ABSTRACT
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is characterized by patterns of high dependency on resource exploitation. Tensions over the allocation of revenues from resource extraction and the impacts of mining upon customary land ownership have significantly influenced the nation’s political and social development since independence ( Banks 2008: 24). These tensions originate in PNG’s history of colonization and globalization ( Dixon 2007: 219). Mineral resource development has been the mainstay of its formal economy, the primary source of government revenue, and the platform for the PNG state to take equity shares in major projects. Yet the national focus on participation in global resource development coexists with the customary patterns of land and resource governance that still distinguish many parts of the country. In this context, natural resources and land are elements of the social customary environment, and form a flashpoint for the intersection of competing value systems (Banks 2008). Moreover, despite the richness of its mineral resources, the majority of PNG’s population remains at a subsistence level, with limited re-investment of mineral and petroleum resource-derived revenues in regional infrastructure and facilities for local community benefit.
