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ACF blasted over fake claims
RIMBUNAN Hijau (RH) is disappointed that
despite its new efforts to confirm the legality of its timber operations
in PNG, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) persists with its
false accusations and unsubstantiated claims against the industry.
It said the ACF had launched an internet campaign in part of a long and
misleading campaign by NGOs to end commercial forestry operations in
Papua New Guinea, which would hurt the rural communities.
RH is surprised by the move as it recently embarked on a pilot programme
with the PNG Forest Industries Association (PNGFIA) to ensure that all
timber exported by members of the association were legally extracted.
The programme is the first of its kind in PNG and has been welcomed by
the Australian minister for forestry Eric Abetz, the Australian Timber
Importers Federation and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
“As the largest timber company in PNG, RH had borne the brunt of the
false claims of illegal activity and corruption by NGOs like ACF and
Greenpeace for many years,” RH said in a press statement.
It noted that ACF was now putting pressure on ANZ Bank in order to gain
leverage with RH.
“It is asking ANZ’s everyday customers to damage the bank’s operations
in Australia, misleading them into thinking that the bank is financing
destructive logging in PNG.
“This strategy from ACF is completely unethical and based on spurious
claims.
“The campaign completely ignores recent significant developments in the
PNG forest industry,” it said, referring to the legality programme in
which ANZ is also a participant.
Alan Oxley, the managing director of ITS Global, a Melbourne-based
environment consultancy, said ACF was acting unethically in continuing
its campaign against commercial forestry in PNG with unfounded and
unsubstantiated allegations that the leading forestry company in PNG was
logging illegally and perpetrating human rights abuses.
“It has been clearly demonstrated that the allegations made by
Greenpeace, which were now over five years are baseless,” he said.
“Greenpeace lobbied the Howard government to ban timber imports from PNG
on those grounds and it refused,” he said.
Furthermore, the PNGFIA announced last month it would develop a system
which would demonstrate its logging is legal with the Swiss-based
company, SGS, one of the world’s leading verification and inspection
companies, Mr Oxley said. “Despite this, ACF is acting in a scurrilous
manner, repeating outrageous and possible defamatory claims.”
 
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