Jumping Fish: Engendering Contestation and Development on the Waterways of the Aramia River in Papua New Guinea (Report‪)‬

As it is elsewhere, water is a vital natural resource in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (2004:4) states in a recent publication that '[w]ater is generally accepted as the most important natural resource that will affect the Asian and Pacific region's development over the next 50 years. It is a critical input in agriculture, industry, urbanization, and essential to the wellbeing of households'. (1) PNG has a coastline of 8 300 kilometres, its geography is characterised by the presence of numerous reefs, lagoons and islands (Connell 1997:94), and the surrounding waters are populated by some 1800 species of coastal fish. The largest river basins in the country are the Sepik, the Fly, Purari and Markham Rivers. There are over 5 000 freshwater lakes dotted throughout the country and it also has jurisdiction over a marine zone of over 2 million square kilometres (Aquastat 2007). (2) Brown and Ploeg (1997: 508) note that '[l]and has been the foundation of life of the people of Papua New Guinea. Its soils, waters, wildlife, vegetation, and minerals are the people's property and resources'. Conflict arising from competing interests and claims over the control, management and ownership of these resources has been common in PNG since earliest contact, as they have been developed or extracted by developers, traders, administrators and planters. This competition has taken various forms and exhibited varying levels of intensity: from disputes arising out of the mining of natural deposits by large, multinational corporations such as Ok Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML), Porgera Joint Ventures Ltd (PJV) and Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) (cf. Banks and Ballard 1997; Connell and Howitt 1991; Connell 1991; King 1997; Kirsch 1997), or in relation to logging and the granting of timber concessions (cf. Holzknecht 1997; Wood 1998) or the establishment of fisheries or agricultural programs in rural areas (cf. Dundon and Wilde 2000; Foale and Manele 2003; Otto 1997). The overwhelming majority of land in PNG is under customary tenure--principles and practices of resource ownership that are immensely varied and flexible--with only 3% of land held by the state, despite successive attempts by colonial Australian administrations to introduce and encourage customary land registration (Brown and Ploeg 1997:510, 513). In July and August 1995, Prime Minister Chan attempted to introduce the registration of customary land in order to meet certain criteria proposed by the World Bank. The reaction was one of 'overwhelming opposition, manifest in demonstrations, petitions and destruction of property' (Lakau 1997:529). University of Papua New Guinea students rioted in the capital, as did people in other urban centres. In 1995, several UPNG students visited the Gogodala Council Chambers in Balimo, Western Province, and held a public meeting about the rationale for their united opposition to the registration of customary land. The primary residents of Balimo, a peri-urban centre for the Gogodala, although excited by the possibilities of formalising customary principles of ownership of land, water and other natural resources, were also deeply suspicious of the government's intentions. Some argued persuasively, however, that land registration could represent the path to development, an issue that remains central to debate and conflict over land ownership and the management of natural resources.