Tensions are growing along a pristine river system on Australia's doorstep.
There are no roads in and no roads out. Just a vast expanse of rainforest stretching out like a hazy green carpet to the horizon, and the brown, snaking course of the Sepik River threaded through it.
Out the window of our small plane, the remote north of Papua New Guinea looked mysterious and serene. But in villages hidden in the hills and valleys below, tensions were rising. Where we were headed, they threatened to explode.
The Sepik is sometimes called the "second Amazon". Flowing from the highland jungles of western Papua New Guinea to the sea, it's the life blood of one of the world's most pristine freshwater basins, home to a teeming array of wildlife not found anywhere else on the planet.
But like the Amazon, the Sepik has become a battleground.
Logging operations in the river's isolated upper reaches are being met with violence, while a proposal for a massive mine and hydro-electric dam has sparked fierce opposition. In this far-flung corner of PNG, there have been claims of land grabs, police brutality, even killings.
The meeting
Our plane skimmed along a grassy airstrip and eased to a halt in a clearing in the rainforest. It had been months since any flight landed here and a throng of locals emerged from under palm trees skirting the runway to see.
We were deep in the Sepik's remote upper basin, in an area called Edwaki, but there was still a trek ahead to get to our destination. Another 90 minutes on foot and a canoe ride along the snaking Yellow River, a coffee-coloured tributary to the Sepik, and we arrived.
Dozens were already gathering at the Yellow River High School for a meeting of landowners from the surrounding region. Some had walked five days to get here. Others travelled in canoes along the river, the only highway linking the isolated villages scattered up and down its banks.
They were invited by Luke Amial, a landowner keen to rally support behind a potential lawsuit against logging operations in the area. For 10 years Luke has been a thorn in the side of the loggers.
"It's your land and they've brought the machines," he said, riling up the crowd. "They're killing the pig and throwing you the scraps. They take the meat and leave you the bones. You know what I'm saying?"
Many rumbled in agreement.
Papua New Guinea is the world's largest exporter of tropical round logs and along the Sepik River, it's big business.
"Logging has destroyed much of our environment," Mr Amial told Foreign Correspondent. "The company and police abuse our human rights, the traditional landowners here," he alleged.
It's reports like these that brought Port Moresby lawyer Arthur Dalye to the meeting at Edwaki. He journeyed two days by air, road, boat and foot to collect the landowners' evidence for an NGO he works for, which is investigating potential legal action against the loggers.
"We want to identify potential plaintiffs in the event that we go to court," Mr Dalye told the gathering. "You can stand up and tell us your story and we'll listen."
One by one the men rose to their feet, some tapping a deep wellspring of anger. "If the company won't stop, we'll burn it down. Who will lead this? I will," one said, slapping his hand across his chest.
Another, who identified himself as the chairman of a land group, claimed someone else signed consent forms for him, but the company insists it has proper consent and pays people fairly.
Others spoke of police intimidation if they opposed the loggers. "If landowners resist, the police threaten us with their guns," a man named David told the crowd. "You still resist, they lock you in a shipping container."
It's a familiar story for Luke Amial, who said he was once badly beaten by police and locked in a shipping container for a week. "They broke my jaw, my teeth, my mouth," he said. "They pointed a gun at me. I told them, I'm not a criminal."
A confidential 2020 report from PNG Defence, seen by the ABC, backs up claims that police used a shipping container inside a logging camp as a jail cell. It also alleged that logging companies operating in the region were "using police to bulldoze over the rights of landowners".
The logging company in Edwaki, Malaysian-owned Global Elite, said it has a security arrangement with PNG Police because of law-and-order issues in the area. It pays for the officers’ food and accommodation but said it’s “appalling that one could suggest that police are tools of the company.”
The country’s Police Commissioner, David Manning, denied any formal arrangement with logging companies and said those put in place by his predecessors have been torn up. Police are banned from working at logging sites, he said, but there are “continuous concerns” about the actions of “rogue” officers.
Global Elite said it’s “doing its best” for people in the area by providing shipping containers – which it said are ventilated and have an outhouse – because there are no police cells in the area. The commissioner described their use by police as "unacceptable".
Clashes over logging in the region have turned deadly.
Just over a year ago, a local man and a police officer from Port Moresby were both killed at Edwaki. Witnesses say there was an argument and the officer opened fire at a market, killing a father of four young children. The crowd then brutally killed the officer in retaliation.
So far, no one has been charged.
"Imagine police doing that to the people who they are supposed to protect," said Port Moresby lawyer Arthur Dalye. "They are protecting foreign interests."
'We live on money'
Further downstream, just beyond where the Yellow River re-joins the broad flow of the Sepik, logs lay piled up on the riverbed waiting for a barge to collect them. Most are bound for China where they are milled into products like floorboards.
"These logs are worth a lot of money," said Mr Dalye, walking between them. "But I've been to the villages where they come from. I'm really sad and I feel for them."
Mr Dalye was visiting this part of the Sepik to investigate whether Global Elite has been following the rules. "Land is communally owned, it's not just owned by one single person," he said. "So consent [for logging] basically has to come from everyone."
He claimed the company was "doing the total opposite by just getting individual consent forms from the people and that's how they go in and cut trees."
Global Elite was first granted access to more than 100,000 hectares of customary land here over a decade ago. The company says it has legally obtained consent and conducted "proper landowner identification and due diligence", but Arthur Dalye isn't convinced.
There have been ongoing feuds between local groups over who's entitled to what.
The lease the company was given is known as a Special Agriculture and Business Lease, which is not a logging lease. It allows trees to be felled and the logs sold only if the land is being cleared for agriculture.
Over a decade on, Global Elite's planned rubber and palm oil plantations on the cleared land are yet to be delivered. It says it has "begun all the processes" but "multiple nurseries" were burnt down by landowners.
"What we've been seeing is most logging companies are using the SABL under the Land Act to conduct logging operations," said Mr Dalye. "And that's for a period of 99 years. Imagine. That's about three generations. Landowners will become spectators on their own land for 99 years."
There are now multiple leases in the area operated by Global Elite and an affiliated company.
Some here say they are benefiting from the logging. Local landowner David Vanemo, who has two wives and eight children, said Global Elite pays him 150 kina ($60) a fortnight for logging on his customary lands. The money pays for his children's schooling and basics like soap and salt.
"If we stop logging, it would be very hard for us," he said. "We will live like how our ancestors have lived."
The logs from his land sat in piles on the muddy edge of a road carved through the jungle. Arthur Dalye inspected a tag indicating over 40,000 had been felled from this lease area.
"I worry about the damage to our river life, pollution of our water," Mr Vanemo said. "But the old way of life is gone. Today we live differently. We live on money."
Rhonda Aiypanai was just a little girl when they first started talking about the mine. There was copper and gold in the hills. The proposal has had plenty of opposition, but Rhonda has long supported it.
Her village of Paupe sits on the banks of the Frieda River, a tributary to the Sepik, just a few minutes by canoe to the site of the proposed mine and hydroelectric dam, known as the Frieda River Project.
Engineers have drawn up plans for a concrete wall spanning a narrow point on the river between two high hills. The resulting dam would be capable of storing more than a billion tonnes of mine waste.
Many living along the Sepik have been vocal opponents of the plan, warning it's a threat to the entire region. The area is vulnerable to earthquakes, and they say a dam break could potentially wipe out entire villages downstream.
Sitting under a thatched roof in her village, the lines of age sketched across her face, Rhonda – now a grandmother of 25 – worried she may not live to see the mine. "I want to benefit before I leave this place," she said.
It was Rhonda's father who signed the original agreement in 1964 granting permission to explore the clan's customary lands for mineral deposits. Different companies have come and gone since then, but now Australian-based, Chinese-owned company PanAust is pushing to start mining.
It says the safety and stability of the dam is its "number one priority". "The project has been specifically designed to ensure that the river and its tributaries are not impacted, and those watercourses are preserved for future generations," the company said in a statement.
If the mine goes ahead, it will mean the village of Paupe has to be moved. Most people here still support it. Rhonda Aiyapanai doesn't have the full details of the resettlement plan, but she says she would be willing to leave the river for a new life in the mountains.
"Maybe when the mine kicks off we might become like white people because they'll build us modern houses, nice rooms to live in, showers," she said. "You'll be busy travelling in cars or getting picked up by a bus. You'll go shopping, maybe come home for a nap. Something like that."
Developing differently
Already the village is getting assistance from PanAust. A short walk down the road is a local aid post where a husband-and-wife medical team treat locals. The medical workers say the company gives more support than the government.
Resource companies often spend significantly on local development in Papua New Guinea to maintain their social licenses. But history has shown a disappointingly small amount of taxes and royalties paid to the government makes its way back to communities, leaving many people's lives unchanged.
PanAust says the project would be "nation building" for PNG and will pour billions of dollars into its struggling economy, but that's done little to appease communities downstream.
"The people there, of course, want to see development," said Emmanuel Peni, a local community leader in the village of Korogu, further down the Sepik. "But what these people forget is that all the rubbish and all the pollution, all the destruction would be carried by the people along the Sepik River."
Mr Peni leads a group called Project Sepik representing more than 40 clans along the river united against the mine. He fears the river, and all the livelihoods it sustains, are at risk.
"The river is culture itself, and the culture is the river, so it's all connected," he said. "It's quite difficult for us to just get parts of it and sell them as resources."
Mr Peni believes the focus should be on industries like agriculture and fishing, drawing on sustainable development from PNG's past.
"We've been able to thrive, we've been able to live, we've been able to sing and dance and be happy and be content with life and still have all of this," he said, gesturing to the river and the forests alongside it.
Project Sepik has been running its own community information sessions on the mine, looking at legal action and has even filed a human rights complaint with the Australian government.
Many people's fears stem from mining disasters seen throughout PNG's history, Mr Peni said. PanAust has given assurances its project has been designed to "avoid the mistakes of the past", but locals like Matilda Pinga are still scared.
"I worry about losing my traditional way of living and adapting to a new life," she said. "If the river is destroyed, where will we go?"
Watch Foreign Correspondent tonight at 8pm on ABC TV, iview and YouTube.
Credits
- Reporter: Natalie Whiting
- Producer: Alex Barry and Theckla Gunga
- Photography: Natalie Whiting and Matthew Roberts
- Mapping: Emma Machan
- Digital production: Matt Henry
