Armed police end Greenpeace timber export ship protest

Yahoo News 6 Sep 08;

Armed police have removed four activists from a timber cargo ship on the South Pacific island of Papua New Guinea, ending a three-day protest against logging, environmentalists said Saturday.

"Armed police have escorted Greenpeace activists off a logging cargo ship on Papua New Guinea's Aiai River at Paia," Greenpeace Australia said in a statement. "The activists were harnessed to the ship's crane for 55 hours."

The activists had prevented the ship from loading logs bound for China at the remote port on Papua New Guinea's south coast.

The environmental group had been invited to the area by local landowners who were concerned about logging operations on their land.

Forests across the island of New Guinea and the nearby Solomon Islands make up a third of the world's tropical rain forests.

Greenpeace claims that 90 percent of logging in Papua New Guinea is illegal because many concession permits have been granted by the PNG government without proper consultation with landowners.

"What needs to happen is a moratorium and a review of all existing logging concessions," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Valerie Phillips.

Papua New Guinea Forests Minister Belden Namah rejected the Greenpeace claims. "As far as I'm concerned all the logging activities in Papua New Guinea have been legally sanctioned," he said.

Recently, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare had a series of meetings in Europe about potential carbon trading deals that would see PNG receive money for not cutting down its forests.