“L-N-G” are three letters that attract people’s attention here in Papua New Guinea. For most, LNG – which stands for Liquefied Natural Gas – resonates with forced land resumption, displacement, disharmony and greed – everything that is not in the interests of the local people.
“The guns are pointed at their [local people] heads!” exclaims a community development worker. I had asked her whether people in villages were able to refuse foreign companies from exploiting their land for LNG and other mining projects. “How can they [local people]? They have guns pointing at them.”
The sight of LNG workers is what I immediately noticed as I stepped off the Polynesian Blue flight from Brisbane to Port Moresby. In an aircraft carrying roughly 200 people, I count about ten women including myself. Most of the men – who are Caucasian – dressed in their neatly ironed short-sleeve business shirts – either chequered or stripes – long trousers and boots, carrying black laptop bags are employees or consultants brought over to PNG by the mining companies.
One LNG project in PNG is being led by ExxonMobil, who in 1989 spilled up to 750,000 barrels of oil off Prince William Sound, Alaska. It is deemed to be one of the major environmental disasters in global history.
The project, estimated to be US$15 billion, involves the construction of a gas pipeline starting from the Southern Highlands to a proposed LNG plant in Port Moresby with the first phase to be completed by 2014. The Consortium led by ExxonMobil includes Oil Search, The Abu Dhabi Government’s International Petroleum Investment Company and Santos (the latter recently received Queensland Government approval for its LNG project in the Surat Basin). The race to supply LNG to energy hungry Asian countries is on between PNG, Australia and Qatar.
The last article in the 2010 4th edition of the PNG Resources (a quarterly report on PNG’s petroleum and mineral industry) which happened to be amongst the collection of ‘Welcome to PNG’ glossy magazines in my hotel room, has a short interview with the ANZ’s Chief Pacific and Asia Economist, Paul Guenwald.
‘Mr Guenwald saw PNG over the next ten years performing well,’ it stated, followed by “The reason is the LNG project, which if it’s managed properly should be able to keep PNG’s [economic] growth rate relatively high” – an example of a response entrenched in the neoliberal model of development; the exact type of development that local groups have fought and continue to fight against.
There is no hiding that my research could inform ActionAids’s possible engagement in the Pacific region. Whilst it is easy to ‘conduct research’ with clear time, budgetary and organisational parameters, we have to also think how our potential research partners work, their model of engaging with the community and how they can benefit from the partnership. We also need to critically reflect on our role as outsiders, what beliefs and assumptions we bring, and our expectations. Will the relationship between ActionAid and the partner organisation be equal and fair? Will both parties be aware of their responsibilities and accountability to each other? Will the partnership be mutually beneficial?
All too often do researchers come into a community with their strict agendas, then leave a short time later, with the local people feeling as though they may never see or hear from the researchers again. That very research may be critical in informing government or organisational decisions (or its remnants may remain as dust-collecting reports in bookshelves) but the information never returns to the people in a way that can be used to help them move forward. Then another one year down the track, another researcher arrives to the community and then leaves again.
I don’t want to be that researcher. And I don’t want to be doing research that will not benefit the very people who share their knowledge and stories with me. I have so many more questions running through my head, which makes me think about how we do our research. I’m sure there will be even more questions tomorrow.
