A native of Papua New Guinea, where one quarter of the forests have been destroyed in the past 30 years, customary chief Mundiya Kepanga travels the world to pass on the message of his ancestors: the forest is the mother of all living things. Every time an ancient tree is cut down, a part of humanity dies.
Anuliina Savolainen
UNESCO (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
Tari, Papua New Guinea, 1965. A boy is born on a carpet of ancient ficus leaves in the high deepland forest. Mundiya is his name, pronounced “Mudeejay”.
A tree is planted, as it is for every birth and death in the village inhabited by the Hulis, indigenous people whose diet consists mainly of sweet potatoes. The hut village is surrounded by forests, home to paradise birds, tree-kangaroos and other rare animal species. Everybody here in Tari knows that the forest is the mother of all living things. If all the trees die, then humans will die too, so goes the prophecy.
The boy later leaves his village to live in the forest as part of an initiation rite, letting his hair grow for four years to use in later days to make head-dresses, and learning all about nature and the wisdom of the ancestors.
Brother of the trees
Paris, France, 2022. In a fully packed auditorium at UNESCO headquarters, over 1,300 spectators applaud as the indigenous customary chief Mundiya Kepanga takes the stage.
“I assume that in this room there are people who don’t know where Papua New Guinea is. You people invented maps, so I suggest that you take a look and you will see that it’s located north of Australia”, he quips.
Orange paradise bird feathers waggle in the head-dress of hair and plumes. At home, as a traditional leader, Mundiya Kepanga strives to find peaceful solutions to local conflicts like livestock thefts or territorial disputes. But since the mid-2010s, he has also travelled as an environmentalist, from his remote village to international forums. “In COP21 [Paris climate conference], in 2015, I realized that the whole world is facing climate change, not only us Papuans. I understood that there is an interest for the whole of humanity to hear the message of my ancestors.”
I understood that there is an interest for the whole of humanity to hear the message of my ancestors
This time he is on a two-month tour in France, attending festivals, visiting schools and meeting with media and mayors to promote the upcoming film about indigenous peoples’ fights for their land and forests: Les Gardiens de la forêt [The Guardians of the forest].
Behind the scenes, press officers try to keep up with the busy schedule of a man who says that where he comes from, time doesn’t matter much.
Fight against illegal logging
The New Guinea island hosts the world’s third biggest tropical forest and Papua New Guinea harbours probably more than five per cent of the world’s biodiversity.
But according to the international NGO Wildlife Conservation Society, one quarter of Papua New Guinea’s forests have been destroyed in the past 30 years. Deforestation, orchestrated mainly by foreign companies, has drastically accelerated over the past decades in the eastern half of the island. In 2015, the country became the world’s biggest exporter of tropical logs. The result can be observed on a satellite map: bald patches and pale veins of logging routes crisscrossing the forest blanket.
“It makes me very sad. As these trees fall, unique giants of humanity disappear,” he sighs. “We will never see them again. And now, with climate change, we don’t know whether such trees will ever grow again.”
The film Frères des arbres [Brothers of the Trees], released in 2016 and directed by French documentary filmmakers Marc Dozier and Luc Marescot, follows Mundiya traveling across the country to observe the sacred forests being demolished by local men in need of work. Thousands of ancient tree logs are loaded onto ships every day.
How did this happen? In the early 2000s a mechanism known as a Special Agriculture and Business Lease (SABL) was launched, which allowed companies to lease the land and apply for permission to clearcut an area of forest. According to the local NGO ACT Now, from 2002 to 2011, over 50,000 km2 of land, mostly belonging to indigenous communities, were handed out, accompanied by promises of agriculture and development. Work was promised too.
In reality, foreign companies used SABLs to quickly harvest the timber in a given area and then close up shop or sell their stake. “The companies were supposed to help us build roads, hospitals and schools. All they did was cut down trees,” Mundiya says, adding that landowners who complained about the abuses were also sometimes victims of intimidation.
Damning report
After a strong outcry at their abuse, the government set up a Commission of Inquiry to review the legality of the leases. The further issuance of SABLs was halted after the damning results, showing, for instance, that almost 40 per cent of timber exports through 2014 came from leases issued illegally. International pressure was also growing. In 2018, the United Nations expressed their concern of racial discrimination related to the use of these leases to illegally occupy customary land.
Since 2019 the new government has committed to ban the export of raw logs and develop the local wood processing industry.
However, Mundiya is convinced that without development, deforestation will continue. “The only thing the landowners possess is forest and trees. If you don’t offer them economic alternatives, they will be obliged to cut the trees down to survive. So it’s very important to develop projects for people to earn money.”
Mundiya is convinced that without development, deforestation will continue
He believes that one solution is to develop secondary forests. There are also sustainable agroforestry initiatives around cocoa, vanilla, fishery and coffee. “The principle is to develop such projects in the areas that have already been damaged and not to touch the primary forests,” he stresses.
The reverse exploration
Marc Duzier first met Mundiya Kepanga in the early 2000s as he visited the remote village of Kobe Tumbiali. This encounter led to a series of photo stories and gave rise in 2007 to the feature film L’Exploration inversée [The Reverse Exploration] in which Mundiya and his cousin Polobi were invited to France to explore the Western way of life.
The cultural encounters led to accurate interpretations of Western culture, such as excessive consumerism, busy lifestyle and urbanization.
“When I was little, I grew sweet potatoes and I planted trees, just like my parents. I used to go to the river to catch small animals and fish,” Mundiya recalls. “We ate bananas and sweet potatoes grown in our own gardens, which did not require any money changing hands. With globalization our relationship to money has changed. We sell wood for fire, we make money from mushrooms, from butterflies, from our land, and even from what lies underground.”
In his village children now desire smartphones and urban living. “Youth want modernity, but on the other hand they remain very bound to their land, their mountains, their forests, their spirituality,” he says and adds; “Please don’t think that I oppose development. Today the life expectancy and quality of life are better thanks to hospitals, medicine and schools. In the past, a simple case of diarrhoea could destroy a whole village.”
The effects of climate change are tangible in the land of the Hulis. Sweet potato crops are being invaded by non-native parasites, temperatures are rising, rainclouds becoming scarcer and water sources and swamps drying up. “You can really feel a change in the last decade or so,” Mundiya tells us.
Another threat looms over the Huli forest. In the Hela province, a huge liquefied natural gas project has been developed recently by a multinational giant. This resource extraction project has been a source of intense anger for the Huli landowners, who have yet to see any benefits from the extraction and sale of gas from their land.
While Papua New Guinea seems to be making progress against illegal logging, it takes the whole world to control the devastating effects of environmental destruction and global warming.
“During these COPs and such, people talk a lot, but what really matters is to act. I invite you all to do something in your garden, in your village, in your city, province, community, country, wherever. Only if everyone acts can we achieve a result.”
