Papua New Guinea's Rainforest Biodiversity

Conservation Significance

The island of New Guinea is home to the world's third-largest rainforest. 7% of the world’s biodiversity can be found in less than 1% of the world’s land. The rainforests provide essential ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, water regulation, and soil stabilization. These forests are also a critical carbon sink, making them vital in the fight against climate change. They support traditional livelihoods for many of PNG’s Indigenous and local communities, who rely on the forests for food, medicine, materials, and to protect their culture.

Conservation and protection of rights is significant because of:

• Global Importance: As one of the largest remaining tropical rainforests, PNG’s forest ecosystems are crucial for maintaining global biodiversity and mitigating climate change.
• Endemism and Rarity: PNG’s forests are among the most biologically distinct in the world, with species that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet. The high level of endemism makes the preservation of these forests a priority for global conservation efforts.
• Traditional Knowledge: Indigenous and local communities in PNG have long managed and conserved these forests through traditional practices that are closely tied to the biodiversity of the region. Strengthening their rights and involvement in forest management is essential for sustainable conservation.

Threats against the rainforest and its biodiversity

Papua New Guinea’s rainforests and their exceptional biodiversity are facing severe threats from logging, mining, land-use changes, and agricultural expansion.

These pressures are exacerbated by systemic corruption, lack of transparency, and weak enforcement of environmental laws and regulations. A notable enabler of unsustainable land use is the misuse of Forest Clearance Authorities (FCAs), which often facilitate illegal deforestation under the guise of development. The threats to Environmental and Human Rights Defenders (EHRDs) further undermine efforts to protect the forest and its biodiversity.

Additionally, insufficient resources within government agencies limit the ability to implement and enforce conservation efforts, while lack of transparency in the concession-granting process allows unsustainable practices to persist unchecked.

Illegal and unsustainable logging, largely driven by foreign companies—many from Malaysia—represents one of the most significant threats to PNG’s rainforests. A significant portion of the country’s timber, much of it harvested illegally, is exported to China. Papua New Guinea is among the world’s largest exporters of round logs, with estimates suggesting that much of this logging occurs outside legal frameworks, contributing directly to deforestation.

Agricultural expansion, particularly for oil palm plantations, is another leading driver of forest loss. The ongoing development of road networks and infrastructure projects is also fragmenting previously intact forest areas, opening them up to further exploitation and accelerating biodiversity loss.

In addition to these human-driven threats, climate change is intensifying the challenges faced by PNG’s rainforests. Rising temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, and more frequent extreme weather events are disrupting ecosystem balance, leaving many species—especially those with narrow ecological ranges or specific habitat needs—at greater risk of extinction.

One such threat is the Forest Clearing Authorities (FCAs), that are routinely misused to facilitate large-scale illegal and unsustainable logging. They are supposed to be used to authorise the clearing of small discrete areas of forest for agriculture planting, but this concession type is now responsible for the largest share of PNG’s log exports, according to government statistics.

Stopping the abuse of Forest Clearing Authorities (FCA) should be at the top of the agenda for the Government of PNG and our international partners. RFN work in collaboration with its partners to halt these threats, be it in court, exposing corrupt practices and influencing financial institutions.

How can you help protect the PNG`s rainforests?

Papua New Guinea’s rainforests are a treasure trove of biodiversity, playing a pivotal role in global conservation efforts. Safeguarding these ecosystems is essential for the survival of many unique species and the people depending on them, for mitigating climate change, and for maintaining the ecological and cultural heritage of the region. Strong international cooperation, coupled with effective national policies, responsible financing, and local community involvement, is crucial for preserving PNG’s rainforests for future generations.

Aina Grødahl, Senior Policy Adviser for the Rainforest Foundation Norway, emphasizes: "To protect these vital ecosystems, we must promote sustainable practices, strengthen legal protections, and ensure that the financial sector supports responsible investment that prioritizes conservation. By working together—governments, private actors, financial institutions, and local communities—we can ensure that Papua New Guinea’s rainforests continue to thrive and contribute to global biodiversity and climate stability”.

The banks of the Upper Sepik River also mark the southernmost boundary of a vast logging concession and purported agricultural project area – the Wammy Project. Covering 105,200 hectares of mostly forested land in the West Sepik (Sandaun) Province of Papua New Guinea (PNG), a local company in league with Malaysian logging company Global Elite Limited (Global Elite) was granted an agricultural lease for a palm oil and rubber project in 2010.

On the basis of this lease, Global Elite was granted a Forest Clearing Authority to clear-fell forests for agricultural planting. More than ten years later, there is no palm oil and no rubber, but selective logging has removed over 400,000 cubic metres of round logs from the area, more than enough to fill 6,000 shipping containers, netting Global Elite more than US$31 million (115 million kina).

The report focuses on the documented evidence pointing to illegality in the project, in particular:

• The lack of landowner consent
• The failure to deliver a genuine agricultural project
• The use of the land to harvest high value timber rather than clear for agriculture
• Reported instances of violence against landowners.

The Wammy Project has been selected not because it is unusual, but because it highlights how Forest Clearing Authorities, a type of logging license intended to facilitate land clearance for agriculture or other land use change, are being systematically abused to allow large-scale logging of huge tracts of forest; one of the various ways in which local communities’ natural resources are being stolen across PNG”. The full report can be found here: FCA Case Study 1 - Ten Years Without a Crop.pdf (actnowpng.org)