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I know I’m old school – a boomer from a bygone era who grew up surrounded by men who had fought in two World Wars and survived the adversity of a great depression.

During that era our ‘enemy‘ was external – however, my failed attempts to have a credible Military Heritage Master Plan commissioned for the Kokoda Trail since I first trekked it in 1991 has brought me to the realization that today’s enemy is internal – and they have infiltrated the corridors of power in Canberra!

Despite this I remain committed to the message delivered by the late Sergeant Stan Bryant during a commemorative service at the Cenotaph in Martin Place 20 years ago – in wrapping up his speech he reached out to the assembled crowd:

“I say to all you people were today.  To you who are responsible for governing this country, to all who hold positions of leadership in the community, to all Australians.  It is from the men we honour today that you inherited this land. These were the men who helped build this nation.  They were the ones associated with the building of our harbours and our bridges.  They sealed the roads across the black soil planes, and they built the railways across Australia.  Then they fought off the Japanese invasion so that you could inherit this country. You now have the fruits of our labours.  The cities and the harbours and the plains are yours.  We few survivors are aged and can only look on with pride and wish you success in the future. But we do charge you, to accept the responsibility of your inheritance and nourish and guard them with care. And remember always, the men of the Eighth Australian Division and the two ships who stood between the Japanese invasion and Australia.  They paid the price of your future.  Only they know the real cost. And remember – remember – we solemnly promised God that we would never forget!

So, when I led my first group across the Kokoda Trail in 1992, I naturally expected we would receive support from Government and the RSL for the identification, interpretation, and protection of the military heritage of a place sacred to our wartime memory.

I assumed this would be a given and that the information we provided in good faith as our knowledge increased over the years would be appreciated – but it was not to be!

An outcry over the development of a goldmine adjacent to the southern slopes of the Trail saw Canberra intervene to cancel the approval and help PNG develop a World Heritage listing for the area to prevent any further incursions from mining and logging.

This led to an invasion of environment officials and consultants reminiscent of Keith Wiley’s observations in ‘Assignment New Guinea’ 53 years earlier:

‘In recent years the academics have discovered New Guinea. Grave, plump, portentous, they swarm north in their hundreds each winter, generally finishing somewhere near Goroka in the Eastern Highlands where at times they become so numerous that every bush and stone seems to conceal a lurking bureaucrat or anthropologist.  After a few weeks or a few months they return home to prepare brisk solutions for all the problems which beset the land.  Too often they see New Guinea coldly as an exercise in nation-building to be carried out as quickly as possible, with one eye on the taxpayer at home and the other on some ranting demagogue in the United Nations.

‘At times the maligned colonialists, who walked ever the country and fought for it, seem to come nearer the heart of the matter.  Stripped of slogans and self- interest, New Guinea emerges not as a ‘problem’; to be ‘solved’, or assessed , but simply as a land, wild and beautiful, worthy to be loved for its own sake; with a people, backward, kindly, and in need of help[i].

We soon learned the new arrivals were just as unfamiliar with PNG and the Melanesian Way as their predecessors were in 1965!

We also learned that military heritage was not part of their ideology apart from hijacking the word ‘Kokoda’ to provide cover for their aid-funded socio-environmental agenda for the place.

Their strategy unravelled with an illegal blockade on the Trail by a group of dissident Port-Moresby based landowners in mid-September.

This is a direct outcome of Canberra’s failure to properly negotiate a compensation package for the closure of the mine; their failure to identify customary landowners across the Trail; their failure to conduct village-based workshops; their failure to acknowledge that military heritage is the primary reason Australians choose to trek across it; and their failure to assist PNG to manage the business of Kokoda tourism for the economic benefit of village communities.

Although Adventure Kokoda pioneered pilgrimage tourism across the Trail we have paid a heavy price for our criticism of the management system imposed by Canberra after they took control of it under a ‘Joint’ Agreement signed in 2008. We have been blocked on their Facebook page; we have been denied contracts; they cancelled our Kokoda tour operators licence; and a senior DFAT official has sued us for defamation.

But we have perservered because of our belief in the potential of the Kokoda Trail to be a high-value, world-class pilgrimage tourism destination capable of providing a sustainable economic future for the owners of the land sacred to our shared military heritage.

This will not happen until PNG reclaims ownership of their Trail from Canberra and elects to manage it as a commercial tourism enterprise for the economic benefit of their people rather than as an environment park for the career benefit of aid-funded Australian officials.

Hopefully the current blockade will be the catalyst for this to happen!

In the meatime, after 101 treks over the past 33 years it’s probably timely to tell our story . . .

[i] Assignment New Guinea. Keith Wiley. Jacaranda Press.1965 P. i

The Kokoda Trail – Key Facts:

  • The name of the Battle Honour awarded to the Papuan Infantry Battalion by the Commonwealth Battles Nomenclature Committee in 1953 was ‘Kokoda Trail’.
  • The name ‘Kokoda Trail’ was gazetted by the PNG Government in the lead-up to Independence in 1972
  • The 138 km Kokoda Trail was gazetted with a 10m-wide reserve either side along its length in 1972.
  • The military history of the Kokoda campaign is the key drawcard for Australian trekkers.
  • The Kokoda Trail is PNGs most popular tourism destination generating an estimated K50 million for the PNG economy each year.
  • The Australian government engaged the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra to identify traditional landowners but the task was too complex for an accurate resolution.
  • There is provision for the PNG Government to acquire the land gazetted in 1972 under the Land Act 1996 and the Lands Acquisition (Development Purposes) Act 1974
  • Compensation for any such acquisition of the gazetted reserve should be in the form of tourism infrastructure which will create a sustainable economic future for traditional landowner communities.

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