> It is also a place where 97 percent of the land is held in traditional tribal or communal commons arrangements. This creates challenges for modernizing and de

> It is also a place where 97 percent of the land is held in traditional tribal or communal commons arrangements. This creates challenges for modernizing and developing because you can't sell the land, which means you can't mortgage it. Why is this a challenge if it is the constitutional choice of a sovereign nation. My impression is that this arrangement is knowingly and purposefully meant to avoid Western modernization and development, in order to perpetually safeguard the traditional way of life. Western property regime equals appropriation, displacement, and dislocation, then the concentration of wealth in owners. Mortgaging your land also has a negative connotation, especially when the lien-holder has unbalanced power to cause default and then take the land. Seems like PNG was trying to avoid this and keep traditional life alive in a natural state, not modernize and develop. There are plenty of places where Western ways have encroached and irreversibly changed indigenous outcomes. Let them have this one place where they have a chance to live their way.