The Land Reforms in PNG entail a long story of upheavals and downplays especially against a highly mercurial political economy context. Through its 1986 “Land Evaluation and Demarcation (LEAD) Project” (Payer, 1979), it advised the PNG Government for more rigorous land reforms focused at changing how the land was held by people. The land reforms continue but whether they “do more good” and “do no harm” (Clapp, 2005) remains questionable. The diagnoses of underdevelopment were found in customary land holdings; while the prognoses were situated in agricultural modernization and thus rigorous land reforms. Land formalization turned land rush: The case of oil palm in Papua New Guinea.

Source: Washington Post February 04, 2024 02:11 UTC