Kokoda: A Trail of Woe
by Rashmii Amoah Bell ‘ I am the author of ‘My Walk to Equality’ and Butterflies on...
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Category: KOKODA INITIATIVE
Owers Corner: The Road to Nowhere – 80 years on!
If ever there was a time for PNG to reclaim ownership of their Kokoda Trail from Australian aid-funded officials, it is now!
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Kokoda: A Tale of Bureaucratic Woe 80 Years On!
Trekker numbers have declined by 46% under their watch. This translates into a cumulative loss of K46 million for the subsistence villages across the Trail in foregone wages, campsite fees and local purchases – and these are the people we have spent more than K150 million trying to help!
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Legislation for new entity to manage Kokoda underway
The National – 27 February 2019 Papua New Guinea’s pristine, rugged, and remote...
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Database Evaluation of the Kokoda Tourism Industry: 2003-2019
Official data, based on the number of Trek Permits issued by the Kokoda Track (Special Purpose) Authority (KTA), reveals that villagers across the Kokoda Trail have suffered a cumulative loss of K49.7 million in foregone income opportunities since the DFAT-Kokoda Initiative assumed responsibility for its management in 2009. A Kokoda Livelihoods Study by Pacific Islands Projects revealed the DFAT-Kokoda Initiative allocates just 1% of their budget to ‘income generating projects’ for villagers across the Trail.
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The Kokoda Trail: Chronology of Mismanagement: 2009-2019
Under Australian management since 2009 trekker numbers have declined by 42% resulting in a direct annual loss of $1.2 million (K3.1 million) for village communities across the Trail.
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Owers Corner: Neglected Gateway to the Kokoda Trail
For reasons known only to Australian Aid-funded officials Owers Corner doesn’t rate, and the local community doesn’t matter!
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Kokoda: The enemy within!
The discovery of a $3 billion gold and copper deposit on the southern slopes of the Trail provided the ‘emergency’ they needed to derail the mining approval, compensate landowners, and offer to ‘manage’ the Trail on their behalf.
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Kokoda Initiative Annual Report – A Betrayal of our Kokoda Legacy
2019 Annual Review Report Papua New Guinea – Australia Governance Partnership ‘Quality and Technical Assurance Group – Final Report – September 2019 – Kokoda Initiative Partnership (KIP)’
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Apology to Kokoda Trail Villagers
‘Olgeta,
‘We met 31 years ago when you welcomed me into your villages on my first trek with Alex Rama in 1991. At the time you told me that few people trekked across the Trail – less than 100 each year – and you only made a few kina selling your vegetables at markets. . . .
Read MoreSHAMELESS Hijack of Kokoda Trek PERMIT Fees!
More than $5 million has been hijacked by unaccountable Australian and PNG Government bureaucrats over the past decade. This money had been paid in good faith by Kokoda trekkers to meet their basic needs in the form of adequate campsites and a safe trail. The fees were also meant to provide for shared community benefits for villagers along the trail.
Read MoreOWERS CORNER: How to convert a memorial junkyard into PNGs No 1 Tourism Asset
Air Niugini’s Paradise magazine describes a visit to Ower’s Corner, where ‘the road becomes a footpath that connects the start of the Kokoda Trail . . . just an hour and a half from downtown Port Moresby’.Visitors who make the...
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