Fighting off the bulldozers in the sacred kwila forests of Papua New Guinea

Logging companies have been accused of encroaching on designated conservation areas while harvesting timber from Papua New Guinea’s forests. Photograph: Riccardo Testolin/Getty Images

In mid-May, a bulldozer began clearing a logging road into an area of largely untouched rainforest near the village of Suburam, on Papua New Guinea’s north coast, between the mountains of the Adelbert Range and the Bismarck Sea.

Towering kwila trees were among those locals say were felled by loggers. This is a coveted, high-value species that yields the rich red timber familiar in Australia as merbau.