Kokoda business worries as trekker numbers drop

THE number of people walking the Kokoda Track has dropped by more than 50 per cent since the Australian government took control of the management of the track in 2009, a private report has shown.
“Trekker numbers increased rapidly from 76 in 2001 to 5621 in 2008 when the industry was managed as a Kokoda Track Special Purpose Authority (KTA) set up by the PNG government,” said the report by retired Australian serviceman Major Charlie Lynn who owns Adventure Kokoda.
“However, since the Australian government assumed control of the management of the industry in 2009, trekker numbers have decreased from 5621 to 2597.
“This is due to the fact that the industry, which is now dysfunctional, has been run as a government agency directed from Canberra rather than as a commercial business.”
Lynn said he had spent the past 27 years walking the Kokoda Track.
In 2008, he said, about 5621 people crossed the track, generating about K40 million for Papua New Guinea’s economy.
In his report, Lynn said the PNG government established the Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) in 2003 as a statutory body for the Kokoda and Koiari rural local level government to manage – as an emerging trekking industry – and to ensure villages along the track received a share of the financial benefits.
However, since the change, money directed to the authority by the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments and trek fees have
failed to produce any sustainable benefits for villagers along the track, he said.
“The PNG government should establish a professional Kokoda Trail Management Authority (KTMA) to manage the Kokoda trekking industry and distribute profits to shareholder communities along the trail,” Lynn said. “KTA to be rebadged as KTMA and reorganised into a business group and a community group.
“The constitution of the KTA should be amended to reflect the role of the new organisation.
“The purpose of the business group is to operate the Kokoda trekking industry as a profit-making enterprise with profits be distributed to incorporated land group shareholders at the end of each financial year.”
The Kokoda model is badly broken and dysfunctional and needs to be corrected, Lynn said.