Sustaining indigenous forests with Blockchain Technology in Papua New Guinea

REDD+ & helping reduce emissions with blockchain technology

Virgin rain forest in Papua New Guinea

By PETER S KINJAP | PNG Attitude blog

PORT MORESBY – Deforestation is responsible for up to 11% of global greenhouse gas emissions and is crucial for the international community to achieve its goal of keeping global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Papua New Guinea is the world’s second largest island with a landmass of 46 million hectares, of which 29 million are virgin forest. PNG is second only to Brazil in having the largest tropical rainforest still intact.

Legally, land in PNG is owned by the indigenous people. Only 3% was acquired by the government during the colonial period and 97% is recognized by the Customary Land Registration Act for customary landowners.

PNG also has large mineral deposits and currently exports gold, copper, nickel, oil, liquefied natural gas and other resources in which customary landowners are important stakeholders.

Meanwhile, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index reveals that PNG is one of the most corrupt nations in the world, much of the corruption involving illegal land grabbing.

The country’s biggest land scandal has been triggered by Special Agriculture and Business Lease (SABL) agreements. Using the pretext of promising customary landowners agricultural, the government has used many of these SABL leases for other commercial purposes.

This has all occurred without a proper policy framework in place, enabling ‘carbon cowboys’ to illegally use the land for their own purposes.

The government established a climate change office in 2010 but it soon came under public scrutiny for its dubious activities and was condemned by international observers.

According to leaked documents, the government pre-sold carbon credits for almost four years prior to 2009 without a framework being in place or proper legal documentation.

A gardening site near the Kuk heritage area  in Western Highlands Province

In 2014, the climate change office changed its name to the Climate Change and Development Authority (CCDA), with new management taking over.

The hope was to curb out corruption and implement an agreement known as REDD+, a global effort to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and to foster conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks

Even though the PNG government is now trying to seize back the SABL leases and return the land to customary landowners, the effectiveness of this, and of CCDA, is questionable as is the implementation of REDD+.

Papua New Guinea’s greenhouse gas emissions mostly come from land use and forestry. As a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, it is a requirement that PNG reduces these emissions. But reducing emissions from deforestation and the degradation of forests will be neither cheap nor easy.

But is has been stated that, in the midst of illegal land grabbing and carbon corruption, blockchain technology can potentially be beneficial to PNG communities.

A decentralized public blockchain-based offsetting and compensation mechanism for indigenous communities in PNG to sustain their forested land with REDD+ mitigation instruments is already mooting to the aid of indigenous landowners.

Scheduled to be officially launched this year, T4G PNG project is an autonomous nonprofit private project designed to implement REDD+ programs in Papua New Guinea.

With REDD+, it provides a distributed ledger payment mechanism to assist landowners gets their royalty payment in full and provides accountability and transparency on the transactions.

With a secured database to house big data on customary land in PNG with genealogical links to their bloodlines, sacred sites, linages, maps and traditional significant sites. By far, it remains as an alternative source of ILG data and customary land title information on a digital platform. 

Acts as an escrow to collect donations from travelers worldwide and provide incentives to indigenous landowners to sustain the standing forests and planting new trees.

The T4G PNG project also act as the plaintiff in the environmental damage litigation against polluters and share the rewards with other plaintiffs including ILGs and indigenous communities as well as providing a consensus mechanism of ILG members to nominate and elect individual members to have legitimacy of ILG land title investment decisions. 

No customary land is individually owned and thus this project provides the platform required to assist for consensus decision making.

 ILGs comprised of many people who own the land and thus the land title which can be easily tempered with by individuals and thus a consensus decision needed to be made for deals in investments of and with the title.            

Overall, T4G PNG is a digital platform (supported by IPCI and Airalab) to implement REDD+ programs in Papua New Guinea in association with CCDA for UNFCCC.

Peter S Kinjap is a freelance writer and an advocate for the T4G PNG project. For more information and technical detail you can email Peter here: pekinjap@gmail.com

 

Goroka Cultural Show bigger and better this year - 2019

By PETER S KINJAP | The NATIONAL Newspaper | Weekender Edition

Since the beginning of mankind, events and festivals have provided a means for people to relax, enjoy and escape from their reality, often by embracing and celebrating.

As a country steeped in rich culture and fascinating history, Papua New Guinea plays host to many festivals throughout the year. Not only do these shows, festivals and events showcase the unique intricacies that make Papua New Guinea unlike anywhere in the world— but they bring together communities, tribes and tourists alike— in unity, reflection and deep appreciation.

Lining up in the annual cultural calendar of 2019 is a list of significance shows, events and festivals to feast together are available and here is a snapshot of one of those a must-visit upcoming cultural events.

Apparently the oldest show in Papua New Guinea since 1957 that always coincides with the week the country celebrates its independence; Goroka Cultural Show brings together the customs of over a hundred tribes that populate the highlands.

During the course of the weekend in September the tribes gather for music, dancing, showing-off and extraordinary displays of tribal rituals.

A popular iconic tribe featured in the Goroka Cultural Show is the Asaro “mud men”, known for their ghoulish clay masks adorned with pigs’ teeth and shells.

They look fearsome and ghostly, and they are meant to. The masks, mud-smeared bodies and long bamboo finger spikes worn by the Asaro mud men were originally adorned to scare enemies. The mud men, from a village near Goroka known as Asaro Green Valley, are not only for Goroka Cultural show but one that holds PNG’s cultural icons. Outside their highlands territory, they can be seen at various cultural shows.

With their skin painted white, elongated bamboo fingers, and the eerie masks, the mud men in a motion of sluggish they move their feet a step dragging 3-sec interval when staging.
With no written history, there is no way of pinpointing when the Asaro men began making masks, though it is believed the practice has existed for four generations.

But when the Australian Museum in Sydney asked about when and how it was made, a Klinit Berry had this to say: “One of the Asaro got married and everyone wore their traditional costumes.

“But one man had no costume, so he took an old bilum (a string bag), cut two holes for his eyes, dipped it mud and also covered his skin with mud, and that was his costume. But when he arrived at the wedding, all the others thought he was a ghost and so instead of celebrating, they fled.”

A lot has changed over the past 60 years right around the world — and perhaps nowhere more dramatically than in Papua New Guinea’s rugged highlands.
Even in the 1950s, hundreds of tribes were living in total isolation from the rest of the country, let alone the world and this story of mud men.

But in 1957, things changed when Australian patrol officers, or Kiaps, introduced the Goroka Cultural Show; a chance for dozens of groups to come together from across the region, to show off their traditional dress and dances.

It brought together an eclectic mix of cultural groups from right across the country.
Back then, the idea of the first Goroka Cultural Show came from the ruling kiaps as a competition to see which was the best organised and administered district.
The event soon became a showcase for the traditional dress of PNG’s many tribes and language groups.

The mud men took their stage perhaps from a simple bilum dipped in clay to become popular part of the show as it is today.
Their masks are made from a special clay that dries in the sun in just a few days — no two masks are ever the same, with some men designing them as monkeys, and others as skeletons.

The objective they say is to make the enemies afraid, perhaps seeing what happened at the Asaro bride price ceremony.

Stories of how the mud men came to be are varied. Another story says their ancestors had escaped to a nearby village, after being attacked by their enemies.
When they emerged they were covered in white clay, scaring the enemies who had mistaken them for spirits.

But some anthropologists disagree, believing the idea was entirely made up by the village leader in 1957, when the organisers of the very first Goroka Cultural Show requested for his people to take part in the extravaganza.

Joachim Kaugla, 75, is a retired Catholic teacher born in a village near PNG’s tallest mountain, Mt Wilhelm, during World War II.
Joachim went to his first Goroka Cultural Show in 1961, and believes the show is just as important today as it was in 1957, giving Papua New Guineans the chance to learn about each other’s cultures.

But he has some gripes about the changes he has witnessed over the past 60 years.

“Special dressing used really pure materials from the bush, their own bush … and they prepare it for dress up and show,” he said.

“Nowadays … they’ve mixed up with the materials from the factories, overseas materials … we have seen that is not nice.”
Some groups even had traditional kundu drums — normally meticulously carved out of wood and covered with lizard skin — made from plastic pipes instead, covered in more plastic.

While the Goroka Cultural Show may be evolving just like Papua New Guinea is, elders like Joachim say it does need to stay for the next 60 years and beyond.
“The show is very, very important to teaching other people what’s culture,” he said.
“Sharing and laughing, respecting, all these things come from the soul.”

The 2019 Goroka Cultural Show will be a hot, loud sea of colour, with enormous headdresses made up of feathers, and painted faces and bodies, is pinned on the weekend of Sept 14 and 15. Never to be missed, it’s bigger and better!

For trip advisory, bookings and local tour experts, contact Niugini Exotic Tours via email at: pngattractions@gmail.com 

Addressing the threat of climate change in Papua New Guinea

By PETER S. KINJAP | PNG ATTITUDE BLOG

PORT MORESBY – The earth experienced very warm periods 50 to 70 million years ago and very cold periods 600,000 years ago and most people are aware that the climate is changing again.

But this time the change is not caused by extreme volcanic periods or projects from space colliding with earth. It is anthropogenic – created by us, the people who live on the planet.

The history of climate science is relatively recent. The first scientist to publish on the subject was the Swede Svante Arrhenius in 1896 who hypothesised that human-caused carbon dioxide emissions would be large enough to cause global warming.

Nearer to the present, a report published in 1979 predicted that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would double from pre-industrial levels by about 2035. Today it is expected this will happen by about 2050. A doubling of carbon dioxide will lead to an average warming of the planet of 2°C to 3°C.

The temperature at the polar regions will increase by approximately 12°C and the tropics by less than 1°C. These forecasts are being seen in the record melting of Arctic Sea ice.

For Papua New Guinea, the 2011 Pacific Climate Change science program reported temperatures would rise between 0.4°C and 1.0°C by 2030.

Kavulik village on Tsoi Island in New Island Province is already showing signs of climate change evident in the rise of sea levels.

In Bougainvlle Province, living no more than 1.5-meters above sea level, Carteret Islanders have been some of the first people to succumb to rising ocean tides and are giving the world its first recorded climate refugees. Spokeswoman Ursula Rakova says the encroaching tides have had a major impact on people's health.

"We're beginning to get more requests for people wanting to move because of the situation worsening due to increase water levels and the dire need for food on the island," she said.

The Carterets people have secured land for new homes on the Bougainville mainland. Land was made available from the Catholic Church, enough to resettle about 100 people from 10 families.

But the access to safety and secure land is only half the battle. “The elderly people do not want to move,” Rakova says. And funds for new housing have also proved to be a major hurdle.

Ms Rakova says the islanders want to maintain their independent way of life and need more support.

"The islanders on the Carterets are victims of what other people have caused and the international community needs to aid and support the work that we are doing," she says.

Sea levels are rising at 7 mm a year in the vicinity of PNG, double the global average of 2.8 - 3.5mm a year.

Regions like Momase are wetter and the roads of Morobe and the Highlands provinces will continue to require increased maintenance. The rainfall in Lae has increased by approximately 500mm per annum, or nearly 11%.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and increasing forest restoration will be extremely important in limiting global warming to 2°C.

Forests represent one of the best and most cost effective climate solutions available. Action to conserve, sustainably manage and restore forests can contribute to economic growth, poverty alleviation, rule of law, food security, climate resilience and biodiversity conservation.

But forests get too little attention as a potential solution to climate change. There are just two paragraphs in the Paris Climate Agreement about forests. A third paragraph is about finance for protecting forests.

And the Paris Agreement makes no mention of how to keep fossil fuels in the ground, which is most likely the only way we can prevent climate chaos.

The carbon trading mechanism known as REDD+ could offset continued emissions from burning fossil fuels by discouraging deforestation.

Benoit Bosquet of the World Bank said the goal is to jump-start a forest carbon market that tips the economic balance in favour of conserving forests.

But carbon trading does not reduce emissions. At best it simply transfers emissions reduced in one part of the world to continued pollution elsewhere.

To prevent climate chaos, two things need to happen: reduced greenhouse emissions and an end to deforestation.

In 2003, the World Bank offered PNG a US$17 million loan if the country closed down its notoriously corrupt logging industry.

A few years later, Kevin Conrad’s MBA thesis at Columbia University concluded that the revenue from carbon credits could equal the revenue from logging in PNG.

Now, a smart project to sustain tropical rainforests by providing incentives to indigenous landowners has emerged through the T4G PNG project in association with PNG Climate Change and Development Authority – which have developed a digital platform for implementing REDD+ programs.

*Peter S Kinjap is a freelance writer and a blogger in Papua New Guinea, email pekinjap@gmail.com

REDD+ awareness in PNG with T-shirt. Image credit. T4G PNG project (1)

REDD+ awareness in PNG with T-shirt. Image credit. T4G PNG project (2)

REDD+ awareness in PNG with T-shirt. Image credit. T4G PNG project

Sea water and people in New Ireland. Image supplied.

Shortage of food is an impact of climate change. Kevieng Market. Image supplied

The sea and forests in PNG. Image Credit. T4G PNG project

Tropical forest in PNG. pic by Eddie Wilson Pungal.

Weather  patterns change unpredictably in the highlands of PNG. Image credit. T4G PNG project

Local Environment in Morobe Province. Image Credit. T4G PNG project

WHY WE BLOCKCHAIN?

By WEIYI XIA | BLOCKCHAIN AT MELBOURNE GROUP 

Michael is an Agriculture student at the University of Melbourne, who assisted in the collaborative development of the first Blockchain association at this institution.

“Blockchain is a far more efficient and trustworthy means of conducting ‘business as usual’ in today’s fast paced, digital world”.

Inspired by Blockchain technology in early 2016, Michael's interests lie in the adoption of Distributed Digital Architecture within the agriculture industry and broader supply chain.

Distributed Architecture enables the delegation of trust through Smart Contracts to enhance supply chain management, allows for real time point of origin traceability and the development of communication networks to foster adoption for Internet of Things technology (IoT).

Michael foresees Blockchain changing the way we do business in today's world. His passion for this emerging sector has motivated him to communicate these concepts to his mentors and peers, helping to educate his generation and encouraging the uptake of this new age technology.

USP Project management course designed to address and respond to climate change in the Pacific

Extracted from THE NATIONAL | edited 

PAPUA New Guinea’s project management course is designed to train people to be ready to address and respond to the impacts of climate change.

“This is a professional course that will bring PNG to the next level by providing the ideas, the practical tools and proven techniques to move forward the international projects to improve the environment here,” according to US Ambassador Catherine Ebert-Gray at the launching.
“The course has a reputation for delivering climate change services within cost schedule and resource constraints and will train participants to manage funds wisely to drive projects forward.”

Climate Change and Development Authority managing director Ruel Yamuna said: “This ready training course on project management capacity will indeed ensure efficient management of resources, not only for the government but for private sectors and civil society organisations.

“Not only it is relevant today, this is an activity that is good and practical that the Green Growth Academy will need to look into and incorporate into its programmes in the future. I say this because it addresses the issue of sustainability.

“I see this training programme support a long-term impact of the climate ready projects and we look forward to the lessons from this particular course.”

This is the eighth course organised by USAid through its ready project, in partnership with the University of the South Pacific’s through technical and further education (TAFE programme.)

About 60 people, including members of government, the private sector, and non-governmental organisations, would attend the course in two groups.

The first session was held last week and the second will continue this week.

Tourism Promotion is being aggravated on a blockchain platform: DeskBell Chain

By NIGEL KAUA | COMMENTARY

Amongst others, the blockchain technology can offer variety for the hotel and tourism industry. It can attract and stores data on decentralization node, thus creating trust in the data created for tourism marketing while provides an ease of trading exchange of currencies. It has the potential to enter the tourism medical insurance spheres and be an aid to content sales and marketing.

Basically, blockchain is very much about moving values where it is currently popular in the banking and financial services but for tourism industry it is about handling and securing data in better ways.

DeskBell Chain project is about handling somewhat legal information in the tourism sector. From a stand point of hotels, there is a need to provide legal guarantees for working with an intermediate like an online travel agent, where each seeks to protect its interests, rather than ensure transparency and openness of the business process.

The scenario below explains; Giluwe Hotel enters an agreement with an online travel agent known as Wanol Travels, with a clause saying that for the next six months, room nights booked more than five days in advance will get a higher commission than those booked later. With today’s model, both parties would sign a contract. When the period ends, both might have run to reports to identify the total number of online bookings from Wanol Travels or they use some commission consolidation service to document it for them.

Although the process of calculating the commission takes time and effort, perhaps with a lawyer as a middlemen to rectify who also take his piece of the pie – the correct commission is eventually paid out.

What if all these were programmed into a smart contract? Well, many benefits; cost savings with removal of middlemen, time savings from cutting down business processes and the trust achieved from storing documents encrypted on a shared ledger.

DeskBell Chain is moving into this sphere, to provide the hotels a blockchain-enabled ecosystem. It allows the hotel business to develop flexible and open marketing tools.

It will also connect small medium tourism businesses (SMEs) with the tourists and guests from all-over to their point of service within a blockchain-enabled system.

The usage of geo-location technology will assist the SMEs in the remote sites with digital content creation, publishing, distribution and giving them the chance to participate in the bigger global tourism marketplace.

Researches have revealed that tourism accounts for 10% of global GDP and is crucial to driving any nation’s economy. A research published by Google Stat states that 74% of all leisure travel and 77% of all business travel is now planned on the internet. This indicates the future of travel and tourism is online.

Thus regardless of where tourism SMEs are located, they need to have online presence to succeed. For those who were on the internet, the payment process and the approach in which they sell their products and services to the potential tourists were not convincing and/or not functioning resulting in losing clients and making lost in business.

DeskBell project will help facilitate the connection between the tourists and the supplier and even facilitating the payment online for both in booking and purchasing of services and products.

In tourism, a blockchain-based marketplace can help fight against global travel scammers and bring a tourist dollar right down to the communities is a direct benefit not only to the local community but also to a nation for its economic prosperity.

Dubai is building a tourism marketplace on the blockchain platform to be launched in 2020. A travel agent in Malta, Bitcoin Adventures, accepts Bitcoin (crypto currency). A Japanese tourist was the first to travel with Bitcoin.

A Russian Tourism Official said blockchain will change the tourism industry in a huge way in about 5-10 years’ time.

Taiwan Airlines accepts Bitcoin seeing a ‘brighter future’ for tourism sector. Last year, Taiwan Central Bank supported regulating crypto currency.

Latvia’s AirBaltic become the first airline in the world to accept Bitcoin in 2014. Later a growing number of airline companies accepting crypto currency in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Germany Tourism Board accepts Bitcoin.

The tourism business owners, hotels, airlines, tourists/guests, the governments and the communities are all beneficiaries to this project. It will erase the fear of being scammed, fraudulent and faking and directly provides a peer-to-peer business transaction.

It will bring back the confident and trust between the buyer and seller of the tourism products and services. It helps support the SMEs to grow and contributes to the GDP of any country’s economy.

PNG Government’s move to strive for creating digital economy and financial inclusion for its mass rural population may opt for Deskbell Chain for its tourism industry. There are about 50,000 SMEs in PNG according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, 14% of which are in the tourism sector.

DeskBell Chain brings the solution for PNG tourism SMEs to equally participate in the global tourism market, a breakthrough with the blockchain technology. – Via Garamut News. 

Kingdom keys for financial breakthroughs conference in Port Moresby at Lamana Hotel

Every aspect of our lives must line-up to God's word and aligned accurately to His Kingdom order. We must obey the Holy Spirit and focus to fulfill the “Just Requirements” of the Lord. 

God will give you the courage to do the right thing.

One of the greatest needs as believers is to have sharp discernment and understanding of the times. Like the Tribe of Issachar in the Bible, we must seek this wisdom so that we may understand the environment in which we exist so that we may accomplish great exploits for God. 

God will use the adversary and crisis to proof His covenant, which He swore to our fathers. You will thrive and have good success for it is He who gives you power to get wealth.

Kingdom Keys for Financial Breakthroughs Conference is a significant event that is going to unleash Kingdom truth and revelation for wealth creation. 

Simple yet profound Kingdom original message is going position you accurately for the greatest transfer of wealth. 

Instead of depending on the world system, His people who are called by His name will learn to spend from the pocket of God the creator.

Let's make our legacy count! 

Event Details:
Theme: Kingdom Keys For Financial Breakthroughs
Day: 26 - 28 June 2019 (3 powerpack days)
Time: 9am - 6pm
Venue: Lamana Hotel, Port Moresby
Facilitator: John David (JD)
Fees:
1. Early Bird Fee #1 : K680 (Register & pay by 30 April 2019)
2. Early Bird Fee #2: K780 (Register & pay by 31 May 2019)
3. Normal Fee: K880 (Register & pay by 20 June 2019)

Fee are inclusive of tea breaks, lunch for 3 days and a FREE ticket to attend BeWELL Private Meet Up session on the 29 June 2019 @ Lamana from 2pm - 5pm. 

Kindly take note that registration is only confirmed once payment is done. 

Please register earliest to enjoy early bird fee. Limited seats are available. 

To register pls contact Rita at 74882944 / 75284124 or email us at info@cryptotechventures.co

Thank you and we sincerely honor your continued support.

Organized by: Cryptotech Ventures & Consultancy Limited
Sponsored by: JD Global Legacy & ASIA Blockchain Solutions