Conservation and Small-Scale Mining in Papua New Guinea: When Development Threatens the Environment
Papua New Guinea is one of the most biologically diverse countries on Earth. Our forests, mountains, rivers, wetlands and coastal ecosystems support an extraordinary range of plants and animals, including species found nowhere else in the world. These natural ecosystems are not only important for biodiversity; they provide food, water, medicine, cultural identity and livelihoods for thousands of Papua New Guineans.
Yet, increasingly, some of these fragile environments are being placed under pressure by activities that are poorly planned, poorly monitored or inadequately enforced.
One of the most difficult challenges facing Papua New Guinea is how to reconcile conservation, small-scale mining and customary livelihoods.
This is particularly evident in parts of Morobe Province, including the Wau-Waria and Bulolo areas, where alluvial mining has been undertaken for generations. The problem is not that every small-scale miner is destructive. Rather, the problem is what happens when mining, gardening and other land-use activities take place inside or around ecologically sensitive areas without effective safeguards, monitoring, rehabilitation requirements and enforcement.
The McAdam Example
The situation around McAdam National Park in the Wau-Waria–Bulolo landscape provides a powerful example of the challenge.
McAdam is part of a landscape historically associated with the magnificent Klinkii pine (Araucaria hunsteinii), one of Papua New Guinea's iconic native conifers. The species can grow to extraordinary heights and has historically occurred around Wau, Bulolo, Watut and other parts of the Morobe highlands. Scientific and forestry records document the depletion of natural stands through historical exploitation, while contemporary conservation sources identify shifting agriculture, fire and other land-use pressures as threats to the species.
The Klinkii pine is not simply another tree. It is part of the natural heritage of the Wau-Bulolo landscape.
When the forest that supports such species is cleared, excavated, burned or fragmented, the damage extends beyond the individual mining pit. It can affect regeneration, soil stability, water systems, wildlife habitat and the ecological integrity of the wider conservation landscape.
That is why activities such as uncontrolled mining and expansion of gardens inside protected or ecologically sensitive areas must be treated as a serious conservation and governance issue.
The issue is no longer theoretical. In 2025, the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (CEPA) issued a stop-work notice to an alluvial mining operation in McAdam National Park, describing the operation as an illegal and improper encroachment into State land gazetted as a national park. CEPA stated that development activities likely to affect the environment must go through the appropriate environmental permitting and assessment processes.
This incident should not merely be viewed as an isolated enforcement matter. It should force Papua New Guinea to ask a much bigger question:
How did mining, gardening or other land-use activities come to operate in a protected ecosystem in the first place?
Awareness Alone is Not Enough
Across Papua New Guinea, governments, development partners, NGOs and communities have invested considerable effort in environmental awareness, conservation education and responsible mining training.
These interventions are important.
But awareness alone cannot protect a conservation area.
A miner may understand that mercury pollution is harmful. A farmer may understand that clearing forest affects biodiversity. A community may understand that a protected area is important.
But if there is no effective monitoring system, no clear land-use boundary, no practical alternative livelihood, no rehabilitation mechanism and no credible enforcement, awareness will have limited impact.
This is where Papua New Guinea's governance challenge becomes apparent.
The country already has environmental legislation. The Environment Act 2000 establishes objectives that include protecting ecosystems, safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of natural resources and applying a precautionary approach to environmental harm. It also recognises the protection of areas of significant biological diversity and habitats of rare, unique or endangered species as matters of national importance.
Papua New Guinea also has a Mining Act 1992, which regulates mining, including alluvial mining and the granting of mining tenements.
More recently, the Protected Areas Act 2024 provides a stronger legislative framework for protected areas, biodiversity, conservation values, management zones and related safeguards.
Therefore, the argument should not simply be that Papua New Guinea has "no laws."
The more fundamental problem is that the laws, policies, institutions and enforcement mechanisms do not always work together effectively at the local level.
Is the the Missing Link a "Coexistence Policy"
Papua New Guinea needs to move beyond the old assumption that conservation and livelihoods must always exist on opposite sides of the development debate.
Our reality is different.
People live inside and around conservation landscapes. They depend on customary land for gardening. Some communities depend on alluvial mining for income. Others depend on forests, rivers and biodiversity.
Read more in our next article on the Startegy of a , " Coexistence Policy" we wish to put together.
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