People in Between: A Case Study on the Kumil Timber Project. Madang Province, Papua New Guinea

Madang Province, Papua New Guinea - an area of tropical rainforest. With the proliferation of transnational timber companies, "development" has come to the area. Papua New Guinea's more than 700 societies have now become dependent on commercial logging. This document deals with one such project - the Kumil Timber Project. In contrast to other areas of tropical rainforest, land and resources are incorporated into Papua New Guinea law. This means that all land and natural resources belong to the respective local people. These rights are, in most cases, controlled by patrilineal clan units which have usufructuary rights. In principle, therefore, resource extraction in Papua New Guinea is fundamentally different from that in other countries. In practice, however, factors like ethnic diversity and deeply rooted cultural values are rarely taken into consideration in planning for "development projects". The Kumil Timber Project is such a case showing all the problems with timber utilisation in the transition from independent subsistence production to a capitalist economy.