"No one from FORCERT accompanied ABC Four Corners." FORCERT's replies to The Australian's questions about its role in the recent documentary about NIHT's REDD project in Papua New Guinea
NIHT’s REDD project in Papua New Guinea was the subject of an excellent recent documentary by ABC’s Four Corners. The documentary, “Carbon Colonialism” highlights serious problems with NIHT’s project, including the fact that the benefits from the project have not reached the local communities living in the project area. And that commercial logging has been taking place inside the NIHT REDD project area since June 2020.
The Four Corners documentary is well worth a watch:
Yesterday, REDD-Monitor wrote about an article in the Murdoch-owned newspaper, The Australian, which made a series of claims about the documentary.
The Australian wasn’t interested in reporting on whether villagers are benefitting from the project, or in reporting on the logging that’s taking place inside a project that’s supposed to be protecting the rainforests.
“Four Corners PNG carbon trading investigation accused of bias” is The Australian’s headline. It’s behind a paywall.
It isn’t clear whether NIHT or The Australian is making the claims of bias against Four Corners. There is only one quotation from NIHT in the article, apart from NIHT’s Stephen Strauss saying that the documentary is “disingenuous”.
Strauss told The Australian that the price of carbon credits from the project has crashed since the documentary was broadcast:
“We were set to receive $12.00 a ton per credit for the 2020 vintage and now we will probably get less than half that. This was also shared with Four Corners prior to the article. That is over a $12m loss – more than $8m to the people of PNG. We have an obligation as the responsible party for the carbon rights to ensure that our partners from PNG are protected. We are exploring all options.”
Before the article was published, ABC had responded to two sets of questions from The Australian, rebutting the claims made in the questions.
The Australian article claims that Four Corners “was effectively doing the bidding of Forcert, one of NIHT’s commercial rivals in PNG” - despite the fact that FORCERT is an NGO, registered as a not-for-profit company.
This morning, FORCERT sent the following information to REDD-Monitor: A reply by Cosmas Makamet, FORCERT’s manager, to a question that The Australian asked Four Corners; Makamet’s response to a statement made by The Australian in its article; and the email correspondence with James Madden, the journalist at The Australian who wrote the article.
In his emails to Madden, FORCERT’s Makamet made very clear that Four Corners was not “doing the bidding of Forcert” and that FORCERT is not “one of NIHT’s commercial rivals”. He also made clear that FORCERT has “not made any claims against NIHT in the PNG courts”.
Madden just ignored him and made the accusations anyway.
Here are Makamet’s responses and the email correspondence, posted in full and unedited:
Why did 4C fail to disclose Forcert’s court action against NIHT – a process that delayed NIHT’s project in PNG?
There has never been any court action by FORCERT against NIHT, which we made clear in our answer to the question from the Australian as shown in the emails below. Nor has any FORCERT employee ever filed a court case against NIHT on behalf of the customary landowners. All court cases to date related to NIHT's operation have been filed by the customary landowners themselves.
“Forcert, an NGO that has had a long association with sustainable logging operations in certain areas of PNG, currently has an application lodged with the country’s authorities to launch a rival project to NIHT’s existing carbon trading scheme.”
FORCERT is not a competitor or rival of NIHT. We are a non-profit NGO that work in long-term partnership with local communities. We made this very clear in our email response to questions from the Australian newspaper, as shown in full below.
FORCERT received legal clearance from the State Solicitor's Office in November 2021 for our PNG Communities BEST (Benefits from Environmental Services Trust) Program membership agreement with the Tavolo Community Conservation Association. This membership agreement covers their PNG Communities BEST REDD - Tavolo Project.
This trial project was developed by FORCERT and the Tavolo Community with collaboration from CCDA under a MOU between CCDA and FORCERT. For this reason, FORCERT received an exemption letter from CCDA for the Moratorium on new voluntary carbon market projects.
After receiving clearance by the PNG authorities, the Tavolo Project proceeded and it is currently in the last stages of VCS-CCBS Validation and Verification.
Sent: Friday, 24 February 2023 3:27 PM
Subject: Question from The Australian newspaper
Attention Forcert CEO...
My name is James Madden. I work for The Australian newspaper.
I'm writing a story about a recent program by the ABC's Four Corners, which looked at NIHT's project in PNG.
My questions are as follows:
1. Did Forcert assist the ABC with the program in any way?
2. Did a representative of Forcert transport journalist Stephen Long to a logging site within NIHT's project area?
Could I please ghave a response by 6pm today (Friday, February 24)?
Kind regards,
James
Sent: Friday, 24 February 2023 17:58
Subject: Re: Question from The Australian newspaper
Dear James,
Thank you for your email.
No one from FORCERT accompanied the ABC Four Corners Team or acted as guides during their visit to Kokopo or New Ireland Province.
As you saw in the documentary, after they returned from New Ireland, the ABC Four Corners Team visited our FORCERT Kokopo Office to interview Ivy Kiele, a professional forester, currently working with FORCERT, but previously engaged by NIHT as a casual forester to assist with their forest carbon inventory of their First Project Instance area of their NIHT Topaiyo REDD Grouped Project.
As FORCERT, together with the other 11 Civil Society Organisation members of the PNG Environmental Alliance, has been bringing the problems with NIHT's operations to CCDA's attention, a/o through open letters and media statements, the ABC Four Corners Team did contact us, together with quite a few other members of the Alliance, as well as other REDD+ experts in PNG, as part of their research for their documentary.
Although FORCERT has its own VCS-CCBS project with the Tavolo community, we do not see NIHT as a competitor, and we do not try to compete with them. We are a Not-for-Profit Company and our project came about through years of work by FORCERT, the Tavolo Community together with the PNG Climate Change & Development Authority (CCDA), to try develop a model to implement REDD+ at the community level that maximises community involvement and ownership, with fully transparent and equitable benefit sharing, all the way to the end users of the carbon credits. This model is based on the Community Conservation Laws and a Sustainable Land Use Plan that have been developed by the Tavolo community members themselves. We will be adding other projects with other partner communities, with whom we have existing long-term working relationships with, but this will be a slow and gradual growth, in line with our limited capacity.
Our first Voluntary Carbon Market Project (PNG Communities BEST REDD-Tavolo Project) is currently at the Validation & Verification stage, awaiting finalisation of the auditor reports, and first issuance of Verified Carbon Units (VCUs). However, the Tavolo Community has already received more than AUD300,000 in benefits from pre-financing and pre-sales. The vast majority of this income has been used by the community to start their permanent family housing scheme and to subsidise secondary and tertiary school fees for students from the community, the majority of them being females. From the results to date of this first trial project, we do think that our model can be viable and is ready to be used and replicated in the country.
We have also already been able to use the experiences of working with the Tavolo Community and CCDA on this trial to inform the Climate Change Management Act revision and the development of the PNG REDD+ Safeguards.
I hope this sufficiently answers your question, but please feel free to contact me again by email at any time!
Kind regards,
Cosmas
Sent: Friday, 24 February 2023 5:21 PM
Subject: Re: Question from The Australian newspaper
Thanks for your prompt reply, Cosmas.
I am intrigued that you say that you don’t see NIHT as a competitor. Is it not the case that you made a series of claims against NIHT through the PNG court system?
Also, just to clarify re your company’s engagement with the ABC, was anyone from Forcert interviewed for the program, or did you decline?
Kind regards,
James
Sent: Friday, 24 February 2023 18:38:20
Subject: Re: Question from The Australian newspaper
Dear James,
FORCERT has never made any claims against NIHT in the PNG courts. The lawyer interviewed by the ABC Four Corners Team in the documentary is representing the customary landowners of the NIHT Topaiyo REDD project area, whom have taken NIHT / NI Holdings (the company registered by Steven Strauss in PNG) to court.
As I explained in my first email, after they returned from New Ireland, the ABC Four Corners Team visited our FORCERT Kokopo Office to interview Ivy Kiele, a professional forester, currently working with FORCERT, but previously engaged by NIHT as a casual forester to assist with their forest carbon inventory of their First Project Instance area of their NIHT Topaiyo REDD Grouped Project.
Apart from Ivy, no-one from FORCERT was interviewed.
Kind regards,
Cosmas