Govt must not use the country for ‘experiments’

I AM curious why the Solwara 1 project forges ahead when the plan to mine the seafloor of Bismarck Sea in the New Ireland has raised many concerns about the possible effects on the environment.
Few things that raised an eye brow is that; how comes the license to mine our seabed was issued to Nautilus Minerals even though PNG has no National Policy on deep sea mining nor an appropriate legal framework to regulate such operations?
Further, PNG’s Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (Cepa) should have rejected the company’s submission of their environmental impact study plan as PNG has no National Policy to regulate this sophisticated operation.
These are all corrupt practises and it should be investigated. Only a few government bureaucrats are putting pen on paper without considering the poor people whose livelihood depends mostly from the sea.
We have many on-going world class projects like the PNG LNG (which compromises of the gas fields of Hides, Angore and Juha), the oil fields of Kutubu, Moran and Gobe plus the huge gold deposits of Porgera, Lihir, Hidden Valley and Ok Tedi.
Currently, they are contributing to the national purse and yet we cannot utilize its earnings wisely.
From these earnings, when will we give a huge cut to boost our renewable resources like fisheries, agriculture, tourism and forestry? These are the key areas that will propel our nation into the unknown future when all our mineral deposits are gone.
We need to take a different direction now and stop relying heavily on our mineral resources.
We are talking about the Solwara1 Project now, what good will it do? Employment opportunities, spin-off benefits, rural developments, landowner royalties and government/provincial taxes, may sound good to eradicate some of our socio-economic woes but environmentally it will do more harm to our marine life.  Citizens must come to realise that this is our home, our country and whatever is found on the land and under the sea belongs to us.
We cannot tolerate outsiders or investors to manipulate our laws and regulations to serve their own interests.
They are only here for now and will vanish tomorrow after taking what they wanted. They will not be here to bear the environmental consequences of this project.
Remember, our country is not an experimental zone for their classy findings or plans.

Rodney Nembo
Mendi, SHP