Monday: April 24, 2006
By Alex Rheeney, Pacific Magazine
A Papua New Guinea environmental lawyer has been awarded a prestigious environmental award in the United States for helping landowners protect their forests from illegal logging.
CEO of Port Moresby-based law firm Environmental Law Centre Anne Kajir, 32, has been awarded The Goldman Environmental Prize which comes with a $US125,000 (K399,361) prize money.
<>She is from Sandaun Province’s Ulau village, is a niece of controversial PNG Forest Minister Patrick Pruaitch and becomes the 5th Pacific Islander (outside Australia and New Zealand) to receive such an award after Jeton Anjain from Marshall Islands (1992), Noah Idechong of Palau (1995) and Paul Cox and Funio Senio from Western Samoa (1997).The award is in recognition of her litigation work to help traditional landowners protect their forests from illegal logging.
She will join five other winners and grassroots environmentalists from the US, Liberia, China, Brazil and Ukraine, in San Francisco City’s Opera House at 11am today (PNG time) to receive her prize.
Goldman Prize founder Richard N. Goldman said this year’s winners were the most important people who took great risks to protect the environment in their home countries.
“All of them have fought, often alone and at great personal risk, to protect the environment in their home countries. Their incredible achievements are an inspiration to all of us, Goldman said in a statement. In a statement released from San Francisco, Kajir said: “The Goldman Prize is a huge honour and shows that the world appreciates my struggle. It will encourage me to continue fighting the battle through awareness and education in rural communities, and where necessary, litigate on behalf of landowners.”
Battling logging companies and illegal logging has formed the crux of Kajir’s courtroom crusade to save some of PNG’s last remaining forests. In her first year of legal practice in 1997, she successfully defended a precedent-setting appeal in the Supreme Court forcing the logging industry to pay damages to landowners.
Kajir has also been threatened and physically attacked by pro-logging thugs and has had her home broken into and sensitive files relating to her cases stolen over her nine years of practice.
Some of her courtroom opponents have included Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau whom she is currently battling against in a case relating to the issuing of timber permits in PNG’s Western Province.
The Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1990 by San Francisco civic leader and philanthropist Richard N. Goldman and his late wife, Rhoda H. Goldman and has been awarded to 113 people from 67 countries. The prize is now in its 17th year and is awarded annually to six grassroots environmental heroes and is the largest award of its kind in the world. Prize winners are selected by an international jury from confidential nominations submitted by a worldwide network of environmental organizations and individuals.