trademark of the Papua New Guinean word bilum. The piece caused a bit of a stir on the PNG blogging scene and the story was eventually picked up by Radio Australia’s In the Loop Program which resulted with an interview.

Finally in May, I received a response from Helene de La Moureyre, founder and owner of Bilum concerning the article. That response is outlined below:

I’m sorry to reply so late but I wanted to take the time for it, because it is very important for you, and for me.

My activity is pretty small. We are only 3 people and had a lot of work this last month.

I never wanted to steal the know-how and the word bilum to the NPG (she means PNG*) culture.

I use recycled advertising banners and car seatbelts to make my bags, which are completely different from NPG string bags.

I do not copy the NPG method of weaving.

So, there is no risk of confusion between my bags and NPG bags.

Furthermore, the word BILUM is a valid French trademark which was registered by the French Intellectual Property Registry in august 2005.

« bilum » is a brand name, an it will never be the name of any french bag.

Let me explain you our spirit :
Our signature is « unical – ethical – ecological ».
- Unical because each bag is made from a special part of recuperated huge advertising banner. So the apparence of each bag is very different.
- Ethical because they are made in special centers working with disabled people, or people with social troubles, to give them an opportunity to have a job and earn their life.
- Ecological because instead of wasting energy to produce fabric, we use banners which would be burned otherwise, and seat belt from broken cars, to carry the bag. Everything is made around Paris to avoid burning petrol for the transport. The banners are handly washed with eco friendly soap.

Here are our valours and convictions, I’m really sorry if there was any misanderstanding about that.

As you may know, I first received an email from Rick Brittain, who, first, reacted negativly to the use of the word bilum. We had a chance to meet each other. He understood my approach and integrity. We exchanged some NPG bags and my bags. I was very happy, a few weeks later, when I received some pictures of NPG’s women bags workers wearing my parisian bags. I thank them once again for the beautiful bags they offered me.

I hope, with this letter, having given you some ideas of the bilum’s brand spirit.
Hoping to hear from you soon
Sincerily yours,

Helene de La Moureyre

Lattitude Six: Coffee for Communities

Ecological commerce or sustainable business is a concept that has yet to be fully adopted by Papua New Guinean businesses. Of course, there are a handful of MNCs that have utilised the basic concept of sustainability too, one such example being Natulius Minerals‘ implemenation of its Nautilus CARES policy.

Of course realistically, Nautlius doesn’t care about ecological commerce, if they did, their entire business model would be different. Yes, the intent is there I suppose, but that intent is only a tactic, a reaction to the market and what the stakeholders of that market expect. Hollistically, the very nature of Nautilus’ operations rules it out of ever being truly sustainable.

However, there are some smaller companies operating within PNG that do fit the bill and I want to showcase one of them here – Lattitude Six. Lattitude Six was started in 2006 by Cherie West, after her husband died working in PNG for MAF. What originated with a conscience decision to help out the local economy has evolved into a solid platform supporting local PNG communities by opening up distribution channels to supply home-grown organic coffee from within remote PNG to the World.

What really impresses me about Lattitude Six is how their organisational culture is built around the core value of environmental justice, in other words, sustainability.

The company only buys PNG coffee that meet the following criteria:

1. Not from an Ex-pat owned coffee plantation
2. From shade-grown crops
3. From farmers who use non-chemical methods to keep plants healthy and free of bugs
4. From farmers who don’t use fuel-hungry machines for any part of the growing/picking/drying process

Not only is the coffee marketed directly sourced from the local informal economy, it’s organic, free of pesticides, and to top it off, Lattitude Six returns 10% of all sales back to growers for community based development projects.

Now if that isn’t fair trade, I don’t know what is.

NOTE:

To view a little presentation from Lattitude Six regarding environmental justice, click here.

To view the products and prices Lattitude Six offers, click here.

armers who use traditional methods to keep plants healthy and free of bugs

PNG Seaplanes: A Business Opportunity

Over the years, I’ve kept what I call my Idea Book. It’s a little black book brimming with my scriblings, observations and notes that I’ve made. The majority of its contents deal with initiatives designed for implementation within PNG and a few do venture off internationally. My Idea Book is getting a little bit chubby now, and I was just about to add another entry to it when I realised – I don’t know where it is! So I thought – I’ll share my latest idea with you instead.

I recently came across the above company, Vanuatu Seaplanes, who are selling their quirky little tourism business for a healthy $AU 181,000. I quite like the whole pitch of this business; it looks good and I think with a little bit of tweaking here and there, it could really lift off – particularly if it existed in PNG.

The current owners have designed a number of packages that offer tourists a range of options, from scenic tours over Port Vila, to picnics on islands, trips to volcanoes and swimming excursions with turtle and dugong. Not a bad inventory, but I seriously believe that a similar business model based in either Kavieng, Rabaul, Kimbe or even Alotau would be strategically more successful.

What Vanuatu Seaplanes does have going in its favour is  a lucrative contract to fly scenic tours for the 70 P&O Cruise Liners that visit Port Vila every year. That number is expected to increase and so too is the increasing number of tourists that visit Vanuatu every year. With the number of tourists visiting PNG consistently increasing in leaps and bounds every year, the odds at capturing this niche market within PNG would be extremely favourable.

You could even be based in Wewak and offer a package to Lake Kutubu!

Liklik Luk Save

I received an email today about Liklik Luk Save, a concise exhibition of some of PNG’s best fine art to be exhibited in Auckland from 19th July – 10th August 2009.

So to all the PNG Wantoks in New Zealand, if you have the time, drop on by and support our local talent – you never now, you may just walk out the door with a masterpiece!

The Pacific Tuna Forum: A Cartel in the Making

The Oxford Senior Dictionary defines a cartel as being “a combination of firms to control production, marketing, etc. and avoid competing with one another”. Ultimately, a cartel controls the supply and price of a specific item.  For example, in South America you have the Norte del Valle Cartel responsible for exporting more than US$ 10 Billion worth of cocaine into the US, and spread across  Asia, Africa and America there exists OPEC – whose mission is:

To coordinate and unify the petroleum policies of Member Countries and ensure the stabilization of oil markets in order to secure an efficient, economic and regular supply of petroleum to consumers, a steady income to producers and a fair return on capital to those investing in the petroleum industry.

And now in the Pacific, plans for our own cartel are underway. I’m not talking about drugs, nor am I talking about oil; instead, I’m talking about the gold of the Pacific Ocean, an industry currently valued at about US$ 3.8 Billion per annum – Tuna. The cartel was initiated when eight Pacific nations became Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) and agreed to specific conclusions regarding Tuna protection and production within thier territorial waters. PNG is a member of PNA and the cartel is now being termed the “Tuna Cooperation“.

What makes the “Tuna Cooperation” stand out, which by the way includes Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, PNG, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, is the fact that together they own the largest tuna fishing zones and resources in the world. Statistically, that represents about  2.4 million tons of tunas (skipjack, yellowfin, albacore, bigeye and bluefin tuna), worth an estimated US$ 3.8 billion, and accounting for  55% of the global tuna catch in 2007. That’s not actually quite a bad position to be in.

According to a briefing paper presented to the PNA Ministers of Fisheries at their Niue meeting,

The strategic direction of  PNA continues to evolve and could potentially include amongst other things the evolution of a cartel that would control the supply of tuna from their waters, the establishment of a PNA Tuna Corporation and registration of FADs (fishing aggregate devices) as a pre-condition of fishing in their waters.

Now, if I was Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia or South Korea who are the main Tuna fishing nations of the Pacific, I would be sqeeming in my shoes just about now. Ironically, Japan’s tuna fishing industry has recently begun to offer its “islandization” policy, while Korea has pledged to implement  its “domestication” policy – both intiatives are aimed at committing more investment in downstreaming the tuna industry within the Pacific – PNA members inclusive.

Which is why the 2′nd Pacific Tuna Industry And Trade Conference to be held in Port Moresby in September will be crucial. That meeting will provide the platform to discuss the Tuna Cooperation’s conclusions in greater detail and hopefully the structure of the cartel. There have been whispers that the PNG ’s National Fisheries Authority is willing to contribute US$ 1 Million to the establishment of the PNA Secretariat – a serious committment for the country that has jurisdiction over about one-fifth of the entire tuna stocks in the Pacific.

Looking at the bigger picture, is this a sign of things to come? By that I mean that if there is Tuna cartel, why can’t there be a Rainforest cartel or a Gold cartel and for that matter – why not an Oxygen cartel?

NOTE:

An extremely worthwhile article to read is Samisoni Pareti’s piece published in Island Business. You can read it here.

Bougainville: “Our Island, Our Fight”

I received an email from Wayne who works for Ipso-Facto Productions, concerning the latest documentary produced by this international multi-award winning media production company.

Bougainville “Our Island, Our Fight” is a powerful documentary about an indigenous people taking up arms for Independence to protect their culture and stop the ecological devastation of their lands.

This multi-award winning documentary is one of the last wars for independence, it smuggles us into the world of this besieged people.  Cut off from all humanitarian aid and invisible to Western media, their only resource is their resolve to fight for independence in an attempt to preserve their culture and environment.

This is the only documentary of the longest war in the South Pacific. A war which killed 20, 000 people just two hours from Australia.

NOTE:

You can watch the trailer here.