PACIFIC ISLANDS REPORT

Pacific Islands Development Program/East-West Center
With Support From Center for Pacific Islands Studies/University of Hawai‘i

Seacology
Berkeley, California
Oct. 1, 2009

Each year, the Seacology Prize is awarded to an indigenous islander for exceptional achievement in preserving the environment and culture of any of the world’s 100,000 islands. The Prize highlights the heroic efforts by people who seldom receive any publicity – indigenous leaders who risk their own lives and well-being to protect their island's ecosystems and culture.

Since the inception of the Prize in1992, Seacology has given the award to 18 native islanders in recognition of their innovative and courageous work. The 2009 Seacology Prize winner is Filip Damen, a customary landowner and community organizer from Wanang Province, Papua New Guinea.

For his truly noble efforts, Mr. Damen will be awarded $10,000 and honored at a ceremony at the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco, California on October 8, 2009.

Wanang is a small village surrounded by vast lowland rainforests in Papua New Guinea. The villagers practice shifting agriculture, fish in the Wanang River and hunt for wild pigs and cassowaries in their forests. Ten years ago, when the entire area of Lower Ramu was proposed by the PNG government as a logging concession, Filip Damen , an unschooled rural subsistence farmer with deep respect for his forest wilderness and traditions, recognized the threat. He taught himself to read and write and led a group of 11 Wanang village clans to sign a historic conservation deed. This communal deed bound the clans in their refusal to allow loggers or the PNG government to exploit approximately 25,000 acres of their forests.

The lowland tropical rainforests of Papua New Guinea (PNG) shelter many plants and animals found nowhere else. This is the third largest tract of primary tropical forest left on earth – exceeded only by the Amazon and the Congo basin. These forests fulfill essential environmental functions, controlling rainfall, maintaining water supplies, and stabilizing soils in addition to hosting a rich storehouse of some of the planet’s rarest species and plants.

Papua New Guinea forests are especially unique in that tribal landowners and subsistence farmers, rather than state governments or large companies, are the primary stakeholders. Each year 2.5% of the remaining PNG rainforests is degraded by commercial logging and subsistence agriculture.

Logging is systematically changing these forests forever, enticing tribal landowners with short-term cash and infrastructure. The results have a devastating effect on the traditional way of life. "In many cases the timber industry has made life harder for the landowners…not only do they face destruction of their environment, but they face destruction of their society." (Greenpeace: "Partners in Crime – Malaysian loggers, timber markets and the politics of self-interest in Papua New Guinea").

Refusing logging meant a loss of potential income for the community. With extraordinary vision, Filipapproached the PNG government with support from the Bintang Research Center (a grassroots NGO) to use Wanang for long-term forest research and conservation, on the condition that his people could engage in jobs, healthcare and schooling, developing sustainably without losing their forests, the basis of their cultural heritage. Under Filip’s leadership, Wanang landowners have joined an international collaboration to study the dynamics of rainforests around the globe and the rainforest’s response to climate change.

A new research station is providing advancement for his community. This year, the clans built classrooms out of bush materials, attracted two registered teachers and enrolled over 70 students, including many from villages in the surrounding logging concession. Filip was born, raised and lives in a traditional village.

He has never been overseas and until a few years ago had never ventured beyond Madang Province. Against odds, Filip Damen preserved his forest and led his community to develop a national and regional asset in environmental sciences. Sadly, there are precious few such examples of successful conservation in PNG.