TotalEnergies is still seeking financing for the Papua LNG project, which 32 financial institutions have committed not to finance. Eleven local clans, affected by the project, have now also withdrawn their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) during the project’s “Development Forum” which is currently taking place in Port Moresby. The clans are calling for a new, independently supervised consent process and an investigation into how previous consultations were conducted.
Other local community leaders have also raised concerns about the project’s impacts on traditional lands, rivers, fishing waters and ecosystems.
Indigenous communities affected by the project have long voiced concerns about the way in which landowners are identified. The project’s upstream Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) stated that 12,700 Indigenous people would be in the “project area of influence”. The government of Papua New Guinea now indicates that 45,082 people would be affected.
In July, an Indigenous landowner association brought a legal case against the state, calling for landowner recognition for nine tribes, obtaining a one-month injunction stopping the Development Forum. That court decision has now been overturned by the Supreme Court and the Forum has now resumed.
Despite requirements to ensure the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local indigenous communities, a large array of key documents assessing the impacts of the project – including environmental permits, landowner studies, resettlement plans, human rights impacts assessments, climate change risks assessments and economic modelling – remain unavailable to the public.
Local and international civil society organizations, including Reclaim Finance, have highlighted the grave environmental, climate and human rights risks associated with the Papua LNG project. As a consequence, these organizations are calling on financial institutions not to support the project.
