In memory of those who died

From Bruce Copeland

 

We remember the young Australian men and women and Papua New Guinea friends who died in the air crash on unforgiving terrain on Kokoda Track on 11 August 2009.

They came like so many others to honour the memories of Australian soldiers who sacrificed their youth and their lives in this and other wars.

 In so many ways, they were like the Australian men who enlisted from 1939.

They came from same families, work groups, towns, schools and football teams and went to war as a group of mates.

Women died in war too.

 This group of trekkers like so many others was a family and work group affair.

This makes loss so much harder to bear.

 They will not be forgotten.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, let us remember them too.

They are the children and grand-children of World War 2.

Our sincere condolences are offered to the families who have suffered this loss.

Sepik River Crocodile Festival a success

Villagers from Puruknawi village along Sepik River carrying a saltwater crocodile during the third Sepik River Crocodile Festival

Five-year-old Lester Dominic from Emas Village in Karawari along Sepik River carrying a saltwater crocodile during the third Sepik River Crocodile Festival

Story and pictures by LYDIA KAIA of WWF

More than a thousand of dancers, singers, storytellers and community members from villages across the Sepik region gathered in Ambunti in East Sepik province for the Sepik River Crocodile Festival, on Aug 11-12, joined by visitors from across the globe.
The two-day festival is now in its third year, and has been growing steadily larger.
This year, about 40 international tourists and journalists met with locals for the event, which combines a celebration of the region's traditional culture and environment with an opportunity to share information with often isolated communities.
The crocodile is a key totem animal, symbolising strength and power.
"Some of the villages in the Sepik are so remote that people spent one to two days traveling in canoes to reach the festival; about the same amount of time that it takes a tourist from the United States to get there by air," Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Sepik River programme manager David Peter said.
Peter said it was pleasing to see more interest from abroad in the festival, translating into more bookings for local ecotourism guides and lodges.
"Ecotourism has huge potential as a source of sustainable income for families and communities in this region, and the festival is a good way to showcase what the region has to offer," he said.
"WWF had staff on the ground working with communities and tourism operators to assist them to package their eco-tourism products, and then to promote their own operations and the region abroad.
“This is a good example of how conservation and sustainable development are mutually reinforcing.
"As long as it's well-managed and responsible, tourism can bring real benefits for local operators and communities."
A partnership programme links community-based organisations such as the Sepik Wetland Management Initiative and Help Resources with WWF, the PNG Department of Environment and Conservation and local-level governments.

Agriculture minister commends Fresh Produce Development Agency

Minister for Agriculture and Livestock John Hickey has commended the commitment by the Fresh Produce Development Agency to bring about tangible development impacts on the lives of 4.2 million people, which represents 85% of Papua New Guinea’s population.

His message was delivered at the launch of the FPDA’s five-year corporate plan (2010-2014) last Thursday by DAL deputy secretary Vele Kagena.

“The industry has progressed from an insignificant status to an important industry that is impacting on the lives and livelihoods of more than 85% of our population,” Mr Hickey said.

“Recent estimates have put the value of the fresh produce industry, particularly the volume of marketed fresh produce, to be K250 to K264 million.

“This is expected to further increase as the economic climate in the country improves with the commissioning of the LNG project.

“The actual value of horticulture and food crops is, however, estimated to be more than this, exceeding billions of kina per annum.

“This, therefore, warrants increased commitments by the government to the fresh produce sub-sector through the research and development institutions, and directly to the industry players who are persevering to provide markets for our farmers.

“In fact, the sub-sector has the potential to bring about broad-based and equitable distribution of wealth for our people.

“By improving the performance of the fresh produce sub-sector, we can address a lot of development issues and significantly improve on our development indicators, which are dismally poor.”

Mr Hickey, however, expressed concern that the plan should not become a “paper document which may be good at decorating shelves”.

“However, I am encouraged to learn that FPDA is already working on the next level of planning – programme planning followed by project planning – which aims to make this document a living document and not a paper document,” he said.

“I believe this is a very good step in the right direction as I am eager to learn about the developments in the industry that will be happening in the next five years as this corporate plan is translated into an action plan through the subsequent programme and project plans.”

 

 

 

No fruit and vegetable exports as Papua New Guinea continues to import

Trade statistics show that Papua New Guinea has no horticultural (fresh food) exports, whilst continuing to import, mainly from Australia.
The Fresh Produce Development Agency (FPDA) dropped the bombshell at the launching of its 2010-2014 corporate plan last Thursday.
“This might be considered surprising, given the superior agronomic conditions available for a range of fruit and vegetables,” according to the corporate plan.
“However, the absence of horticultural exports can be explained by an unfavorable fruit fly status which prevents exports of fleshy fruit and vegetables; lack of information on PNG’s comparative advantage in fruit and vegetable production; and the country’s focus on export of traditional tree crop commodities.”
Likewise, there is minimal processing of horticultural products in PNG, with only one notable processor, Goroka-based New Guinea Fruit Company, which produces fruit wines, jams and dried fruit (samples pictured above).
PNG, fortunately, is a member of a number of regional political and trading institutions and has bilateral agreements with several countries, which can enable it to break into markets in the region.
Its memberships include Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), South Pacific Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement (SPARTECA), Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Economic Agreement and South Pacific Community (SPC).
The implications of the challenges facing the domestic markets and existence of trade agreements and partnerships include the need for PNG to:
•       Develop production, quality assurance and marketing systems and infrastructure for the domestic market as a springboard for export markets;
•       Focus on developing export markets for a few crops where the country enjoys comparative advantage, for example pineapple, pitpit, taro and ginger;
•       Build capacity and systems to respond to global consumer demands for organically-grown products, fair trade, food safety and affordable food prices in the face of reduced global supply; and
•       Understand and develop systems to address quality and phytosanitary requirements of potential importing countries, focusing on Asian countries such as Singapore and Japan with relatively less-demanding sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) regimes.
“The value of PNG horticultural imports from Australia was around K17 million in 2002,” according to the corporate plan.
“The largest single item was frozen potatoes (K3.8m), closely followed by apples (K3.6m) and onions ((K2.4m).
“Other significant items were peas in various forms (K1.7m) and oranges (K1.1m).
“The total volume of horticulture imports were: root and tuber crop imports – 2, 870 tonnes values at K7.1m, vegetables – 800 tonnes valued at K4.3m, fruit 0 1, 186 tonnes valued at K6.6m.
“These data show that, despite the 25-40% import tariff, PNG’s domestic market is relatively open to imports of horticultural products, most of which are produced in the country.
“There is, therefore, an opportunity for PNG farmers and other actors along the value chain to supply the formal market with horticulture products, provided the quality and prices are competitive.
“The role of FPDA is to facilitate this development by providing all value chain actors with market information and development of the supply and marketing system.”

Papua New Guinea fresh food market worth K250 million

FPDA chairman Fabian Chow…K250m market

Fresh oranges, ginger, beans and mandarins on sale at Goroka market

Ripe red tomatoes and other vegetables galore at Goroka market

Giant broccoli fresh from the garden at Goroka market

Fresh produce marketed in Papua New Guinea is estimated to be worth more than K250 million per annum and still increasing, according to the Fresh Produce Development Authority.
FPDA chairman Fabian Chow said at the launching of its five-year corporate plan (2010-2014) at the Crowne Plaza last Thursday that demand was anticipated to increase with developments in the gas, petroleum and mining sectors.
“Given the many challenges and opportunities that have emerged and are still emerging, the fresh produce industry and particularly more than 85% of Papua New Guinea’s population who derive their income and livelihood from food crops, need to position themselves strategically to benefit from these emerging opportunities,” he said.
“The critical challenge was the lack of a corporate direction and hence a disconnection between programmes and projects, and the overall corporate goals.
“This resulted in FPDA’s corporate goals not being aligned well with the real industry, and high sectoral and policy goals set by the government through the medium term development strategy (MTDA) and the national agriculture development plan (NADP).
“The significant achievement which sets the foundation for a planned and systematic development in the fresh produce industry is the development of this corporate plan and most importantly, the development of the institutional and organisational capacity to implement the plan.”
Mr Chow said FPDA had over the years faced a lot of challenges, despite some notable achievements, such as the development of the seed potato productions systems which contributed to the K50 million potato industry.
“FPDA has also over the last 20 years built the capacity of men and women farmers, youths, school children, particularly through training, extension visits and advice, marketing information and technical production information through its seven centres strategically located across the country,” he said.
“The evidence of these inputs can be seen in the increasing level of vegetable production and marketing, and diverse lines of vegetables grown and sold in our urban and roadside markets and the wholesalers and food service sectors.
“Papua New Guineans today are beginning to enjoy a wider choice of locally-grown fruits and vegetables compared to years prior to 1989.
“There are, however, a lot of improvements yet to be made and FPDA is conscientiously working on improving the volumes supplied, the quality and price of certain lines of produce to match the demands and compete with imported products.”

Governor General calls for healthy and prosperous citizens

Governor General Sir Paulias Matane pulls the FPDA corporate plan out of an apt bilum of fresh vegetables

Governor General Sir Paulias Matane shows off the FPDA’s corporate plan while launching it at the Crowne Plaza

Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane has emphasised the urgent need for healthy and prosperous citizens of Papua New Guinea.
Launching the Fresh Produce Development Agency’s five-year corporate plan (2010-2018) at the Crowne Plaza in Port Moresby last Thursday, Sir Paulias said consumption of more locally-grown garden produce would provide healthy and prosperous citizens.
The plan envisions a “food and nutrition secure and prosperous Papua New Guinea”.
“Apart from these benefits,” Sir Paulias said, “it will contribute to fitter and healthier citizens, and secondly it will increase employment opportunities for our young people, particularly the 85% living in our rural areas,” he said.
“Ensuring that there is enough quality and nutritious food on the table is a responsibility of all responsible individuals and providers of households.
“Individuals or households that do not budget enough of their time, resources, incomes to ensure that there is good quality and nutritious food on the table will very soon succumb to ill health, diseases, hunger, malnutrition and even death.
“Likewise, a country that does not give priority to the food needs and requirements of its citizens will soon face the same fate.
“Diseased, hungry and malnourished citizens are liabilities, not assets, because their productivity and mental capacity are adversely affected.
“Increased quality of sufficient quantities of food is not enough.
“The food available and consumed must be nutritious.
“Food and vegetables are important for our diets because they are important sources of essential vitamins.”
Sir Paulias said the FPDA needed to promote the benefits of eating local garden produce to assist Papua New Guineans to adopt healthy diets and to increase the income levels and opportunities of those growing fresh produce.
He, however, said the plan, however great it may be, would not work unless there were resources to implement it.
“I believe that funds and technical support channeled to this industry will make positive impacts on the country’s food security status, economy, social livelihoods, health and educational capacity of a large number of Papua New Guineans,” Sir Paulias said.
“It is an economic sub-sector that is worth investing in, because it deals with a commodity that sustains our health, lives and livelihoods and particularly supports a large proportion of our population.”
Sir Paulias acknowledged the support of international partners such as AusAID through the Agriculture Research and Development Support Facility (ARDSF) and New Zealand through the Institutional Strengthening Project (ISP), as well as local stakeholders such as departments of agriculture and livestock, treasury, national planning and monitoring and business houses involved in the fresh produce industry.

New comment on "Thoughts on the Kokoda crash"

rsc186 has left a new comment on your post "Thoughts on the Kokoda crah":

Malum,
Interesting thoughts on the role Kokoda plays in the life of Australians. Like Gallipoli this has fallen victim to the adventure tour market. The vast majority of Australians that take on the challenge of Kokoda do so for the right reasons and that is to honor the men who fought on this piece of turf, be they Australian, Papua New Guinean or even Japanese. Kokoda is special on many fronts not lease of all because of the use of Conscripts. These conscripts were supposed to be only used in the Defence of Australia. To many this was taken to be the mainland, with PNG being an Australian protectorate the men could and were sent north of the cape, many found this to be unfair and deceitful. I am an ex-Serviceman who has served overseas in Iraq, Africa and the Pacific and have a deep seated respect for those who have played a role in conflict. My grandfather also fought here in PNG and for this I am very proud.
I have gone to the Lae cemetery and commend those responsible for maintaining this piece of sacred ground; they are doing a great job. I have walked the Bulldog track and recommend this to anyone who wants to better understand the difficulties of building a road through this part of the country, not to mention the amazing terrain that you get to traverse.
Kokoda is important in Australia's military and social histories as are many other sites in PNG and the world. The Australians were the first fighting force to defeat the Japanese, on land, at Milne Bay. Milne Bay could easily have been the point to where the middle class of Australia start their pilgrimage if only an adventure tour operator had focused on this area.