Act Now!

Act NOW! works to promote a just and equitable society in Papua New Guinea (PNG), by helping to raise the voices of local communities through effective national campaigns on key environment and human rights issues.

PNG is home to the world’s third largest tract of contiguous rainforest and boasts immense coastal biodiversity. The introduction of 99-year ‘Special Agricultural Business Leases’ (SABLs) has enabled the government to ‘rent’ more than 11 per cent of the land – nearly all of which is held under customary tenure and managed by communities – to large logging, mining and agricultural companies who are destroying forests and polluting freshwater and marine ecosystems. Experimental seabed mining off the coast of the country presents an additional threat to its marine and coastal habitats.

Act Now! uses the latest internet technology and social networking tools as well as more traditional campaign analysis, planning and implementation techniques to give a voice to local communities in PNG.  It focuses on issues ranging from Special Agricultural Business Leases, to seabed mining, to corruption. It also promotes a vision of an alternative development for PNG, which respects peoples’ connection with land and nature. Its work with partners in PNG has helped to stop logging on the majority of SABLs and it is now campaigning to ensure all land is handed back to communities.

Synchronicity Earth has supported Act Now’s core forest and marine campaign costs since 2014.