In relation to land, it seems that Papua New Guinea has had, on the one hand, well-articulated policies that have been reiterated year after year but never activated, and, on the other hand, ongoing practices that have no well-articulated policies. The history of attempts to achieve progress in mobilization of customary land for development over the last twenty-six years demonstrates that there is a wealth of experience and good advice available, and indeed the government and bilateral donors have made some progress in land administration within the DLPP. However, despite expenditure (and borrowing) of millions of kina, virtually no progress has been made in customary land management. Rather, the function of the Register of Title for Incorporated Land Groups has been in total disarray. Programmes have not been brought to a successful conclusion for a variety of reasons, particularly the failure of government to make the necessary financial commitment, and its failure to take the hard policy decisions when faced with a constant stream of advice that customary land tenure is a hindrance for development.
Despite constant demands from the petroleum, forestry, and to a lesser extent mining industries, the government lacks the capability to implement the two most important acts that affect customary land management — the Land Disputes Settlement Act and the Land Groups Incorporation Act. Although Prime Minister Morauta, in the face of student unrest, said that his government had no land mobilization program, the DLPP in fact retained Henao lawyers to draft a land registration bill — an example of practice without policy.
On the other hand, there has been no articulation by any government (other than the East Sepik provincial government) since the failure of the Kavali-led initiative in 1978, of any clear policy for the management of customary land where customary land tenure is the basis of development and not a barrier to development. This is the case, despite the fact that several officers within DLPP and many other government departments have a clear understanding that development must be based on recognition and management of customary tenure and not tenure conversion.
Why is there such an apparent lack of political will? Essentially, the interests of politicians are elsewhere; they seem to believe that the road to development lies in unmodified Western capitalism, when clearly, after following this model for almost three decades, Papua New Guinea has become less developed and further in debt. Perhaps, in fact, politicians are too busy trying to make capitalism work for themselves personally, to the neglect of the development of the country as a whole. As Power has argued elsewhere:
In spite of everything to the contrary in the last 25 years, we still have in Papua New Guinea today a situation where land is communally owned by customary groups. Labour is privately owned. All development in Papua New Guinea, no matter how it is ultimately defined, will depend on reconciliation of these two regimes and creatively finding ways to realize their potential for the benefit of all. ...the state of Papua New Guinea has failed to develop legitimacy with its citizens because it has failed to empower the citizens. It has failed to empower the citizens because it has failed to recognize them as members of landowning groups. For the last 25 years the state has adopted a Western image of itself thereby denying a fundamental Melanesian reality and thereby stifling development (Power 2000).
The problem is systemic, in that there does not seem to be a mechanism to harness the views of many thinking Papua New Guineans on the need to creatively develop customary land management as the basis for a Melanesian capitalism and translate these views into government action.