FMT LETTER: From Upreshal Singh, via e-mail

Despite staunch protests, Malaysian palm oil giant Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK) has illegally forced its way forward to try develop almost 40,000 hectares of customary land in the Collingwood Bay region of Papua New Guinea. The indigenous communities of Collingwood Bay have made themselves clear, they do not want their lands to be cleared for palm oil or anything else, but instead want KLK out of their lands with immediate effect.

The locals of Collingwood Bay are wholly dependent on the lowland forests, mangroves, hunting grounds and coral reefs for subsistence and survival. If KLKs plans go ahead, the Malaysian plantation group will cause severe environmental degradation and long lasting conflict with local communities. Unlike in Malaysia, indigenous peoples are the actual owners of most land and marine territories in the country.

Despite court orders prohibiting KLK from entering the villagers land, the company in November proceeded to land two barges with nursery material and land clearing machinery. In yet another illegal move, the company attempted to offload yet another barge on Dec 12 in Collingwood Bay, the day after the PNG court issued yet another injunction to stop the company from trespassing.

According to local contacts, KLK and its business partners have been forcing villagers to sign consent forms for the company to develop palm oil plantations.

The businesses leases that KLK claims to have legally obtained were cancelled by the courts in 2010, only to be illegally reissued on June 2012. At that time, the PNG government had in place a Moratorium on the issuance of such permits, pending an investigation into widespread irregularities, fraud and corruption associated with such permits.

During a Parliamentary session last September, PNGs Prime Minister Peter ONeil said: We will no longer watch on as foreign owned companies come in and con our landowners, chop down our forests and then take the proceeds offshore.

In Indonesia, child labour issues in KLKs estates attracted global media attention in 2010. This controversy may still not be resolved as of 2013. While PT Adei Plantation in Riau, a subsidiary of KLK is still under police investigation over illegal burning this year, though KLK has denied such allegations based on RSPOs investigations.

Elsewhere in Liberia KLK also faces scrutiny over violence, harassment and intimidation towards local communities through its majority shareholder, Equatorial Palm Oil. This does no favour to the reputation of the Malaysian palm oil industry, as KLK is Malaysian.

KLK recently had the opportunity to prove that it is sincerely committed to No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation, by signing a manifesto that Wilmar International launched on Dec 5 with the support of Unilever. Instead, KLK is soliciting to become the next target of affected local communities and environmental campaigners worldwide, who have demonstrated their capacity to systemically take apart the markets and capital sources of Big Oil Palm.

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KL Kepong, withdraw from Collingwood Bay

Land clearing 12142013

By: Robert Coles

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Land clearing 12142013 - Video

Brandon Sun - ONLINE EDITION

By: Bruce Owen

Monday, Dec. 16, 2013 at 8:42 AM | Comments: 0

At one end, farmers are banding together to get Manitoba Hydro to respect property rights, while at the other, a small aboriginal community is celebrating that up to 50 of its members will soon be employed clearing land.

Such is Bipole III, the 1,400-kilometre high-voltage transmission line that is in the early stages of construction. The line, estimated two years ago to cost $3.28 billion, will run from Hydro's northern dams on the Nelson River down the west side of the province and hook south around Winnipeg to the new Riel converter station east of the city.

It's the southern end of the line that's got recent attention -- including from RCMP -- as farmers organize themselves to restrict Hydro surveyors from working on their land.

Brunkild farmer Jurgen Kohler of the BiPole III Landowner Committee said the issue isn't so much about stopping Hydro from building the new line, but to protect their valuable canola crops from devastating soil diseases. The line is to cross Kohler's land.

"They're surveying the land right now and they weren't supposed to go into the land and survey it before we have this bio-security protocol in place," Kohler said recently. "They just went ahead."

Kohler said landowners have recently teamed up with the Canadian Association of Energy and Pipeline Landowner Associations (CAEPLA) to negotiate a recognition of property rights and a bio-security protocol with Hydro.

CAEPLA is a national organization that advocates on behalf of farmers, ranchers and other rural landowners to negotiate agreements with pipeline and power-line companies.

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Farmers jeer, bands cheer Bipole III

New Batching Plant Land Clearing Kaburugamuwa Vedio 2 2013 12 08

By: East West Properties

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New Batching Plant Land Clearing Kaburugamuwa Vedio 2 2013 12 08 - Video

City Council on Thursday unanimously approved the long-awaited land-bank bill, and Mayor Nutter promptly vowed to sign it - clearing the way for Philadelphia to become the largest city in the country with a land bank.

The goal of the bank is to cut through City Hall red tape and create a comprehensive system for confronting blight by turning vacant and tax-delinquent parcels into tax-producing properties.

Thursday's vote was something of a formality, since the tough part of agreeing on the bill's amendments was hashed out last week between its primary sponsor, Councilwoman Maria Quiones Snchez, and Council President Darrell L. Clarke.

The legislation is only the start of what will be a lot of decision-making on how the land bank is to operate.

"It's a huge step forward in addressing vacant property issues in the city," said Rick Sauer, executive director of the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations.

The land bank will likely take at least a year to be fully implemented. A budget and a staff need to be approved by next summer, and policies and procedures for how both the staff and the bank's board will operate, along with a strategic plan, will need to be developed and approved by Council.

"Now the ball is in the administration's court to resource and appropriately staff it," Quiones Snchez, who has championed the land-bank idea for five years, said after the bill passed.

Nutter's spokesman, Mark McDonald, said the mayor was committed to funding the land-bank staff and whatever else is required to move the plan forward.

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City Council approves long-awaited city land-bank bill

Minecraft Mining Company Episode 6: Land Clearing! (Feed The Beast And More!)
MxMining Sets off to sell Definitely not Scammed, 100% Real, minerals to all you minecrafters! --------------------------------------------------------------...

By: mxbp3

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Minecraft Mining Company Episode 6: Land Clearing! (Feed The Beast And More!) - Video

Max Szulc. Picture: Sharon Smith/The West Australian

A farmer who has served two jail terms for contempt of court has thrown down the gauntlet to the State's top judge and the Department of Environmental Regulation by clearing land on his Munglinup property.

Max Szulc said yesterday that he had been busy clearing native vegetation regrowth on his farm since being released from jail in February after spending 15 months behind bars.

Chief Justice Wayne Martin has sent Mr Szulc to jail twice for contempt of court - the first time for three months - over a clearing dispute that started in 2009.

The 65-year-old said he was willing to go to jail for a third time over the issue which he admitted had "bled him dry".

"I've been busy clearing land since I got out of jail. I'm convinced they (DER, formerly known as the Department of Conservation) have been watching me through satellite images but they haven't bothered coming out," Mr Szulc said. "I'm prepared to go back to jail."

Mr Szulc said he felt vindicated last week when the State Government relaxed laws on land clearing that have led to a series of bitter court battles with farmers.

The changes allow farmers to clear 5ha of native vegetation a year for farm management and infrastructure projects, up from 1ha a year.

Environment Minister Albert Jacob also moved to slash protection on native vegetation regrowth on land previously used for agriculture. Farmers can now unlock land legally cleared in the past 20 years instead of the previous 10-year limit.

"Even before the regulations were changed last week I believed I was right," Mr Szulc said. "The whole issue is the land was legally cleared in the past, the vegetation was written off at that time and now they want to reclaim it."

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I'll go to jail again for clearing: farmer

Neighbors of George D. Harlow Field are wondering why tree and land clearing at the town-owned airport has been allowed to continue after state officials issued a noncompliance notice for the ongoing $15.34 million runway improvement project.

State Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Joseph Ferson said the noncompliance notice was issued Nov. 19 after local officials failed to adhere to a 2012 variance for the project, which will widen the runway to 100 feet, extend it by 300 feet, shift it 190 feet west of the current surface and add 300-foot paved safety buffers at each end.

The notice states that officials failed to submit required information prior to the start of construction and failed to seek approval of changes made to plans and documents.

It does not require they cease work, Ferson said. It requires that they respond and address those specific violations within 30 days, and we go from there.

But resident Joseph Pecevich said its troubling that the work has been allowed to go on even though conditions that officials agreed upon are not being met.

People are outraged and disgusted and saddened to see what happened, he said.

Resident Peter Howard also said he cant believe state environmental officials would allow such wide-scale clearing to continue.

What theyve done to the environment is outrageous, he said. If you put a shovel in the wetlands down at Wollaston Beach, you could get arrested for tampering with wetlands, yet theyre bringing in machinery thats incredibility huge.

Town airport commission Chairman Robert Reilly said Tuesday that officials have responded to the noncompliance notice, explaining that the violation is the result of miscommunication between two Department of Environmental Protection offices the Boston office and the Southeast office

Because so many permits were required, officials in the Boston office agreed to allow airport officials to respond to the conditions only when all appeals and negotiations had ended, but that was not communicated to the Southeast office the office that issued the noncompliance notice, Reilly said.

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Work at Marshfield airport rankles neighbors

11 December 2013| last updated at 12:41AM

SUNGAI PETANI: THE Kedah government is committed to get Lembah Bujang listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site, said Menteri Besar Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir yesterday.

Mukhriz also urged certain quarters to stop manipulating the recent demolition of a candi by a private developer. He said the ancient remnants in the valley represented a civilisation comprising Hinduism, Buddhism and Islamic influences dating back to the 8th century.

As such, he urged all parties to view the Lembah Bujang valley issue from the bigger perspective of an ancient civilisation.

While stressing that the state government was not downplaying the importance of the candi at Site 11 in Sungai Batu, which was demolished during land clearing works, he said it was crucial to view the importance of Lembah Bujang as a potential tourist attraction.

"First of all, the demolished structure at site 11 is not an eight-century-old candi, but a reconstructed foundation rebuilt in 1974 on the candi's original site.

"The state government is committed to preserve and rehabilitate all the ancient remnants from the Hindus, Buddhist and Muslim civilisations in Lembah Bujang. Thus, if we only focus on a Hindu structure alone, then we will be missing the much bigger point here.

"In fact, Maharaja Derba Raja XI had converted to Islam and changed his name to Sultan Muzaffar Shah from 1136, which marked the beginning of Islamic and Malay civilisation in Lembah Bujang and the state," he said after attending a luncheon with members of the Kedah and Perlis Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM).

On the Unesco listing, Mukhriz said the previous Kedah administrations had made several attempts to obtain the listing but the state had to comply with several requirements set by the world body.

"The state is committed to secure the Unesco listing as Lembah Bujang has potential to become an international tourism attraction as one of the earliest civilisations existed in the region."

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Kedah targets Unesco listing

Police responded to a workplace accident Tuesday in Beaver Bank involving an injured outdoor worker.

RCMP said the incident happened at about 8:25 a.m. at the Lost Creek Golf Course outside Halifax. A 50-year-old worker received burns to his body while clearing land, a police spokesman said.

Cpl. Scott MacRae said the victim was taken to the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre with serious burns, but his condition was not believed to be life-threatening.

The worker got into trouble while clearing land at the course, MacRae said. He said the incident took place after the man poured accelerant on brush and it became engulfed.

MacRae said the accelerant was accidentally directed at the man and he was badly burned.

Paramedics attended to the worker and took him to hospital.

MacRae said the Labour Departments occupational health and safety division is investigating the incident.

Department spokeswoman Chrissy Matheson said worker-safety staff are at the scene of the accident.

Excerpt from:
Fire burns man clearing land at Beaver Bank golf course