Bougainville Environment and Tourism Stories : Taming and harnessing the sea – Simon Pentanu

 

The sea offers precious gifts but it can also be fearsome.

How do you manage to keep your balance against the awesome power of the sea. Is it friend or foe? Is it benevolent – as we often know it to be – or is it malevolent, wishing us ill?

The sea. Surfers and sailors love riding and sailing it, near and far out at sea. But they know the sea is not merely a plaything. They respect its capacity to change moods quickly. When it changes, it is indiscriminate, doing no favours for anyone. But by gosh, it has paid dividends to everyone, including explorers who have conquered and harnessed it to venture far out beyond their shores.

The ocean is bigger than any supermarket, hypermart or grocery chain in the amount and variety of food and other resources it holds. Its bounty supports whole populations.

Almost everyone has some connection with the sea. It occupies more than seventy per cent of the earth’s surface. It is everywhere. The liquid cartwheels around the globe, carried by cloud storms, cyclonic winds and rains. We know it from our own experience, as well as through the stories of sailors, fishermen and explorers, whose (sometimes tall) tales are re-read, re-told and re-imagined through the generations.

Stories of the sea are interwoven with the history of human endeavours down the millennia, from Christopher Columbus to Capt James Cook, from Carteret to Bougainville. And Mendana too.

Louise-Antoine Comte de Bougainville’s sighting of this Island is being recognised as a public holiday in the Region every year on 2 July, starting 2018. Let us not read too much or too narrowly into this or politicise it. It happened. We cannot rewrite history and say Bougainville didn’t or shouldn’t have come to these shores. He braved the seas and oceans to get here.

There were many other explorers who took courage and unfurled their desire to catch the wind and find out what lay over the horizon.

I can’t help but admire the feat of anyone who is prepared to wet their feet and whet their appetite to satisfy their curiosity on a quest like that. Most of those explorers set out with little more than rudimentary navigational aids and the stars – and with them they circumnavigated continents and mapped archipelagos. They had nothing like the science and technology at our disposal today.

Humans are not cats with nine lives. Those that have gone before us made their one life – between success and failure, between survival and death – count for something.

Let us acknowledge and recognise them, not ridicule them.

The indiscriminate sea, vibrating with menace and fury is real. Participants in surf competitions, yacht races and canoe journeys may feel genuine fear when faced with swells and canyons of giant waves out at sea.

And sometimes each of us feels fear and trepidation when we face choppy seas in our personal lives. More adventurers and explorers have gone up into space than into the deepest trenches of our oceans. It can be like that with our personal travels. Sometimes the hardest journeys are the ones to our inner selves.

Being honest about ourselves, our weaknesses, our worth is not easy. But it is not impossible. The sweetest and most satisfying endeavours are often those that are hardest, most complex and which take longer to achieve.

I believe the place to begin is to feel worthy of ourselves. Because when we say ‘in God we trust’ we are saying we are worthy of His creation.

If we don’t have a sense of self-worth, we are like rudderless vessels without keels floating listlessly at the mercy of the elements. We can easily be broken into pieces and scattered to oblivion, leaving no sign that a human being with a soul once walked upon this land and ventured out by sea.

Let us take courage – like the explorers of the past – and be prepared to face the swells and troughs of the journey to our inner selves.

When we know and appreciate our own worth we can take on the challenges of the world around us with more certainty and a lot of positive sense, and benefits to reap.

 

 

 

Bougainville Referendum News : Simon Pentanu says ” In setting up our own #Bougainville Ombudsman office, we first need to ask ourselves, what kind of society do we want #Bougainville to become? “

 

” In setting up our own Ombudsman office, we first need to ask ourselves, what kind of society do we want Bougainville to become?

A Bougainville Ombudsman that is fully functional and has the support and respect of elected leaders and the people can set the tone for the whole society – government, business and the community. To this end a nurturing role in a highly involved mentoring and consultative process would be fitting

How important is it to us to have a body that holds our elected leaders to account and encourages open, transparent government? How much can we do with what we have?

Those are the sorts of questions we need to be asking.

We have many hard decisions to make and challenges to face, which is a normal process of growing up. Autonomy means building our state institutions in governance and in other sectors.

A serious discussion about a Bougainville Ombudsman immediately at back the end of Referendum process would be timely and important.” 

Simon Pentanu : As from 2015 Speaker of the Bougainville House of Representatives and was PNG’s Chief Ombudsman 1995-2000

Bougainville should begin the groundwork soon to have its own Ombudsman by 2020-22.

The Autonomous Bougainville Constitution provides for a Bougainville Ombudsman.

I reckon by the year 2025 it should be sufficiently well established to be inducted a member of the International Ombudsman Institute.

The kind of Ombudsman Bougainville needs is an oversight body – to oversee the activities of government and give the people confidence that their representatives are following the rules and governing transparently. The Ombudsman’s purpose must be clearly understood and appreciated by everyone – that is, by the governors who are elected to lead and by the governed, who have an expectation that those that they elect to govern can be trusted to lead.

My six years as PNG’s Chief Ombudsman have given me many insights into what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to oversight bodies and how time and resources can be wasted if the right efforts are not being made to bring to bear the changes and results needed.

Photo: Attending the International Ombudsman Institute Board of Directors, Pretoria, South Africa 2000

Without sounding idealistic and simplistic, if Bougainville borrows the best practices and processes from the PNG Ombudsman Commission and discards those that have rendered its processes tardy, futile and adversarial, as well as looks at the strengths of the traditional role of the Ombudsman around the world, Bougainville’s Ombudsman could be a vital, effective cog in our democratic machinery.

In setting up our own Ombudsman office, we first need to ask ourselves, what kind of society do we want Bougainville to become?

A Bougainville Ombudsman that is fully functional and has the support and respect of elected leaders and the people can set the tone for the whole society – government, business and the community. To this end a nurturing role in a highly involved mentoring and consultative process would be fitting.

Bougainville is a relatively small Island in terms of land size and population but has the resourcefulness and a wealth of experiences to learn from its past and steer clear of bumps and potholes into the future. If we are serious about Bougainville’s future wherever we are, we should all think, metaphorically speaking, like an Ombudsman.

The institution of Ombudsman that functions well and which a society can relate to in terms of delivering on the expectations of good, honest government can be tremendous help and value to society.

And the old adage is worth keeping in mind: if a job is worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well. A Bougainville Ombudsman that will nurture and develop our leaders to appreciate their roles as elected representatives and their value to society, cannot depend solely on the advice and assistance of the over-stretched Ombudsman Commission of PNG. We need to look to the best international models and learn from the premier international examples.

We are fortunate to have the recently established PNG Ombudsman Commission Regional Office in Buka. That office can be used to start the groundwork for establishing a Bougainville Ombudsman, but that should not be the only source of our advice and assistance.

Let us not stall on establishing, or seriously thinking about, important state institutions under the Autonomous arrangements on the basis of lack of funds. Whenever we hold out inadequate finances as the main explanation we will keep believing this to be obstacle. A better way to think about it is that we have challenges in how we allocate and spend our available financial resources. We have to prioritise.

How important is it to us to have a body that holds our elected leaders to account and encourages open, transparent government? How much can we do with what we have? Those are the sorts of questions we need to be asking.

We have many hard decisions to make and challenges to face, which is a normal process of growing up. Autonomy means building our state institutions in governance and in other sectors. A serious discussion about a Bougainville Ombudsman immediately at back the end of Referendum process would be timely and important.

Having said all of the above I would also seriously caution the ABG and the House of Representatives not to rush into invoking the constitutional provision to create a Bougainville Ombudsman Commission overnight or before the referendum if the intention or motive is to avoid any elected leader in Bougainville from being referred to the Ombudsman Commission of PNG for alleged misconduct in office under the leadership Code.

Bougainville Mining ad Referendum News : BCL has serious concerns over proposed new mining laws proving divisive at a time when unity is required in the lead-up to the referendum

 ” Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) has serious concerns over proposed new mining laws that some members of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) seem keen to rush through parliament.

The three bills that were introduced to parliament last Wednesday, with insufficient stakeholder consultation, are proving divisive at a time when unity is required in the lead-up to the referendum.

If passed, one of the bills seeks to amend the Bougainville Mining Act 2015 to allow a new company, Bougainville Advance Mining Limited, to be issued with a special mining licence granting “large-scale mining leases over all land in Bougainville available for reconnaissance, exploration and mining that is not subject to an existing exploration licence or mining lease”. Leases of up to 100 years could be granted.”

See Continued Part 2 Below

The government of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea believes establishing its own company to re-open the long shut Panguna mine will solve its funding crisis going into the referendum.

Bougainville's Panguna Copper mine

Bougainville’s Panguna Copper mine Photo: Supplied

Bougainville is due to hold a referendum on independence from PNG in June this year.

However, it claimed that the national government had not yet provided the money it is constitutionally bound to provide.

The Bougainville government had previously placed a moratorium on re-opening Panguna to ensure the vote was not disrupted, but President John Momis said the region is facing an emergency.

He said this is why it is setting up Bougainville Advance Mining in which the government and people of Bougainville will hold a permanent majority ownership.

Time is running out on us. The people of Bougainville are determined to have the referendum and they must find the money to fund the referendum. One way of doing it would be if we started our own company and generated the revenue to enable us to conduct the referendum. We cannot sit on our hands.”

Landowners of the closed Panguna Copper and Gold Mine today called on the Autonomous Bougainville Government that they are ready to partner with the ABG and open the mine that created disunity amongst the people of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville.

In an exclusive interview with New Dawn FM, Chairman of the SPECIAL MINING LEASE OSIKAIYANG LANDOWNERS ASSOCIATION (SMLOLA) PHILIP MIRIORI and LAWRENCE DAVEONA said that they are ready to talk with the Government on ways they can work together for Bougainville’s future.

They said that they were not happy with the Government trying to make amendments to the untested Bougainville Mining Act.

MIRIORI said that the Panguna landowners were tasked by the ABG to work on uniting the landowners and they had to do it just to find out that the Government had now changed their mind on the issues at Panguna.

He said when the Panguna people are finally united they want to put issues of the past and work into the future.

MIRIORI said that the Panguna situation is already complex with the landowners, RTG and BCL.

If the ABG backs McGLINN the situation will become more complex.

He said the only way PANGUNA can be resolved, is through negotiation

Part 2 BCL Press Release 

These bills mirror proposals put forward by an Australian opportunist Jeffery McGlinn, whose apparent primary business appears to be horse breeding. In presentations to MPs and others he has proposed a 40 per cent stake in Bougainville Advance Mining for his own newly formed company Caballus Mining with other unknown foreign investors and sovereign states.

These developments raise very legitimate legal, constitutional and ethical questions, not only by BCL and its shareholders, but also by landowners in Bougainville and others in the community. More widely these bills could also be interpreted as both anti-competitive and anti-investment which is the last thing Bougainville needs.

Bougainville introduced good laws and regulations in 2015 designed to rebalance Bougainville’s mineral rights after a long period of consultation with all stakeholders. Now those rights are being undermined in haste by these proposed changes. Any genuine investor worth its mettle should be able to work within the existing laws. The Bougainville Mining Act 2015 therefore does not need to be changed.

BCL urges ABG leaders to think very seriously about the unnecessary divisions being created by these proposed amendments to the Mining Act and instead re-focus on the important work of unifying landowners and Bougainvilleans at this critical time for Bougainville, as they prepare for the referendum.

From the company’s own perspective, these legislative moves also ignore current court proceedings and BCL’s rights to natural justice and they are also at odds with the ABG’s decision to place a moratorium over the Panguna project area. The ABG has maintained there should be no discussions regarding mining activities in Panguna until after the referendum.

In early 2018, the ABG advised of a decision not to grant BCL an extension of its exploration licence (EL1) over the Panguna project area.

BCL maintains that the application process was both legally and procedurally flawed and was also undermined by other parties with competing commercial interests in Panguna mineral rights.

To protect the interests of all those with a significant stake in our company, including the people of Bougainville, BCL commenced legal proceedings in the PNG National Court seeking a Judicial Review of the decision. We were subsequently granted leave by the court to seek the review.

Since being invited back to Bougainville in 2012 by the ABG to reengage about the prospect of redeveloping Panguna, BCL has always conducted itself in an ethical and respectful manner and we continue to support worthwhile community projects.

The ABG and PNG National Government remain major shareholders in the company and we retain strong support among customary landowners in the project area and others in the community. BCL also possesses valuable local knowledge, project IP and mining expertise.

We have a highly-regarded local board led by respected Bougainvillean Sir Melchior Togolo as well as strong connections within the global mining and investment communities where there are potential project partners.

For all these reasons BCL remains a viable option for future mineral development in Bougainville and in the best interests of all Bougainvilleans, we would urge all members of the ABG parliament to seriously consider this before the bills are further read on 12 February.

Community leaders, landowners and others who are concerned by these proposals also have an opportunity to ensure their voices are heard by decision-makers before these laws are passed.