State Sanctioned Land Grabs

The lives of Papua New Guineans residing in rural communities revolves around land. It provides them their identities and guarantees the future of their children. Its significance to PNG compelled the drafters of the PNG Constitution to ensure land rights of the indigenous population is a critical feature of the law. But both Somare and O’Neill governments have in the last decade formulated controversial policies that created land leases that impinged on the rights of traditional land owners and legitimized land grabbing.