Urgent measures are needed to help Papua New Guinea to develop sustainably. The country is beset by corporate misdealing and weak governance, and consequently its biologically and culturally rich forests are imperiled.

Attempts by the World Bank and other organizations to improve forest governance have been largely frustrated. As a result, overcutting of forests continues apace, with most accessible forests likely to be logged or to disappear in just one to two decades.

Foreign corporations are driving much of this forest exploitation. Trees are mostly cut by Malaysian logging companies and then shipped as raw logs to Chinese manufacturers of wood products for export.

Papua New Guinea's raw-log exports yield only meagre income and employment for local communities, and proceeds are often concentrated in the hands of political elites.

Environmental prospects in Papua New Guinea might actually be worsening. In May, the country's parliament stripped indigenous groups of important land-protection rights, making it difficult for them to sue offending corporations for environmental damage. The few conservation areas in the country are mostly small and poorly protected, and the government has frozen proposals for 120 new conservation areas to avoid conflicts with loggers. A government pledge to phase out raw-log exports by 2010 has also gone unfulfilled.

Papua New Guinea should immediately reduce its raw-log exports, which will promote local wood-processing industries, training and employment. It should also reinstate the rights of traditional communities to legally challenge foreign corporations for environmental damage. And it should use international climate-change mitigation funds — which could eventually exceed US$500 million a year — to promote new conservation areas and improve forest management and governance.