fPcN interCultural:

friends of Peoples close to Nature

RESPONSE TO WWF ABOUT PNG INDIGENOUS NGO COMPLAINTS - Indigenous people throughout the world must know of WWF's actions in Papua New Guinea. In PNG we have not only WWF but other BINGOS (big international NGOs) such as Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy. The recent fPcN comment that the WWF defence was "bullshit" is spot on. Here are the details of what is happening in Papua New Guinea with WWF and other BINGOs. In PNG we learned last year that whenever the BINGOS are criticized too effectively they think they may lose project money that they will start a witch hunt to find who is threatening there funding prospects so as to shut up the critics. This is what the BINGOs did in response to essays spreading around which showed the true colours of BINGO actions in PNG.

http://forests.org/archived_site/ today/recent/2003/pngnewc2.htm

The BINGO witch hunting taught even doubters among the critics that we must go underground whenever complaining effectively about these corporate conservation monsters. We also learned that the BINGOs don't respond to our criticism meaningfully because in reality they have no respect for the small and simple PNG NGOS. They usually ignore criticism from PNG indigenous NGOs or they talk from one side of their mouth to us while saying something else in private. They are not interested in reform or any change to their neocolonialist structure and behaviour.

PNG NGOs have had strained relations with WWF for a long time.

http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=21392

WWF has now spent millions of dollars on different projects in PNG with almost no conservation results to show for all that money.. Its Sepik project collapsed when the Dutch government suddenly pulled out all the money last year. Most of the forest WWF says it has saved would have been protected by God due to difficult terrain and swamps. Anyone who knows these BINGOS is not surprised that WWF will take credit for God’s creation if that was the way to get more donor money.

WWF set up a huge ecoforestry mill and operation that completely collapsed in Kikori, leaving big debts that they would not pay for the longest time. This operation was promoting cutting mangrove trees in violation of PNG law and international standards. Of course WWF backpedaled when confronted but not before a WWF board member showed his distain for PNG law with his comments.

http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/wrr2001/wrr_jan/WWF.htm

WWF's own staff admitted recently that there WWF Kikori project has failed with almost every clan it worked with who instead signed logging agreements with the Malaysian logging company TFI. This massive failure has come in spite of millions of US dollars spent supporting dozens of comfortable staff living in the oil company camps dining on fine food, flying in helicopters all over the place and hiring numerous expatriates who succeeded mainly in eating up large amounts of money. WWF as far as we can tell has saved nothing of the loggable forests around Kikori. The logging company has gone wherever they wanted within this Kikori basin conservation area of interest that WWF set up. This WWF project has not been able to gazette even 1 new wildlife management area after more than 10 years and millions of dollars spent in this project. However the oil companies, first Chevron and now Oilsearch seem happy with the project because it makes them look like conservationists too!

WWF PNG is now hoping to work with oil palm companies in PNG. Somehow WWF thinks this is helping PNG. Oil palm destroys peoples diverse resources on the land, causing them to migrate and become landless. It doesn’t matter how many birds can live in the oil palms, oil palm is a disaster to our indigenous way of life. But WWF doesn’t care about that it only thinks about indigenous ways of life when it looks like it might be a way to get more money for some WWF project.

WWF is destroying the natural development of the indigenous NGO movement in PNG along with the other BINGOs such as Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy. They catch money that could be going to PNG NGOs. They misuse funds but can cover it so donors will not be shamed. The donors like the BINGOs for this reason. WWF should come out in the clear about how much money they have spent in the Kikori, Sepik and Fly River project and give us the details on what forest or other habitat was saved and gazetted which was not habitat that God protected due to difficult terrain. Then the misuse of money and wasted efforts will be clear to the world.

There is also corruption within the BINGOs and this misuse was described in the essays circulated last year.

http://forests.org/archived_site/ today/recent/2003/pngnewc2.htm

One of the more recent corruptions is a WWF staff member starting private eaglewood buying business. He has become much more interested now going out to villages because he sees the self interest.

BINGOs give people in the indigenous NGOs ideas for corruption and the way they are run is also a bad example for indigenous NGOs. WWF in PNG is run like business. They pay far more than indigenous PNG NGOs could pay staff and the kind of people attracted to work in these NGOs are looking for the money and only give conservation lip service as needed. They give a bad example for those struggling within the indigenous PNG community in terms of pay and entitlements, as well as lack of passion and waste of money. These WWF characteristics are destroying the indigenous PNG NGO movement by making NGOs look like another place where people sit in air conditioned offices and spend most of their time writing reports and earning middle class wages.

PNG’s forests are declining at alarming rate and the dominant failed BINGO strategy to deal with the crisis is not stopping the logging but is destroying indigenous PNG NGO activism. WWF will not fight the loggers, instead they try to reason with them. These are the very logging companies which bribe our leaders, call the police to beat up any villagers that complain about the logging companies, and disregard PNG law whenever they want. It is premature for NGOs to compromise and work with such destroyers of our environment and people. The dirty handed tricks of the loggers will continue until they are counteracted by true activism and working overtime for little or no money as needed with a real passion for winning this battle. WWF has none of those characteristics. WWF instead offers the logging companies a nice environmental group option. WWF is an NGO that the loggers can talk to and of course we know from the Kikori area that WWF never stops the loggers. This kind of compromising attitude is undermining any attempt at activism to the extent needed to stop the continued destruction of our forests.

The only ongoing effort in Kikori basin area one of WWFs main conservation areas of interest to stop the loggers by legal means is not being done by WWF but by the indigenous Environmental Law Centre. Not only that but there was a sustainable logging agreement that clans in the Bosavi area now have to counteract the nonsustainable loggers who want to go in and again this was not done by WWF at all. But probably behind our backs WWF is taking credit for all these accomplishments so it will look like they actually accomplished something within the Kikori basin area other than eating up huge amounts of money.

These BINGOs without exception are run by outsiders and outside interests. This is evidenced by the fact that the recent WWF rebuttal to the criticism by the indigenous groups (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200409/s1193050.htm) came from Australia not PNG. None of the BINGOs including WWF have come forward with a localization plan for there national offices. WWF has gotten out of paying taxes to the PNG government unti recently when forced to after this tax evasion was made public by the Papua New Guinean director of WWF PNG. This director was replaced with an expatriate. Papua New Guinean staff at WWF tell us they are asked for their opinions on things but the expats still run the show and drive all the activities. WWF is a neocolonialism organisation in PNG!

The recent PNG NGO complaints that WWF is a failure in PNG conservation is true. The WWF reply that PNG is a difficult place to do conservation is a PR coverup to hide their massive spending of money to achieve so little. The WWF PR machine has gotten to work again so strongly because WWF is wanting money from the Australian government. That explains why they are trying so hard to paint a beautiful picture of their PNG activities. It's all about money with WWF.

If donors care at all about conservation in PNG they should carefully investigate the rosy statements that WWF is making about all its successes and not accept all these superficial statements with no details from them. Their record in PNG is a failure. The complaints made by indigenous PNG NGOs are spot on, and the criticism will continue and hopefully will build until the whole world sees the neocolonial attitude of BINGOs like WWF in PNG and how they are hurting the indigenous NGOS.

Indigenous people must unite to control the foreign conservation monsters!

f P c N interCultural
http://www.fPcN-global.org/

Region

• Melanesia

Topic

• Bingo's