Protect your land, locals told

PAPUA New Guineans need to do more to protect their resources and defend them at all cost to remain as main beneficiaries, People’s Resource Awareness Party president Paul Masta says.
“There must be improvements and a massive overhaul in consolidating our natural rights,” he said.
Presenting his party’s policies at a political parties’ seminar in the National Research Institute recently, Masta, who is the party’s founder, said land or customary land was important.
“It is where we make our gardens, build our homes and it is where our bodies are laid to rest when we die,” he said.
“Therefore, land must be treated as the key to our livelihood.
“I feel sorry towards the landowners of this country because they face this problem of having to go around in circles in order to pursue their royalties.”
Masta said the onus was on the people to become the custodians of the country’s resources.