Rudd sits on hands while Papua New Guinea relations languish

By KEITH JACKSON in A PNG Attitude

AFTER AN energetic start to repair what was a fraying relationship between Australia and PNG, prime minister Kevin Rudd appears to be running out of puff.

Following his election a little over two years ago, Mr Rudd moved swiftly to renew ties between the two neighbouring countries.

He held out the hand of friendship to prime minister Somare and appointed PNG veteran, Duncan Kerr, to the Pacific Island Affairs portfolio.

But there are signs that fatigue has crept into the relationship.

Mr Kerr stepped down as parliamentary secretary in November and so far no replacement has been announced, even though the government had some months warning of the resignation.

Similarly, a new high commissioner to Port Moresby was expected to have been appointed more than a month ago, but the wires have gone strangely dead.

Australia's hapless aid agency AusAID has, inter alia, been recently taken to task by a Federal parliamentary committee and the subject of a critical report by the Australian National Audit Office without so much as a breath of comment from the government.

The civil situation in PNG, in a progressive state of decline despite an incipient resources boom, has so far not attracted any public commentary from the Australian government.

Meanwhile, the influence of the Chinese government grows rapidly in the Pacific, with PNG now looking to China to contest Australia's influence in the region.

And Somare saw fit to cock a snook at the Australian and New Zealand governments over Fiji, as a new and cavalier Melanesian brotherhood formed.

Pacific diplomacy Howard style was to look down on the islands from 40,000 feet as an interesting piece of geography on the way to the US.

Pacific diplomacy Rudd style seems to be to make sympathetic noises and then do nothing.

I hope I'm wrong and that a regiment of public servants is even now washing the Bateman's Bay sand from its hair ready to embark on a cunning plan to better equip the relationship for a robust future.

How green is Port Moresby

With the recent rains, Port Moresby is looking so green, and pretty as a picture.

This augers well for the year and all things point to a very good year for the capital city and Papua New Guinea as a whole.

 

 

NARI wins three EU-ACP grant awards

By SENIORL ANZU of NARI

 

Papua New Guinea’s National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) has successfully worn three major ‘capacity development’ projects from the European Union, valuing EURO 2.8 million (K 11.5 million).

The projects under the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Science and Technology (S&T) Programme will be implemented in three Western Pacific Countries - PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu - over three years starting in early 2010.

NARI Director-General Dr Raghunath Ghodake (pictured) revealed this last week saying “it has been a superb achievement by NARI to win funding for three capacity development projects in this highly competitive call from the European Union to the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states”.

“This is a Christmas present to PNG, NARI and its Western Pacific partners,” Dr Ghodake said.

“The ACP Science and Technology (S&T) Pro­gramme is an ACP-EU co-operation pro­gramme to support ACP coun­tries in strengthening research, development and innovation as well as in formulating and implementing S&T policies for sustainable development and poverty reduc­tion.” 

A total of nine research and development (R&D) organisations from these countries will benefit from the initiatives.

The award winning projects are:

·        Capacity development for research planning, programming and implementation in agricultural R&D institutions in PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu;

·        Capacity development in conservation and utilization of invaluable plant genetic resources; and

·        Capacity building in core research-related competencies and networking among staff of the agricultural research institutions.

Dr Ghodake said appropriate human resource capacity was essential for conducting and promotion of agricultural innovations for enhancing productivity, efficiency, and sustainability of the smallholder agricultural sector.

“However, most research and development institutions in the Pacific lack this capacity and the projects will address this problem,” he added.

While NARI is the project leader, the regional partners are the Solomon Islands Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and Vanuatu Agricultural Research and Technical Centre.

The project associates are the Fresh Produce Development Agency, Coffee Industry Corporation, Cocoa Coconut Institute, PNG Women in Agriculture Development Foundation (PNG), Kastom Gaden Association (Solomon Islands), and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Vanuatu).

 The projects will be co-ordinated from a newly-established office at the NARI headquarters in Lae with project offices in Honiara (Solomon Is) and Port Vila (Vanuatu).

The project call was open to national and regional science and technology organizations, universities, and research networks in 79 ACP member states, 27 member states, three candidate countries of EU, and the three mem­ber states of the European Free Trade Association.

“This is a unique achievement for PNG, NARI and its partners.  We sincerely thank the EU-ACP S&T Programme for awarding these projects,” Dr Ghodake said.

The bid was made in March 2008.

 

Rice growing takes off in Gazelle

Caption: Farmers from Lasul Bainings area at NARI Keravat with their rice for milling.-Picture by GADI LING

By GADI LING

It’s the festive Season and cocoa pod borer (CPB)-affected farmers within the Gazelle area of East New Britain province are rushing with their harvested rice to find mills for milling.

 With the presence of the destructive cocoa disease, these farmers will have less income this festive season to spend on rice, a staple food.

As an alternative solution, they have started growing rice themselves in a bigger way for household consumption, including sustaining intake during celebration periods such as this Christmas/New Year season.

Rice is one of the important crops targeted for food security and income generation in cocoa integrated cropping systems in ENBP.

This is now identified as part of CPB management strategy for smallholders in East New Britain by the CPB management committee.

The promotion on dry land rice farming is being done by various research and development organisations in the province such as National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI), Organisation for Industrial Spiritual & Cultural Advancement (OISCA), END division of primary industry (DPI), Department of Agriculture and Livestock (DAL), Cocoa Coconut Institute (CCI and University of Natural Resources and Environment’s (UNRE) Integrated Agriculture Training Programme (IATP). under Vudal University’s IATP training programme.

NARI’s Islands Regional Centre at Keravat and DAL Islands region have combined their efforts in promoting dry land rice growing in ENBP through  multiplication and supply of quality seeds and providing a milling service to smallholders.

 So far this year, NARI has supplied over 200kg of recommended quality rice seeds and milled well over five tons of harvested rice.

For the last two weeks, well over one ton was milled for the festive season alone.

Pictures of Rainbow Market, Port Moresby

These are pictures from Rainbow Market, Gerehu, Port Moresby, which were taken yesterday. Port Moresby is now into a brief respite during the December to March period, when the rain comes down in buckets and vegetables abound all over the capital city, as evident in these pictures. During this period, vegetable gardens can be seen all over the city, including precarious hillsides. Apart from the vegetables, you can buy fresh seafood such as fish, squid, octopus and sea shells as well as inland delicacies such as magani (wallaby) and tilapia, to name a few.

Leahy family helped open up Papua New Guinea Highlands to the outside world

By Rowan Callick, Asia-Pacific editor of The Australian

 

THE plane in which veteran pilot Richard Leahy almost died on a Papua New Guinea mountainside was appropriately registered as P2-MJL, the initials of his father Mick James Leahy - one of Australia's most colourful and successful explorers.

This was the feisty figure who led the expeditions in the early 1930s that established for the first time that the Highlands of PNG were not "empty" but packed with vibrant cultures.

Richard was born in Sydney in 1941 but soon with mother Jeanette joined his father, who had been in PNG since 1926.

His first wife Robin said yesterday: "He's been an aircraft fanatic since the age of four, it's his great love and interest. Practically every photo he has taken has an aircraft in it somewhere."

He extended this passion into his interest in history, discovering and photographing World War II plane wrecks all over the Pacific.

Richard learnt to fly in a Tiger Moth in Lae 50 years ago, and completed his training in Australia the following year, 1960. He bought his first Cessna - it was a Cessna in which he crashed on Wednesday - in 1967.

His father Mick - known widely as "Masta Mick" - died 30 years ago at Zenag, on a mountain top in Morobe province, where he is buried.

Born in 1901, he was the fourth of nine children of Irish migrants who had settled in Toowoomba. He and his brothers Paddy, Jim and Danny rushed to the Edie Creek gold strike in PNG in 1926.

There, writes historian Jim Griffin in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, "they learned the skills of prospecting and survival".

In 1930, seeking to trace gold upriver, he persuaded the Australian authorities to allow him to embark on the first of what were to become 10 expeditions into the Highlands.

Conventional wisdom held that the Highlands were virtually unoccupied, because the climate was too cold for tropical people. On an expedition with his brother Danny and Charles Marshall, they gazed over the Wahgi valley that was and remains one of the most populous parts of PNG - the first outsiders known to have ventured into the heart of the Highlands.

They found substantial gold only at Kuta in the Western Highlands. Mick summed up the Highlands to fellow expeditioner Jim Taylor: "Jim, good country, good climate, good kanakas, too good to find gold in."

Danny went on to become a coffee farmer, marrying a Highlander and establishing a separate dynasty that included Joe Leahy, the central figure in the widely applauded films of Bob Connolly and the late Robin Anderson, Joe Leahy's Neighbours and Black Harvest.

Connolly and Anderson had earlier made First Contact, which included footage of early expeditions of the Leahys.

Another Danny Leahy, a nephew of Masta Mick, who co-founded a distribution company, Collins and Leahy, became a major figure in rugby league and died a year ago as Sir Danny Leahy, the only member of the extraordinary family to be knighted - so far.

 

 

Hello, my name is Keith

Hello, my name is Keith Nalu, and I'm two years old, the baby of the Nalu family.

Dad took these pictures of me yesterday - New Year's Day - at our place with my red ball.

Dad took my sister Moasing, brother Gedi and me to the recreational park at Gerehu Stage Two yesterday where we had fun while he took pictures.

The eldest in our family, Malum Jr, is still in Lae where he has been since Grandma's death last September.

Dad then took us for a bus ride to his office at The National newspaper at Waigani, and after that, he treated us to ice cream at Big Rooster.

We caught a bus back home to Gerehu and Dad took pictures of us at the new fountain.

A Happy New Year to you all!