Natural Resource Contests and Precolonial Institutions in Papua New Guinea

This paper investigates the role that precolonial institutions play in relation to postcolonial natural resource ownership contests. Papua New Guinea provides a unique case study, as it is recorded as having the most decentralized precolonial political institutions of any postcolonial state. After an examination of its precolonial institutions, colonial land policy and three case studies, it is concluded that persistent highly decentralized customary political units, coupled with customary notions of inalienability of land and overlaid with a state property rights regime, lead to resource contests. It is concluded that resource ownership contests can have serious adverse consequences for resource management and that they are not easily overcome.     

Pesticide‐handling practices: the case of coffee growers in Papua New Guinea

Pesticide mismanagement potentially has high risks for farmers, households living in the community and the environment. In Papua New Guinea where farming is the primary occupation, there is evidence of dangerous herbicide application methods being used by coffee growers. Using original survey data for coffee smallholders from four provinces, we assess the factors driving farmers' use of personal protective equipment when preparing and applying herbicides, and farmers' disposal of agro‐chemical containers. We control for households' demographic variables and measure the impact of farmers' training in pest and disease management. We use the special regressor method to estimate binary choice models featuring an endogenous binary regressor (training). Our results show that human capital (education) and training are important drivers of farmers' pesticide‐handling practices, with marginal effects estimated at 10 and 22 per cent, respectively.     

Macroeconomic impacts of export commodity price subsidy in Papua New Guinea

A macroeconometric simulation study is undertaken to evaluate the impacts of a price subsidy for tree crops in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The price subsidy had favourable impacts on tree crop export income, aggregate demand, private consumption, and investment and employment. It increased imports, the budget deficit, and the demand for money and adversely affected the fiscal balance, inflation and interest rates, the BOP position and macroeconomic stability. The price subsidy contributed favourably to internal balance but adversely affected external balance. It worked against many of the policy objectives and made macroeconomic management difficult. With the introduction of the price subsidy, the government violated the commitments made under the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture and PNG's Structural Adjustment Program.     

Registration and release of customary-land for private enterprise: Lessons from Papua New Guinea

Land held under customary tenure has proven difficult to register and release for private enterprise globally. This is because the costs of developing secure rights to land held under communal ownership is high given that such ownership rules out a ‘pay-to-use-the-property’ system while punitive negotiation and policing costs make a ‘pay-him-not-to-use-the-property’ system ineffective (Demsetz, 1967, p. 355). Here I document reforms to institutions governing access to land held under customary title in Papua New Guinea that has imbedded collective ownership whilst allowing for a ‘pay-to-use-the-land’ for private enterprise. Reforms put in place over the past decade have allowed for voluntary incorporation of landowning clans, the registration of their land, and the leasing of this land for up to 99 years. The ongoing reforms provide lessons both for Papua New Guinea and for others wrestling with the challenges of making available land held by customary groups for individual enterprise.     

Institutions for improving access to land for settler-housing: Evidence from Papua New Guinea

This paper provides household level evidence of the institutions that are developing to provide security of access to land for housing within the settlements of Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. Data collected from a survey of 441 randomly selected households shows that households organise around regional, family, and professional cleavages to provide security to person and property. Further, some households pay rent to landlords and keep evidence of the above to legitimise their claims to the land settled upon. In one case, a community has formed an organisation to mediate between the settlers and the customary landowning group. The above is evidence of the maturation of institutions to provide tenure security. It also provides the opportunity for policymakers to adopt and then adapt (migrate) the existing institutions into the formal system as part of ongoing reforms.     

Modelling of aid motivation using time series data: The case of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

In 1984 the Jackson Report on Australia's overseas aid programme, in part, focused attention on objectives and priorities in the aid programme. There is a unique aid relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea. This paper analyses what motivates Australia's provision of aid. The aid motivation literature addresses this issue by employing cross‐section data to all recipient countries, thus imposing uniformity on them. It is argued in this study that time series analysis is required to answer the question of aid motivation. The econometric results obtained by testing the recipient need and donor interest models provide support for both. Applications of non‐nested tests indicate acceptance of the recipient need model and rejection of the donor interest model.     

Women's Organizations and Social Capital to Reduce Prevalence of Child Malnutrition in Papua New Guinea

Drawing upon survey data in 2000, this article analyses the maturity of women's community-based organizations in Papua New Guinea (PNG), comparing autonomous organizations with those that receive external support. The results of applying the Heckman model suggest that: (1) autonomous Mothers' Groups are more efficient in improving child nutritional status in the weight-for-age measure than those externally supported; and (2) higher maturity of these groups is associated with lower occurrence of underweight. Support for existing autonomous women's organizations is a particularly relevant intervention in PNG; governance with limited trust in formal institutions and modest outreach of services remain issues for large segments of the rural population.     

Poverty analysis in the lowlands of Papua New Guinea underscores climate vulnerability and need for income flexibility*

A severe El Niño event in 2015/16 decimated an important share of Papua New Guinea's (PNG) local crop production, leaving 10 per cent of the population with significant food shortages. Lack of recent socio‐economic data and analysis of the country's rural population impeded efforts to plan and mitigate the ensuing food crisis. This paper presents the most recent poverty analysis in Papua New Guinea in nearly a decade, and a renewed effort to inform rural production, consumption and livelihood patterns in some of the country's most remote, lowland areas. We designed a rural household survey that collected detailed consumption and expenditure data to explore poverty prevalence and correlates of per capita household expenditure. Results suggest that approximately half of the sampled individuals live in households with total per capita expenditures below the poverty line. Climate shocks have significant and possibly long‐term consequences for household welfare. Households that experienced a drought in the last 5 years are associated with significantly lower per capita expenditures. Labour diversification, via migration, is associated with greater welfare. Households with at least one migrant member are associated with 13 per cent greater per capita expenditure.     

Diversification economies and specialisation efficiencies in a mixed food and coffee smallholder farming system in Papua New Guinea

Smallholder farming systems in Papua New Guinea are characterised by an integrated set of cash cropping and subsistence food cropping activities. In the Highlands provinces, the subsistence food crop sub-system is dominated by sweet potato production. Coffee dominates the cash cropping sub-system, but a limited number of food crops are also grown for cash sale. The dynamics between sub-systems can influence the scope for complementarity between, and technical efficiency of, their operations, especially in light of the seasonality of demand for household labour and management inputs within the farming system. A crucial element of these dynamic processes is diversification into commercial agricultural production, which can influence factor productivity and the efficiency of crop production where smallholders maintain a strong production base in subsistence foods.
In this study we use survey data from households engaged in coffee and food crop production in the Benabena district of Eastern Highlands Province to derive technical efficiency indices for each household over two years. A stochastic input distance function approach is used to establish whether diversification economies exist and whether specialisation in coffee, subsistence food or cash food production significantly influences technical efficiency on the sampled smallholdings.
Diversification economies are weakly evident between subsistence food production and both coffee and cash food production, but diseconomies of diversification are discerned between coffee and cash food production. A number of factors are tested for their effects on technical efficiency. Significant technical efficiency gains are made from diversification among broad cropping enterprises.     

Local economic impacts of an unconventional energy boom: the coal seam gas industry in Australia

Complementing the scarce economic literature about local impacts of energy extraction booms, this paper empirically investigates economic outcomes related to the new coal seam gas (CSG) industry located across southern Queensland. This Australian state has seen an unprecedented inflow of investments into the extraction of this previously unexploited unconventional natural gas over the last decade. We analyse census data to study income and employment effects associated with the CSG boom, exploiting the quasi‐experimental conditions provided by CSG extraction areas (treatment regions) and regions without this development (control regions). Findings show that treatment regions have higher income growth than control areas during 2001–2011 for families residing locally and for individuals present on census night. Employment in the mining sector also shows higher growth as has non‐mining employment in some areas. We include comparisons between CSG areas with no major mining history (the Surat basin) and CSG areas where mining was important before the CSG boom (the Bowen basin), to better understand boom effects in areas with different initial mining industry importance in their economies. Local job multipliers are also analysed for Surat basin CSG areas, where positive impacts (job spillovers) are restricted to construction and professional services jobs, while agricultural jobs have decreased.     

Practising “biodiversity” in Guinea: nature,nation and an international convention

Biodiversity has become a central organizing concept both in international environmental debate and among government departments, donors and non-governmental organizations in the Republic of Guinea. This article explores how international imperatives around biodiversity are articulating with existing and historically-shaped practices of science and policy in Guinea, and the extent to which villagers' perspectives gain or fail to gain influence and authority. At least four sets of science and policy practices currently characterize biodiversity conservation practices, including: (1) the listing of plant and animal species; (2) the exploration of ecosystem dynamics through “cutting edge” computer modelling techniques; (3) the harnessing of traditional plant medicines, linked with discussion of biopiracy; and (4) the promotion of “semi-wild” plants, such as oil palm. Each set of practices involves different social relations and funding of science, different international networks and different political discourses, while each also carries wider importance in shaping national and local social categories and identities. A common feature is that the framing and institutional/funding imperatives linked to international biodiversity debates have promoted practices that reproduce western, colonial distinctions between nature and culture in ways which compromise attempts at “participatory” conservation.     

Self-initiated nature conservation by farmers: an analysis of Dutch farming

In Europe, the active contribution of farmers to nature conservation is mainly voluntary. Whereas participation in agri-environmental schemes (AES) has been studied in detail, less is known about self-initiated nature conservation. Given the alarming decline in species diversity and abundance in agricultural landscapes, it is important to explore this form of conservation in more detail. In this paper we report on the results of a survey of Dutch dairy and arable farmers. We conclude that a large majority of farmers conduct self-initiated conservation activities on their farmyards and fields with varying ecological impacts and impacts on farming system. Helping birds was the most often mentioned activity. Farm size, on-farm side activities (in dairy farming), organic farming, the quality of the surrounding area and the absence of external constraints have a positive effect on the number of activities. Intensity has a negative effect on both the number of activities and on the probability that farmers conduct activities with substantial ecological impacts. There is no unambiguous evidence of a ‘crowding-out effect’ due to participation in AES. More research in this area can help contributing to a maximal exploitation of the conservation potential by farmers and to creating synergies with agri-environmental policies.     

青藏高原北部那曲地区矿产资源遥感地质调查应用研究

以ETM数据、雷达卫星数据为信息源,通过对青藏铁路沿线那曲地区遥感图像室内处理,信息增强,提取构造信息和矿化蚀变信息;结合野外的验证,一方面,验证了室内图像处理、信息提取的质量,另一方面,纠正了原有地质图的一些明显错误;通过遥感图像处理方法,发现遥感影像显示地质构造明显,可以有效地区分岩性、提取地层与隐伏构造信息,新发现一些有利于成矿的远景区和具体矿点。     

New Futures Markets in Agricultural Production Rights: Possibilities and Constraints for the British and Dutch Milk Quota Markets

Farms are increasingly being affected by policies that involve production rights. Because of fluctuations in the prices of these rights in the spot market, farmers face a price risk. Establishing a futures market might enable them to hedge against this price risk. Rights futures have some features that differ from those of traditional commodity futures. This makes them an effective and efficient tool for managing price risk. The implications of these findings will be illustrated for milk quotas in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands. Prior conditions which might make a futures market for milk quotas successful in both countries will be deduced.     

我国海洋经济景气指数及波动特征研究

近年来,我国海洋经济取得了长足的进展,但海洋经济的发展趋势及其周期波动具有其内在的本质特征和规律.文章通过对我国海洋经济发展中的波动性进行分解,使用K-L信息量法、时差序列相关分析、灰色关联度等方法对我国海洋经济总量及主要海洋产业的景气指标进行分类,设计先行、一致和滞后指标,编制我国海洋经济波动的合成指数及扩散指数,研究我国海洋经济总量及主要海洋产业的波动 特征,揭示其波动特点和发展趋势.本文最终得到我国海洋经济总量及三大主要产业的扩散指数以及合成指数走势图,对2000-2010年的海洋经济总量、海洋渔业、滨海旅游业及海洋交通运输业的波动进行了阶段性划分,并对其内在原因进行了深度剖析.