By MARTIN WAI | THE NATIONAL (edited)
Carbon trade is one of the valuable assets to Papua New Guinea’s development and economic growth.
It can play an important role in improving the living standards of our people in the nation, for instance, a country like Vietnam has developed in bigger scale, because of carbon trade being the core foundation to their country’s economic growth and development as well as other countries around the world.
Carbon trade can be categorized into four different types of categories: Grey carbon; green carbon; brown carbon; and blue carbon.
As naturalized citizens of PNG we should be responsible for our natural resources and encourage reforestations to areas that are experiencing deforestations and prevent any form of treat to our natural resources.
Basically our main aim is to trade our natural carbon to other countries so that the outcome can benefit our people and the nation, especially, economic growth and any form of development in our country.
If other countries can practically build that capacity, why not Papua New Guinea? – Via Garamut News.
By NIGEL KAUA | NEWSFLASH
Papua New Guinea’s major cultural events countrywide will be funded directly from the National Budget every year round. This was revealed by the Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Hon. Emil Tammur in Goroka, Eastern Highland Province recently.
A policy submission to the Parliament for the National Government to fund major cultural events, shows and festivals is proceeding from the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. It will be out in Parliament soon for debate and endorsement.
The major national cultural events and festivals include but not limited to; Goroka Cultural Show, Mt. Hagen Cultural Show, Jiwaka Cultural Show, Enga Cultural Show, Kutubu Kundu and Digaso Festival, Morobe Agri-Cultural Show, Madang Cultural Show, KarKar Island Bilum Festival, Goroka Bilum Festival, National Mask Festival and Warwagira in Kokopo, Sepik River Crocodile and Arts Festival, Hiri Moale Festival, Frangipani Festival in Rabaul, Kenu and Kundu Festival in Alotau and other events or festivals of similar popularity.
“Maintaining and promoting cultural events and festivals is not only important for tourism but also for our identify as a unique and culturally-diverse national in the world,” Mr. Tammur said.
He said unlike many other countries in the world, PNG is a unique nation of over 840 different languages and more than 1,000 various tribes and cultures.
“More importantly, the indigenous people owned over 90 percent of the customary land as individuals, clans and tribes. What this means is that we have the right to determine what sort of economic developments we want for ourselves on our land,” he added.
“We must use the birthrights to embrace tourism and agricultural developments as real sustainable industries. Oil, gas, gold, copper and nickel will benefit only a few including the rich, but tourism and agriculture will benefit the little ordinary people right in the rural communities and for a long time into the future,” the Government Minster said confidently. – Via Garamut News.
Extracted from MASALAI BLOG | EDITED
With the controversies surrounding the Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability (now Climate Change and Development Authority [CCDA]) and subsequent sidelining of the director Dr. Theo Yasause, new information is beginning to unfold as the Masalai Blog reports in July 2009.
The blog post with the title “Carbon Trading Under More Scrutiny” attracted a massive 178 comments from PNG, Australia and the world over.
According to documents, the government has been pre-selling carbon credits for almost four years prior to 2009 without any proper legal policy documentation and framework in place.
Among the documents obtained was a certificate with serial numbers A1 to A33 and bearing the signature of former Minister for Trade and Industry, Paul Tiensten who signed on behalf of then Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare on the 26th of July, 2005 with Climate Assist (PNG) Ltd.
The certificate holds the common seal of Climate Assist (PNG) Ltd. It is understood the certificate in “A” Series specifies a monetary value of $20m with its maturity date set on the 1st January, 2008 but it is unclear whether actual monies have exchanged.
Former Prime Minister and the then Opposition Leader Sir Mekere Morauta at the time in learning about this this commented “our carbon is being sold yet we don’t have legislations and policy in place.” “It is unbecoming of leaders travelling around the world selling behind our backs. This is a huge corruption.”
According to the Office of the Prime Minister there are also reports of carbon ‘conmen’ selling customary landowners permits to ‘bag’ carbon from the atmosphere to the Government carbon trading office.
It appears that publicity about these actions has been promoted by Governors in several provinces.
The reason for the Governors’ discontent is that there was no indication that revenue would accrue to them.
According to law, some export-orientated activities direct revenue to provincial administrations. The irregularities, snake-oil salesmen and administrative problems do not bode well for carbon trading in PNG.
According to one report, Macquarie Bank has already pulled out of any potential carbon trading in the country, citing a lack of market integrity as the main reason.
Development agencies have something to answer for here. The World Bank actively promoted the idea that carbon credits could be earned and traded in a global emissions trading scheme if deforestation was halted.
One World Bank report suggested that revenue from credits could greatly exceed revenue from forestry.
The Bank offered to provide seed finance for a fund to support development and trading of credits. A number of national aid agencies chipped in.
But it is abundantly clear that this clever financial engineering is too clever. The EU has said that it does not favour the sale of such large numbers of credits from developing countries into the EU trading scheme.
Greenpeace and WWF oppose creation of cheap credits like this, and it is now clear there will not be global agreement on an emissions trading scheme in the near future. – Via Garamut News.
By NIGEL KAUA | COMMENTARY
At the official ceremony of opening the Goroka Cultural Show last year, Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Hon. Emil Tammur told the show goers Papua New Guinea’s major cultural events countrywide will be funded directly from the National Budget every year round.
He said a policy submission to the Parliament for the National Government to fund major cultural events, shows and festivals is proceeding from the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. “It will be out in Parliament soon for debate and endorsement,” the Minister told the crowd in Goroka.
The major national cultural events and festivals include but not limited to; Goroka Cultural Show, Mt. Hagen Cultural Show, Jiwaka Cultural Show, Enga Cultural Show, Kutubu Kundu and Digaso Festival, Morobe Agri-Cultural Show, Madang Cultural Show, KarKar Island Bilum Festival, Goroka Bilum Festival, National Mask Festival and Warwagira in Kokopo, Sepik River Crocodile and Arts Festival, Hiri Moale Festival, Frangipani Festival in Rabaul, Kenu and Kundu Festival in Alotau and other events or festivals of similar popularity.
These festivals are increasingly being recognized for their contribution to the growth of our communities, the country and around the globe. They revitalize the communication and celebration of indigenous culture, tradition, and rituals. Additionally, indigenous cultural festivals are often used as a draw card to attract tourists and contribute to the development of the provinces and the country.
Our cultural festivals have long been essential to community life and are fundamental in sharing and sustaining indigenous culture of each event.
Local communities and the PNG Government alike are recognizing that these festivals have the capacity to facilitate development of the country’s emerging tourism and event industry.
Our cultural festivals are a relatively unspoiled resource. Tourism has had little influence on the festivals, which we celebrate, among other things, the culture and traditions. However, as tourism gains momentum, arguably a key issue will be the extent to which tourism development adopts the principles of sustainability.
Little to no effort has been made to gain a more comprehensive of cultural festivals within the context of tourism.
Yet the safety, or lack thereof, for visitors is not the only recognizable issue associated with tourism and/ or attending indigenous cultural festivals. Generally, there are relatively poor and unreliable support services like the police and ambulance, various health risks such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, quite limited resources and infrastructure to support the cultural events, limited and unreliable access to technology such as internet, and expensive domestic travel costs with some associated safety concerns.
Information for tourists traveling to and within PNG is limited and not easily accessible for travelers, and Australia’s Smart Traveler website repeatedly makes mention of the need to exercise caution while traveling in PNG, to maintain awareness of personal safety, particularly at night, and to continuously monitor the local media for warnings on new safety and security risks.
In general, tourism development in PNG has failed to keep pace with the rest of the world. In the South Pacific, tourism represents a major opportunity for small island nations to increase their economic base, expand foreign exchange earnings and enhance the standard of living for their people.
Yet PNGs’ share of the South Pacific regional market is very small, at only 5 percent of total arrivals, and less than 2 percent of the holiday market. This indicates the low level of development of this market compared to other neighboring countries, as well as the importance of the business market to PNG.
This can be attributed to a lack of support for the tourism industry by the PNG Government over the last few years. There is a lack of adequate infrastructure to support tourism in PNG. This can be evidenced at the Mt. Hagen Cultural Show where limited accommodation facilities are all booked out in advance so any additional participants arriving at the festival cannot find accommodation because of lack of infrastructure.
Additionally, PNG faces many challenges pertaining to law and order and visitors’ safety in some parts of PNG can be, and often is, problematic. Travel warnings about PNG can be found on numerous government websites around the globe like the Australia’s Smart Traveler website and travel bloggers.
But the reality is sometimes not always as reported; we cannot say it is safe or unsafe. Any city in the world has its own problems. But the striking thing is that those who travel to PNG always make positive comments about the country. A survey report in 2018 indicates, more than 60% of the holiday seekers said they wanted to return some day in the future. – Via Garamut News.
