Kokoda Initiative criticised

 The Kokoda Initiative funded by the Australian Government through DFAT has come under immense criticism for its ineptness to administer and develop the famous Kokoda Trail.

Charlie Lynn, an Australian war veteran and former Australian Parliamentary Secretary for Veterans Affairs has come out through a statement with several criticisms and calling out people to be sacked.

Charlie Lynn 

 

Mr Lynn owns Kokoda Adventure, a tour operator company that manages trekkers who walk the Kokoda Trail.

 

His comments were made after Justice Susan Purdon-Sully of the Waigani National Court ruled in his favour on Thursday December 14, 2023 that the tour operator license for Charlie Lynn’s Kokoda Adventure which was revoked by the Minister for Environment, Conservation and Climate Change Simo Kilepa should be restored.

 

Justice Purdon Sully has ordered Minister Simo Kilepa and the acting CEO of the Kokoda Track Authority (KTA), Julius Wargari ‘to take all steps necessary to restore the Commercial Tour Operator’s License for Adventure Kokoda’.

 

Mr Lynn has now called for the sacking of Kokoda Track Authority CEO, the removal of the DFAT Strategic Advisor from the Kokoda Initiative, the banning of the Australian Kokoda Tour Operators Association (KTOA) from PNG, and the transfer of Kokoda tourism from the PNG Conservation Environment Protection Authority (CEPA) to the Tourism Promotion Authority (TPA).

 

He has accused the Kokoda Initiative among other things the failure to improve battle sites to enhance the value of the pilgrimage for trekkers, or to assist campsite owners to develop their sites or to even build a single toilet that meets their most basic hygiene needs.

 

“Since they assumed control of the Kokoda Trail in 2009 I have witnessed tourism numbers fall by 46 percent,” Lynn said

 

“This has resulted in a cumulative loss of almost $20 million in foregone wages, campsite fees and local purchases for guides, porters, campsite owners and village communities they are supposed to help.”

 

“They have also failed to make the Trail safe by fixing some of the potential ‘death-traps’ across it or to introduce a single micro-business initiative to assist villagers to earn additional income by providing goods and services to meet the needs of trekkers, or to implement any measures to protect the welfare of their guides and porters,” Lynn said in a statement.

He said PNG must reclaim ownership of the Kokoda Trail from the DFAT funded Kokoda Initiative.

“PNG is now the only country in the world that allows its most popular tourism destination to be managed as an environment product for the benefit of aid-funded government bureaucrats and foreign officials rather than as a tourism enterprise for the economic benefit of traditional landowner communities,” Lynn said.

 

“The Kokoda Trail has the potential to be a World-Class pilgrimage tourism destination which will provide a sustainable economic future for the owners of land sacred to our shared military heritage.”

 

“It should no longer be used as a social-environment experiment for the benefit of aid-funded environmentalists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and foreign officials.”