Community advocacy organization ACT NOW is calling on the Forest Minister Salio Waipo and National Forest Board to explain why controversial FCA logging permits have not been cancelled.
According to evidence given to a Special Parliamentary Committee, the PNG Forest Authority recommended to the Forest Board in the middle of 2025 that two-thirds of all Forest Clearing Authority permits should be cancelled.
Related news: https://actnowpng.org/media/call-on-forest-minister-and-board-to-explain-failure-to-cancel-fca-permits
The recommendation followed audits conducted by the PNGFA that found many of the FCA projects were not genuine and that promised agriculture plans were not being delivered.
However, there is no evidence that any permits have been cancelled or that any action has been taken against the logging companies found to have abused the licensing system.
In a statement, ACT NOW Campaign Manager Eddie Tanago says the Forest Minister and the National Forest Board must explain the lack of action against rogue FCA operations.
“While the Minister and PNG Forest Authority are meeting with the logging industry today to discuss the failure to implement the government’s log export ban, they are ignoring the issue of widespread illegal logging and the abuse of FCA logging permits,” says Tanago.
The Bank of PNG has identified forest crime and political corruption as two of the biggest money laundering risks facing PNG.
ACT NOW says the link between these issues cannot be ignored when examining both the failure to address FCA abuse and the failure to move the logging industry into downstream processing.
“The government signalled five years ago the need to move to 100 per cent downstream processing, but instead the PNGFA has continued to issue legally dubious FCA permits and TRP extensions that have expanded log exports,” says Mr Tanago.
“The Minister and the Board need to establish whether political corruption has played any part in these decisions.”
ACT NOW has previously published the results of its own investigations into five FCA projects, which revealed a consistent pattern of apparent irregularities that raised serious questions about the legality of each logging operation.
The problems identified included:
• a lack of informed consent from forest resource owners;
• agricultural plans that were vague, unrealistic, or not being delivered on the ground;
• patterns of logging more consistent with large-scale selective logging rather than the clearing of discrete areas of forest for agriculture;
• concession boundaries that included large areas of forest not suitable for agriculture and in excess of what was required for the agriculture projects; and
• a lack of monitoring of logging operations by relevant government agencies.
These concerns about the abuse of FCA logging permits have been echoed by both the Bank of PNG and the Special Parliamentary Committee on Public Sector Reform.
In its report on Log Export Monitoring, published in March 2026, the committee states:
“Large-scale logging is often concealed under the pretext of Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs), which were intended for agriculture.”
“This is a mechanism to bypass legitimate forestry permitting and environmental regulations and warrants close scrutiny by enforcement agencies. However, this does not appear to be the case.”
The Parliamentary Committee has also raised concerns about the link between forest crime and corruption and its impact:
“Weak legislative enforcement, possible systemic corruption, and a fundamental lack of will to prosecute offenders have effectively turned a vital natural resource into an illicit revenue stream for foreign interests.”