AAP is reporting that "Papua New Guinea landowners have won a David and Goliath battle to freeze a Chinese nickel miner's construction of a massive pipeline to dump waste into the sea. The national court in Madang on Friday ordered work to stop on the nickel mine's previously approved submarine tailings disposal system. The Ramu mine in Madang Province, on PNG's northwest coast, operated by the Chinese Metallurgical Construction Group Co (MCC), plans to dump five million tonnes of slurry waste annually into Basamuk Bay."

The Chinese Metallurgical Construction Group is part of the China Metallurgical Group Corporation, which is a state-owned enterprise engaging in EPC (engineering, procurement and construction), natural resources exploitation, papermaking, equipment fabrication, real estate development. Its subsidiary, China Metallurgical Corporation Limited, is listed on both the Shanghai Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

The company states on its website that it "has to date invested as much as US$1 billion in mining resources abroad, and owns many production facilities and claims of resources including iron ores, copper, gold, nickel, cobalt, zinc, lead and aluminum".

This is an interesting story in relation to my posting last week on Deborah Brautigam's book The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa, which suggests that we need to look behind the media hype that Chinese investment is destroying whole ecosystems.

An interesting story is brewing in Australia over the so-called "Papua New Guinea carbon trading rush". Kirk Roberts, pictured (and who is described in the Australian media as a "colourful racing identity - i.e., a past including horse doping and other "colourful" activities) has reportedly "persuaded many tribal groups to sign their rainforests up for future use as carbon credits". As reported here, "Mr Roberts, who runs his carbon operations through a company called Nupan, claims to have the power of attorney over 90 forestry deals, giving him control over land potentially worth tens of millions of dollars as carbon sinks in the fight against climate change". In this article, "Tim King, from the Wilderness Society, said there had been "a tsunami of carbon traders spreading across PNG. Carbon finance and REDD [Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation] have triggered a 'gold rush' mentality.""

It's almost as though nobody saw this coming...

So reads the headline in The Australian.  The paper has obtained the payslips issued to Rimbunan Hijau workers employed in the logging concession of Wawoi Guavi in southern PNG, and on the eastern PNG islands of Manus and New Britain.  A cited example is the payslip of Lester Keller, a chainsaw operator on Manus Island, which shows he was paid 159 kina (A$88) for working an 88-hour fortnight. After his canteen bill was deducted, he was left owing the company 40 kina. Rimbunan Hijau spokesperson said a review by PNG's Department of Labor in 2004 had examined claims the company was underpaying its workers and had concluded it paid double PNG's average wage.   Background stories documenting allegations against Malaysian logging firm Rimbunan Hijau here and here.