KOKODA INITIATIVE Archives - Adventure Kokoda Blog

Owers Corner: Neglected Gateway to the Kokoda Trail

by Charlie | Jun 21, 2021 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, MILITARY HERITAGE, OUR VIEWPOINT | 0

For reasons known only to Australian Aid-funded officials Owers Corner doesn’t rate, and the local community doesn’t matter!

Kokoda: The enemy within!

by Charlie | Apr 25, 2021 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, KOKODA TRACK AUTHORITY, OUR VIEWPOINT | 0

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.

Kokoda Initiative Annual Report – A Betrayal of our Kokoda Legacy

by Charlie | Mar 15, 2020 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, OUR VIEWPOINT | 2

2019 Annual Review Report Papua New Guinea – Australia Governance Partnership ‘Quality and Technical Assurance Group – Final Report – September 2019 – Kokoda Initiative Partnership (KIP)’

Apology to Kokoda Trail Villagers

by Charlie | Dec 23, 2019 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, KOKODA TRACK AUTHORITY, KOKODA TRAIL VILLAGERS, OUR VIEWPOINT | 0

‘Olgeta,’We met 29 years ago when you welcomed me into your villages on my first trek...

Kokoda Guides and Porters betrayed by the KTOA and their own KTA

by Charlie | Nov 25, 2019 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, KOKODA TOUR OPERATORS ASSOCIATION (KTOA), KOKODA TRACK AUTHORITY, KOKODA TRAIL VILLAGERS, OUR VIEWPOINT | 0

The Australian KTOA has fought a tenacious campaign to deny their PNG guides and porters their workers’ rights – as a result the poor buggers are set to be shamelessly exploited for another year i.e. overloaded, underpaid and poorly equipped!

SHAMELESS Hijack of Kokoda Trek PERMIT Fees!

by Charlie | Jun 23, 2019 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, KOKODA TRACK AUTHORITY, OUR VIEWPOINT | 0

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.

OWERS CORNER: How to convert a memorial junkyard into PNGs No 1 Tourism Asset

by Charlie | Nov 26, 2018 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, KOKODA TRACK AUTHORITY, KOKODA TRAIL VILLAGERS, OUR VIEWPOINT | 3

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...

‘Yes Minister’ alive on Kokoda

by Charlie | Sep 8, 2018 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, OUR VIEWPOINT | 0

The Review of the Kokoda Track Authority (KTA) ordered by PNG Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, is a disappointing academic desk-top study which recommends more of the same under a different name.

Prime Minister O’Neill ordered the review after the collapse of the management system put in place by the Australian Government in 2009.

Despite spending more than $60 million since then Kokoda trekker numbers have declined by 43 per cent; there is not a single management protocol in place; not one of the five key strategies or 33 objectives established by Australian managers for the period 2012-2015 was achieved; and there is still no master plan to protect and interpret our shared wartime history of the Kokoda campaign.

Kokoda Tour Operators Association (KTOA) – Shameless Australian Lobby Group

by Charlie | Jun 23, 2018 | KOKODA INITIATIVE, KOKODA TOUR OPERATORS ASSOCIATION (KTOA), KOKODA TRACK AUTHORITY, OUR VIEWPOINT | 0

The Australian Kokoda Tour Operators Association (KTOA) is a small but shameless lobby group established to cash in on the Kokoda trekking industry and protect their business interests in PNG.