Oil Extraction, Socio-Economic Impacts and Indigenous Peoples: The case of the Lake Kutubu people of Papua New Guinea

Abstract

This paper is a condensed version of a study (Imbun & Mondu, 2011) that was carried out on the Indigenous Lake Kutubu people of the Southern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea. They hosted the Kutubu Petroleum Project and lived along the margins of Lake Kutubu. Their socio-economic and natural environments had been seen as an integral component of ongoing oil project operations. Despite two decades of oil operations, the Lake Kutubu people harboured the view that their lives had never progressed from their subsistence existence. Their thoughts of development had often been unclear to themselves and to others, but one thing was clear: they had not effectively taken advantage of the oil project to maximize its social and economic benefits. That was despite the existence of many project benefits that went to them. However, they blamed the oil operations, employees, and migrants for their marginalization and bearing the brunt of the social costs. The study discussed these perceptions and other development issues in the context of examining the project's socio-economic impact on the local Lake Kutubu community. It concluded that the oil company needed to do more in order to appease and satisfy a demanding and sometimes restless local community.